at a certain moment in social proceedings, I am on FIRE to leave: I have a leaving-FIT.

I know that the Black emphasis must be not against white but FOR Black.

We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

What I'm fighting for now in my work... for an expression relevant to all manner of blacks, poems I could take into a tavern, into the street, into the halls of a housing project.

I tell poets that when a line just floats into your head, don't pay attention 'cause it probably has floated into somebody else's head.

When I start writing a poem, I don't think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done.

beware the easy griefs / that fool and fuel nothing.