It Took Me 14 Years To Write

There's A Sameness About American Poetry That I Don't Think Represents The Whole People. It Represents A Poetry Of The Moment, A Poetry Of Evasion, And I Have Problems With This. I Believe Poetry Has Always Been Political, Long Before Poets Had To Deal With The Page And White Space . . . It's Natural.

I’ve Been Here Before, Dreaming Myself Backwards, Among Grappling Hooks Of Light. True To The Seasons, I’ve Lived Every Word Spoken. Did I Walk Into Someone’s Nightmare?

I Think Of Language As Our First Music.

I Excavate History. I Look At Lives Buried Under Too Much Silence. Periods Of Time, Like Slavery, Have To Be Revisited, Reimagined, So We Can Move Through Them.

I Knew Life Began Where I Stood In The Dark, Looking Out Into The Light.