Racism is so extreme and so pervasive in our American society that no black individual lives in an atmosphere of freedom.

When I was about eight, I decided that the most wonderful thing, next to a human being, was a book.

I do not believe that hating any man solves the problem of race or any other problem. ... I firmly believe that hatred, like anger, works on the physical glandular system as well as on the moral fiber of our nation, and in doing so, can bring no positive good.

Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second generation full of courage issue forth; let a people loving freedom come to growth.

Love stretches your heart and makes you big inside.

My grandmothers are full of memories, smelling of soap and onions and wet clay, with veins rolling roughly over quick hands, they have many clean words to say, my grandmothers were strong.

The poetry of a people comes from the deep recesses of the unconscious, the irrational and the collective body of our ancestral memories.