won't you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.

may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back

Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language.

The end of a thing, is never the end, something is always being born like a year of a baby.

I am a black woman poet and I sound like one.

I am running into a new year and the old years blow back like a wind that I catch in my hair like strong fingers like all my old promises and it will be hard to let go of what I said to myself about myself when I was sixteen and twenty-six and thirty-six but I am running into a new year and I beg what i love and I leave to forgive me.

Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing.