I Am Working Never To Be Late

In The Name Of Motherhood And Fatherhood And Education And Good Manners, We Threaten And Suffocate And Bind And Ensnare And Bribe And Trick Children Into Wholesale Emulation Of Our Ways.

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

To Rescue Our Children We Will Have To Let Them Save Us From The Power We Embody: We Will Have To Trust The Very Difference That They Forever Personify. And We Will Have To Allow Them The Choice, Without Fear Of Death: That They May Come And Do Likewise Or That They May Come And That We Will Follow Them, That A Little Child Will Lead Us Back To The Child We Will Always Be, Vulnerable And Wanting And Hurting For Love And For Beauty.

Language Is Political. That's Why You And Me, My Brother And Sister, That's Why We Supposed To Choke Our Natural Self Into The Weird, Lying, Barbarous, Unreal, White Speech And Writing Habits That The Schools Lay Down Like Holy Law.

Good Poetry And Successful Revolution Change Our Lives. And You Cannot Compose A Good Poem Or Wage A Revolution Without Changing Consciousness Unless You Attack The Language That You Share With Your Enemies And Invent A Language That You Share With Your Allies.