Girl, I Got My Mind. And What

The Past Is Interesting To Me Because It's Been Dumbed Down Or Flattened Out, Or Academically Nitpicked So You Can't Get Any Life Out Of It, You Just Get Data.

Of Course I'm A Black Writer... I'm Not Just A Black Writer, But Categories Like Black Writer, Woman Writer And Latin American Writer Aren't Marginal Anymore. We Have To Acknowledge That The Thing We Call "literature" Is More Pluralistic Now, Just As Society Ought To Be. The Melting Pot Never Worked. We Ought To Be Able To Accept On Equal Terms Everybody From The Hasidim To Walter Lippmann, From The Rastafarians To Ralph Bunche.

You Marvel At The Economy And This Choice Of Words. How Many Ways Can You Describe The Sky And The Moon? After Sylvia Plath, What Can You Say?

You Looked At Them And Wondered Why They Were So Ugly; You Looked Closely And Could Not Find The Source. Then You Realized That It Came From Conviction, Their Conviction. It Was As Though Some Mysterious All-knowing Master Had Given Each One A Cloak Of Ugliness To Wear, And They Had Each Accepted It Without Question.

Don’t Beg Anybody For Anything, Especially Love.