When one lives in a society where people can no longer rely on the institutions to tell them the truth, the truth must come from culture and art.

You go back and you read your Constitution. You read your Declaration of Independence. And you will see that the only people who could decide these freedoms were white males who owned property, and all the rest of us were excluded.

Everybody interprets things differently with their own perception, and I want poetry to pull out of them their own feelings.

It's always good to go home. It's strengthening to see your past and know you have someplace to go where you're part of a people.