I Have A High Guilt Quotient. A

I Was Apprehensive. I Feared Every Time I Talked About Poetry, It Would Be Filtered Through The Lens Of Race, Sex, And Age.

If I Begin Writing A Poem That Means I'm Intrigued In Some Way By Whatever It's About And That If I'm Not Trying To Find Something New And Pushing The Envelope In The Poem I Can't Expect My Reader To Be Particularly Excited About It Either.

I've Always Felt That The Poems I've Written Which Have Historical Context Are Hopefully Not Just Simply Plucking Something Out Of History And Saying Great, Let's Write About That. In Every Case What Has Happened Is That I've Become Fascinated Or Haunted By Something And Couldn't Shake It.

Rap Is Only One End Of A Whole Spectrum Of Verbal Play And Virtuosity. Rap Is Geared For Aural Pleasure.

It Really Wasn't Until I Was In College When I Began To Write More And More, And I Realized I Was Scheduling My Entire Life Around My Writing