I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.

The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can’t imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America’s alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart — and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings.

I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.

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

Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.