It Frightens Me To Realize That, If

A Poem Doesn't Do Everything For You. You Are Supposed To Go On With Your Thinking. You Are Supposed To Enrich The Other Person's Poem With Your Extensions, Your Uniquely Personal Understandings, Thus Making The Poem Serve You.

I Am An Ordinary Human Being Who Is Impelled To Write Poetry. ... I Still Do Feel That A Poet Has A Duty To Words, And That Words Can Do Wonderful Things, And It's Too Bad To Just Let Them Lie There Without Doing Anything With And For Them.

Be Yourself. Don't Imitate Other Poets. You Are As Important As They Are.

What Shall I Give My Children? Who Are Poor, / Who Are Adjudged The Leastwise Of The Land...

What I'm Fighting For Now In My Work... For An Expression Relevant To All Manner Of Blacks, Poems I Could Take Into A Tavern, Into The Street, Into The Halls Of A Housing Project.