We Have Been Raised To Fear The

Art Is Not Living. It Is The Use Of Living.

We Have To Consciously Study How To Be Tender With Each Other Until It Becomes A Habit Because What Was Native Has Been Stolen From Us, The Love Of Black Women For Each Other.

It Is Not Our Differences That Divide Us. It Is Our Inability To Recognize, Accept, And Celebrate Those Differences.

I Have Come To Believe Over And Over Again That What Is Most Important To Me Must Be Spoken, Made Verbal And Shared, Even At The Risk Of Having It Bruised Or Misunderstood. That The Speaking Profits Me, Beyond Any Other Effect....what I Most Regretted Were My Silences. Of What Had I Ever Been Afraid? ...death On The Other Hand, Is The Final Silence...my Silences Had Not Protected Me. Your Silences Will Not Protect You.

. . . It Is Through Poetry That We Give Name To Those Ideas Which Are-until The Poem-nameless And Formless, About To Be Birthed, But Already Felt.