I don't want people running around saying Gwen Brooks's work is intellectual. That makes people think instantly about obscurity. It shouldn't have to mean that, but it often seems to.

I shall create! If not a note, a hole./If not an overture, a desecration.

This is the urgency: Live! and have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.

People like definite decisions, / Tidy answers, all the little ravelings / Snipped off, the lint removed, they / Hop happily among their roughs / Calling what they can't clutch insanity / Or saintliness.

The music is in minors.

Exhaust the little moment / Soon it dies.

What, what am I to do with all of this life?