It Means To Educate Myself Incessantly About

And Who Will Join This Standing Up And The Ones Who Stood Without Sweet Company Will Sing And Sing Back Into The Mountains And If Necessary Even Under The Sea: We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For.

Americans Have Begun To Understand That Trouble Does Not Start Somewhere On The Other Side Of Town. It Seems To Originate Inside The Absolute Middle Of The Homemade Cherry Pie.

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.

As I Think About Anyone Or Anything -- Whether History Or Literature Or My Father Or Political Organizations Or A Poem Or A Film -- As I Seek To Evaluate The Potentiality, The Life-supportive Commitment And Possibilities Of Anyone Or Any Thing, The Decisive Question Is Always Where Is The Love?

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.