Poetry connects you to yourself, to the self that doesn't know how to talk or negotiate.

Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.

I was not interested in doing the plot of Oedipus in blackface. I did wonder, what would these people have been like if they hadn't been in that situation?... One could look at Oedipus, or at my character Augustus, as a cynical schemer who did everything because he was hungry for power. But that's just too easy. I'm more interested in how humans can embody conflicting goals and emotions.

By making us stop for a moment, poetry gives us an opportunity to think about ourselves as human beings on this planet and what we mean to each other.

I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.

The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with.

Can it be that even as one grows to fit the space one lives in, one cannot grow until there's space to grow?