I'm uncomfortable with the focus on the poet and not on the poem.

I see many black males grasping for some thread of hope. There are so many destructive practices, glimpses into a psychic abyss. That must be very frightening.

Poetry is a kind of distilled insinuation. It's a way of expanding and talking around an idea or a question. Sometimes, more actually gets said through such a technique than a full frontal assault.

I'm uncomfortable with the focus on the poet and not on the poem.

We have to embrace the good over the bad. That has to be one's personal project.

It wasn't a deliberate decision to become a poet. It was something I found myself doing - and loving. Language became an addiction.

Vietnam helped me to look at the horror and terror in the hearts of people and realize how we can't aim guns and set booby traps for people we have never spoken a word to. That kind of impersonal violence mystifies me.