I Am Not Free While Any Woman

Some Words Live In My Throat Breeding Like Adders. Others Know Sun Seeking Like Gypsies Over My Tongue To Explode Through My Lips

I Realize That If I Wait Until I Am No Longer Afraid To Act, Write, Speak, Be, I'll Be Sending Messages On A Ouija Board, Cryptic Complaints From The Other Side

If What We Need To Dream, To Move Our Spirits Most Deeply And Directly Toward And Through Promise, Is Discounted As A Luxury, Then We Give Up The Core -- The Fountain -- Of Our Power, Our Womanness; We Give Up The Future Of Our Worlds. (from "poetry Is Not A Luxury")

For The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House. They May Allow Us To Temporarily Beat Him At His Own Game, But They Will Never Enable Us To Bring About Genuine Change. Racism And Homophobia Are Real Conditions Of All Our Lives In This Place And Time. I Urge Each One Of Us Here To Reach Down Into That Deep Place Of Knowledge Inside Herself And Touch That Terror And Loathing Of Any Difference That Lives Here. See Whose Face It Wears. Then The Personal As The Political Can Begin To Illuminate All Our Choices.

How A Diamond Comes Into A Knot Of Flame How A Sound Comes Into A Word, Coloured By Who Pays What For Speaking. Some Words Are Open. Love Is A Word Another Kind Of Open — As A Diamond Comes Into A Knot Of Flame I Am Black Because I Come From The Earth's Inside. Take My Word For Jewel In Your Open Light.