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

What is the beauty of the haiku is that it is not simplistic. The beauty of the haiku I just said is very complex. It reaches all the complexities of our life on this Earth. Peace - that's a very complex idea, peace, so we can't get it as human beings.

Zora Neale Hurston said fear is the greatest emotion and I said, 'No my dear sister.' Fear will make us move to save our own skins. Love also makes us save ourselves, but it will make us move to save others as well.

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

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

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.

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

I shall become, I shall become a collector of me. And put meat on my soul.

it is midnight no magical bewitching hour for me

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.

I cannot tell the truth about anything unless I confess being a student, growing and learning something new every day. The more I learn, the clearer my view of the world becomes.

what i need is traveling minds talktouch kisses spittouch you swimming upstream.

And I cried… for all of the women who stretched their bodies for civilizations, only to find ruins.

I still hear you humming, Mama. The colour of your song calls me home. The colour of your words saying, Let her be. She got a right to be different. She gonna stumble on herself one of these days. Just let the child be. And I be, Mama.

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.

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