But there are certain very practical things American Negro writers can do. And must do. There's a song that says, "the time ain't long." That song is right. Something has got to change in America-and change soon. We must help that change to come.

I felt very bad in Washington. . . I didn't like my job, and I didn't know what was going to happen to me, and I was cold and half-hungry, so I wrote a great many poems.

Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.

I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face.

Cheap little rhymes A cheap little tune Are sometimes as dangerous As a sliver of the moon.

These feet have walked ten thousand miles working for white folks and another ten thousand keeping up with colored.

I will not take "but" for an answer.