As A Poet And Writer, I Deeply

So, Poetry Becomes A Means For Useful Dialogue Between People Who Are Not Only Unknown, But Mute To Each Other. It Produces A Dialogue Among People That Guards All Of Us Against Manipulation By Our So-called Leaders.

Like A Lot Of Black Women, I Have Always Had To Invent The Power My Freedom Requires.

I Wrote Those Poems For Myself, As A Way Of Being A Soldier Here In This Country. I Didn't Know The Poems Would Travel. I Didn't Go To Lebanon Until Two Years Ago, But People Told Me That Many Arabs Had Memorized These Poems And Translated Them Into Arabic.

We Need Everybody And All That We Are. We Need To Know And Make Known The Complete, Constantly Unfolding, Complicated Heritage That Is Our Black Experience. We Should Absolutely Resist The Superstar, One At A Time Mentality That Threatens The Varied And Resilient, Flexible Wealth Of Our Black Future.

Suicide Is Absolute, And If You Think You Will Survive By Hiding Who You Really Are, You Are Sadly Misled: There Is No Such Thing As Partial Or Intermittent Suicide. You Can Only Survive If You - Who You Really Are - Do Survive.