As I am a poet I express what I believe, and I fight against whatever I oppose, in poetry.

As a poet and writer, I deeply love and I deeply hate words. I love the infinite evidence and change and requirements and possibilities of language; every human use of words that is joyful, or honest or new, because experience is new... But as a Black poet and writer, I hate words that cancel my name and my history and the freedom of my future: I hate the words that condemn and refuse the language of my people in America.

Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.

The United States Supreme Court, once a reliable if ultimate recourse for progressive and even revolutionary grievances, has become a retrograde wellspring for enormous economic and social distress.

The purpose of polite behavior is never virtuous. Deceit, surrender, and concealment these are not virtues. The goal of the mannerly is comfort, per se.

The courts cannot garnish a fathers salary, nor freeze his account, nor seize his property on behalf of his children, in our society. Apparently this is because a kid is not a car or a couch or a boat.

My father was very intense, passionate and over-the-top. He was my hero and my tyrant.