The dead made this world. We didn't make it. They made the poetry and the songs and the customs.

My life failed on the very day I was born.

One out of three black men are in the criminal justice system in some form. Their despair is beginning to resonate through the entire culture; that is why suburban children want rap music.

Reclaiming the sacred in our lives naturally brings us close once more to the wellsprings of poetry.

Some people can't go into church any longer to feel this longing, but they still have the longing, so what do they do? Well, one thing you can do is what people do in prison; they turn to poetry.

I want nothing from You but to see You.

Rumi is astounding, fertile, abundant, almost more an excitable library of poetry than a person.