Poets From The United States

"A child always grows away from their parents. That is the job of a parent — to give their child the tools to be independent. But for the immigrant family, there’s a different cost to it, an inevitable cultural loss that happens as the first generation gives way to the second and then the third, as this once-new nation becomes (hopefully) fully your own…"

"We live in an age of internment right now…and it’s not just in the United States. These things are happening globally…Silence is complicity. It’s so important for those of us who have any kind of privilege, power or platform to always speak up. That’s the very first step to take when we see oppression in our country, when we see acts of bigotry, hatred, homophobia, xenophobia—any institutionalized prejudices."

"Theatre is more than just dialog; it’s a complete sensory experience for an audience. They see, they hear, they connect with the actors on stage…"

"…I think theatre in general is very poetic. That’s what first drew me to playwriting. Plays are like living poems: visual, emotional, narrative. Lorca said, “A play is a poem standing up.” I couldn’t agree more."

"…Our society has never experienced a dictatorship on our soil, has never seen civil liberties stripped away. So at times, it can be a challenge for American audiences to imagine how a dictatorship might begin and who would be perceived as a threat to such a regime…"

"I'm a big fan of the black woman and so I'm always looking at aspects of the black woman--what she's doing and how she does it."

"if science has the most perfect language just think of me as Mc2 ...one day i'm gonna grab your loveand you'll be satisfied"

"If I were advising someone on a writing career, the deal is this: write. If you get it published, good. If somebody pays you, better, because you have to eat, but the deal is you have to write."

"At the library I would go the shelves alphabetically. I was drawn to anyone with a female name, with a Latino or Spanish name. There were very, very few. But as a teenager I discovered African American poetry. Gwendolyn Brooks was the first. Then Phillis Wheatley. I really identified with this slave woman writing poetry to assert and affirm her humanity. Suddenly my eyes were open to history. There was a whole explosion of African-American women poets-Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, June Jordan. I have a poem in my head that's going to take me years to write down. Its working title is "On Thanking Black Muses." I owe them, because poetry really changed my life, saved it."

"let's build what we become when we dream"

"Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy"

"then I awoke and dug that if i dreamed natural dreams of being a natural woman doing what a woman does... i would have a revolution"

"...as i grew and matured i became more sensible and decided i would settle down and just become a sweet inspiration"

"There is a game I must tell you of It's called Catch the Leader Lying (and knowing your sense of the absurd you will enjoy this) ... You must invent your own games and teach us old ones how to play"

"(At National Black Theater performance) I was in awe of the words I witnessed that day. It was the first time that I heard the works of writers like Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka. I heard poetry that was about me, that was very immediate. I connected to it in a visceral way. That experience moved me so profoundly that I went home and that night I wrote my first batch of poems. It was like the floodgates opened. That reading empowered me with a voice and gave me permission to express everything that had been festering in me for years. So I just started experimenting with language and writing all kinds of things."

"The authority of the writer always overcomes the skepticism of the reader."

"Paint me Hopeful Paint Me Futuristic Paint Me Nikki I'm a Poet"

"History is wonderful. We have so much we can learn if we would quit making ideology out of history, and just deal with what happened…"

"if it does not sing discard the ear for poetry is song if it does not delight discard the heart for poetry is joy if it does not inform then close off the brain for it is dead if it cannot heed the insistent message that life is preciouswhich is all we poets wrapped in our loneliness are trying to say"

"We need food for the Soul We need poetry ... We deserve poetry"

"Politics is personal. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s ideological. It means that one cares about what she or he is doing, what he or she is writing…"

"if nature is true we shall all lose our eyes since we cannot even now distinguish the good from the evil ...i've a mind to build a new world want to play"

"may i spin a poem around you come let's step into my web and dream of freedom together"

"...do you ever stop to think what it looked like before it was an avenue ...ever look south ...and see gazelles running playfully after the lions ...did you ever, sit down and wonder about what freedom's freedom would bring ...the , Alonquin and ... could caress the earthever think what Harlem would be like if our herbs and roots and elephant ears grew... the parrot parroting ...ever think it's possible for us to be happy"

"if trees could talk wonder what they'd say met an old man ...told me "girl! my hands seen more than all them books... at tuskeegee" ...met an old woman ..."sista" she called to me "...my feet seen more than yo eyes ever gonna read" ...if trees would talk wonder what they'd tell me"

"how do you write a poem about someone so close ...don't you already know what i feel and if you don't maybe i should check my feelings"

"As a writer, one has to be willing to be wrong, willing to make mistakes. I’ve put everything on the table and accepted the fact that I may come up short. And, if (or when) I do, that’s okay."

"Poetry belongs everywhere, of course — but especially in the classroom…"

"...i sit waiting for a fresh thought to stir the atmosphere"

"i hope my shoulder finds a head that needs nestling ...i hope i die warmed by the life that i tried to live"

"You have to read the poem and say, “My god, that’s a good poem,” and kind of smile at yourself. If you’re not willing to do that, then you’re wasting your time, and you’re hurting yourself in another way because you’re trying to please somebody who doesn’t like you. You don’t want to get in that position."

"it is not unusual that the old bury the young though it is an abomination ...those who make war call themselves diplomats ...the unfaithful pray loudest ...we judge a man by his dreams not alone his deeds ...by his intent not alone his shortcomings ...it is not unusual to know him through those who love him"

"they say you should fight the cold with the cold but since i never do anything right i called you"

"Poetry is the culture of a people. We are poets even when we don’t write poems; just look at our life, our rhythms, our tenderness, our signifying, our sermons and our songs."

"Poets shouldn't commit suicide. That would leave the world to those without imaginations or hearts. That would bequeath to the world a mangled syntax and no love of champagne. Poets must live in misery and ecstasy, to sing a song with the katydids. Poets should be ashamed to die before they kiss the sun."

"...how else to spend a rainy day other than with you seeking sun and stars and heavenly bodies"

"…Poetry is not a stepping-stone to fortune and fame, or Hollywood for that matter — where, if the poet where [sic] to seek that, he or she would trade their voice for that of Hollywood, or fortune and fame, and lose their use of poetry. Poetry does not compromise itself for such mundane material."

"...i believe the most beautiful poem ...is your heart racing"

"…There is no such a thing as an old poet. People are younger and older, chronologically, because of math of calendars, but spirits are young and old simultaneously. Poetry as a professional, life-long pursuit is one that offers wisdom with age, and that’s to be respected…"

"…All of my poems, to me, have always had an intonation to them, and I think that’s really part and parcel to the nature of writing poetry anyway. My poetry is different from the typical iambic pentameter. It’s not linear because it cascades and goes down the page like an escalator."

"…As a poet, I’m an Imagist—driven by and focusing on visuals…"

"If you are looking for a sense of justice, that’s not what I’m doing. I’m telling many truths. I don’t have to represent."

"The outsiders. I’m interested in the people that don’t necessarily fit and the thing that gives you permission to be uncomfortable. I like dark work because you’re forced to learn about certain things…"

"In theatre, people do that all the time. There’s always going to be somebody who wants their own sense of justice, especially with this. They have their own sense of justice that explains if someone else’s is true. Speak for me, speak to me. I want you to tell me who did what. We don’t know who did what within those individual moments. Who was right? Who was wrong? Whatever that means. It’s not, for lack of a better term, that black and white."

"I wrote it from a standpoint of an actor. Some playwrights, they forget about the actor and they write impossible things, you know, so that you're forced to change your costume in a second -- [laughs] -- because the playwright never thought of that. But as an actor, you think of those things, and I thought I wrote it from the actor's point of view because I also acted in the play, and that's a hard thing to do; to act, concentrate on one part when you, you've written the whole, other parts…"

"Even at school, we were, as I say, we were separated, and...and friends were Japanese. So, yeah, I think I considered myself Japanese more than Japanese American, though we would hear that we, we were citizens of this country, and so we had certain rights and so forth. But the parents were strangers, outsiders, and they had to kind of maneuver with the, the racism and pressure and so that, yeah, I felt more Japanese, I think."

"Memories are raw materials that he mines. When dealing with memories that are especially painful or unpleasant, I think the writer steps aside to save his sanity: sometimes writing becomes a cathartic experience. Tragic or sad stories are part of life and should be treated equally with happy stories."

"But every time I look at myself and think, oh, my body's not OK or my worth in value are determined by my appearance and my marketability, I'm kind of engaging in one form of this same narrative. So writing this work has been really cathartic and humbling for me."

"The performance obviously is the main reason you’re going to the theater, but what’s unique about this medium and hopefully the audience we’re attracting is the diversity. I have a diverse group of characters on that stage. If they’re just performing for one kind of people it’s not the same experience for the audience themselves, so I really want to think of it as, yes you’re going to a one-person show, but you’re also a participant in a hundred person show."

"It's a long story filled with intrigue and interfaith guilt. But, you know, you know, my black relatives, my white relatives, the people who you meet in my shows are these amalgamated versions of people I really knew. And I had to learn to code switch, as we call it now, just to like get dinner."