these hips have never been enslaved, they go where they want to go they do what they want to do. these hips are mighty hips. these hips are magic hips

Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing.

they ask me to remember but they want me to remember their memories and I keep on remembering mine

Intellect doesn't translate across cultures; intuition does.

Even when the universe made it quite clear to me that I was mistaken in my certainties ... I did not break. The shattering of my sureties did not shatter me.

I think that were beginning to remember that the first poets didn't come out of a classroom, that poetry began when somebody walked off of a savanna or out of a cave and looked up at the sky with wonder and said, "Ahhh." That was the first poem.

telling the truth about children's lives is radical.