The Thing About Genius Is It Will

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.

Our Children Will Not Survive Our Habits Of Thinking, Our Failures Of The Spirit, Our Wreck Of The Universe Into Which We Bring New Life As Blithely As We Do. Mostly, Our Children Will Resemble Our Own Misery And Spite And Anger, Because We Give Them No Choice About It. In The Name Of Motherhood And Fatherhood And Education And Good Manners, We Threaten And Suffocate And Bind And Ensnare And Bribe And Trick Children Into Wholesale Emulation Of Our Ways.

There Is A Man Who Exists As One Of The Most Popular Objects Of Leadership, Legislation, And Quasi-literature In The History Of All Men. . . . This Man, That Object Of Attention, Attack, And Vast Activity, Cannot Make Himself Be Heard, Let Alone Understood. He Has Never Been Listened To. . . . That Man Is Black And Alive In White America Where The Media Of Communication Do Not Allow The Delivery Of His Own Voice, His Own Desires, His Own Rage.

What's Important About Poetry In The Context Of Leadership Is That Most Of The Time, Power Has To Do With Dominance. But Poetry Is Never About Dominance. Poetry Is Powerful But It Cannot Even Aspire To Dominate Anyone. It Means Making A Connection. That's What It Means.

I Am A Feminist, And What That Means To Me Is Much The Same As The Meaning Of The Fact That I Am Black: It Means That I Must Undertake To Love Myself And To Respect Myself As Though My Very Life Depends Upon Self-love And Self-respect.