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.

The words loved me and I loved them in return.

The black artist is dangerous. Black art controls the 'Negro's' reality, negates negative influences, and creates positive images.

No. Don't never go looking for love girl. Just wait. It'll come. Like the rain fallin' from the heaven, it'll come. Just don't never give up on love.

All poets, all writers are political. They either maintain the status quo, or they say, 'Something's wrong, let's change it for the better.'

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.

Poetry is subconscious conversation, it is as much the work of those who understand it and those who make it.