“I speak here of poetry as a revelatory distillation of experience, not the sterile word play that, too often, the white fathers distorted the word poetry to mean--in order to cover a desperate wish for imagination without insight.For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”

“There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

“Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now.”

“Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.”

“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.”

“When we create out of our experiences, as feminists of color, women of color, we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture.”

“Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.”

“Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever.”

“Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.”

“When I use my strength in the service of my vision it makes no difference whether or not I am afraid.”

“When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”