To Tell The Truth Is To Become

To Tell The Truth Is To Become Beautiful.

That Attitude That Fighting Is Probably Not Fair, But You Have To Defend Yourself Anyway And Damage The Enemy, Has Been Profoundly Consequential As Far As My Political Activism Goes.

As A Poet And Writer, I Deeply Love And I Deeply Hate Words.

We Need Everybody And All That We Are. We Need To Know And Make Known The Complete, Constantly Unfolding, Complicated Heritage That Is Our Black Experience. We Should Absolutely Resist The Superstar, One At A Time Mentality That Threatens The Varied And Resilient, Flexible Wealth Of Our Black Future.

I Wrote Those Poems For Myself, As A Way Of Being A Soldier Here In This Country. I Didn't Know The Poems Would Travel. I Didn't Go To Lebanon Until Two Years Ago, But People Told Me That Many Arabs Had Memorized These Poems And Translated Them Into Arabic.