Everybody that loves freedom loves Harriet Tubman because she was determined not only to be free, but to make free as many people as she could.

Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.

Storytelling is how history is passed. It's what our ancestors did, it's what everybody's done. It has to come back into a story because otherwise, it's stuck in this book and it's boring and it's academic and I'm not against intelligence and I'm not against education, I don't want to be misunderstood, but we have tell the stories to our young people a little bit early and history gives us a lot of things.

I am a huge fan of the Black woman. I never hesitate to recommend her when times are bad or things go wrong.

I do not understand why any poet or writer would run for office; that's a different sense of who you are. I'm just a poet. I am as truthful as I can be. That makes me an artist. I heed the people; I do not lead the people.

White people really deal more with God and black people with Jesus.

and sometimes I sit down at my typewriter and I think not of someone cause there isn't anyone to think about and i wonder is it worth it