The forties and fifties were years of high poet-incense; the language-flowers were thickly sweet. Those flowers whined and begged white folks to pick them, to find them lovable. Then the '60s: Independent fire!

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.

Good health is a duty to yourself, to your contemporaries, to your inheritors, to the progress of the world.

I've always thought of myself as a reporter.

My last defense / Is the present tense.

Life for my child is simple, and is good.

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.