What I'm trying to do is to tell young people that I teach them how to breathe before I teach the haiku. That one breath, that one breath, because the haiku keeps you alive. It keeps you going. If you learn how to breath the haiku, you learn how to breathe. If you learn how to breathe, you're much healthier.

I probably have not killed anyone in America because I write, I've maintained good controls over myself by writing.

Art... reacts to or reflects the culture it springs from.

The words loved me and I loved them in return.

Come windless invader I am a carnival of Stars, a poem of blood.

The most fundamental truth to be told in any art form, as far as Blacks are concerned, is that America is killing us.

I write to tell the truth about the black condition as I see it. Therefore, I write to offer a black woman's view of the world.