Poets can tell the truth as they see it. It’s the author’s story, the author’s voice.

In law school they teach you that everything is a contract; well, in poetry everything is a narrative.

Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor; those who struggle are middle class.

One stands, in fact, in awe of the Constitution of the United States, though it is an idea and not quite a reality.

[To write poems] I think it's important to do research, and research mostly is going to come from books, so all of your reading is potentially helpful to your poetry.

Young people coming up who are having difficulty with their so-called celebrity need to get back into their lives. It's your life and you can't let the fact that you do something pretty good take away the joy of it.

It's really just interesting to ask: why not? And see where that takes me.