This poet is a griot in search of a village.

The rich and complex history of South Carolina is the history of the African diaspora, and in many ways, I felt acutely the sense of this collective memory of migration, suffering and transformation while living in South Carolina.

I think that the kinds of stereotypes that people have about Haitians or about HIV sufferers exist because we don't realize that these are our brothers, our sisters, our aunts and uncles, our neighbors. They are us. And I don't mean that in some metaphorical sense. They are literally us.

When people open up and share their stories, you have a responsibility to tell these truths truthfully and with the same quest for grace and beauty that you see in them.

I have dear friends in South Carolina, folks who made my life there wonderful and meaningful. Two of my children were born there. South Carolina's governor awarded me the highest award for the arts in the state. I was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors. I have lived and worked among the folks in Sumter, South Carolina, for so many years. South Carolina has been home, and to be honest, it was easier for me to define myself as a South Carolinian than even as an American.

I believe that all fiction is personal and all writing is at some level personal.

The aesthetic, as I understand it, is really about the way in which we understand beauty and speak and think about beauty.