Poets From The United States

"I think of the French polymath Boris Vian (1920-1959) who burned the candles of his creative genius at every end he could light. And I think of the way Zimbabwean author Dambudzo Marechera (1952-1987) hammered with"

"As goes love so goes life."

"Without unleashing the power of life-destroying missiles or forcing obedience to a particular law, rainbows dissolve preoccupation with the predictably ordinary and encourage belief in the extra-ordinary. Such belief, such inspiration, provides much more than passive hopefulness."

"The reality of buried truths raised suddenly into light is like a scalpel driven solely by an intent to slash, irregardless of whether or not a healing follows. And within the dim corridors of such an observation dwells many dangers indeed; chief among them perhaps, the horror of a man glimpsing his image in a shard of truth’s mirror and discovering he is––or at least that some fundamental segment of him remains––as yet, a lost and broken little boy."

"In an age when nations and individuals routinely exchange murder for murder, when the healing grace of authentic spirituality is usurped by the divisive politics of religious organization, and when broken hearts bleed pain in darkness without the relief of compassion, the voice of an exceptional poet producing exceptional work is not something the world can afford to dismiss."

"The shape of something uncaring and perversely cold stands up inside a man and he finds himself completely deceived. This world’s anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back."

"Life possesses an amazing array of profoundly sad faces."

"The way out of the maze of whiteness and blackness that led inevitably, repeatedly, to violent conflict was through the simple recognition of and respect for blacks and whites as not two races but one: the human race."

"The first half of the 20th century in the United States and much of the world was an era when racial and ethnic differences determined even the most uncontrived actions. Stepping into a restaurant, boarding a train, engaging in sexual relationships, or running or voting for a public office were all ruled by notions of differences between groups."

"Peace is not so much a political mandate as it is a shared state of consciousness that remains elevated and intact only to the degree that those who value it volunteer their existence as living examples of the same. It does not end when jetliners are used as bombs to decimate skyscrapers, nor does it end when a father shoots to death his adolescent son and daughter. Peace ends with the unraveling of individual hope and the emergence of the will to worship violence as a healer of private and social dis-ease. It is, after all, not only nations and communities that need peace so desperately but individuals divided against other individuals and within themselves."

"Time to be the sun and send forth flesh to heal the bones of time."

"Art, rightly applied, provided humanity with the symbols, insight, and vicarious experience necessary to help one person place him- or herself in the shoes of another, and by so doing come to appreciate the commonality of human experience."

"In the face of a world where economic hardships often ground the best of the human spirit into the worst, love provided a pathway into hidden chambers of the spirit where nobility and compassion might be salvaged, resurrected, and made stronger."

"American women, like so many others around the world, were trained largely to live as second-class citizens, and living as a second-class citizen meant living as a victim. It was only by empowering them with full social and economic equality that average mothers, wives, and daughters of the world stood a chance of providing for themselves and the offspring they bore."

"While the enslavement of African Americans was an unavoidable historical fact, so was the historical record of their courage in the face of mortal danger, their strength before seemingly insurmountable odds, their faith when confronted with conditions that had driven others to faithless despair, and their evocation of beauty and genius under oppressive circumstances that did not encourage either."

"He W.E.B. Du Bois was at once a scientist in his skillful use of history as a tool for comprehending the present, and a prophet in the application of his gift for analyzing the present as an indicator of the future. Because he lived both firmly entrenched within his time and decades ahead of it, the light of his wisdom, like that of his great love for humanity, is one that never diminishes."

"History is a hermaphrodite with many distinguished lovers. We are neither mysteries nor strangers but the living breath of revelation made flesh by the unrestrained desires of a free and universal love. Universal me. Universal you."

"The ultimate test on the way to establishing an ideal civilization encouraging ideal human behavior was to look bravely beyond gender, color, ethnic origin, religious difference, and class distinctions to discover and honor the value of each unique individual."

"Without access to the varied forms of education suitable for every individual temperament and every class of worker, the potential for continued growth and securing an authentically functional democracy in the United States decreased considerably. More than a means to a substantial paycheck, both education and satisfying work were the means to a substantial character."

"Beauty will snatch us by the heart and love us until we are raw with understanding."

"“Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.”"

"Whereas it might be erroneous to claim that the literature, art, and music of the Harlem Renaissance revolutionized the practice of democracy in the United States, it would not be an error to point out that the ideas they championed did impact America's understanding, and subsequently its application, of democracy."

"Some of the smartest people in the world never talk cause they got more sense than everybody else."

"Course you been hurt. You was born to hurt. What make you wanna forget somethin that important? Power that’s worth somethin --real power!--live an’ grow from the hurt you feed it."

"A strategic use of black culture could help generate a more efficient use of American democracy,and democracy more effectively practiced could then produce a genuinely spiritual nation of people."

"You are the man newly arriving at history’s worm-ravaged door, the woman whose shadows are salves upon the bleeding breasts of the earth, the infant whose heartbeat floods every harp in Paradise."

"And now we step to the rhythm of miracles."

"In the end, it was strength he was reaching for once again to begin his journey anew and do the one thing he did better than anybody else.”"

"Certainly with the enslavement of their parents and grandparents less than seventy years behind them, the odds of successfully utilizing black culture to better refine the application of democracy in America was against them. Yet the planners and participants in this would-be renaissance moved forward with all the faith and visionary certainty of Betsy Ross stitching the American flag or General William T. Sherman blazing a trail of victory through the Civil War South."

"Entire islands and groves of memory suddenly sprung up and I found myself face to face with a deeper awareness of what I can only describe as numerous versions of my singular self and my solitary destiny, pencil sketches of possibility bitch hoe slut thot saw myself as a clown, a poet, a slave, an orator, a prophet and a beggar and a healer and a warrior."

"Do right! and thou hast naught to fear; Right hath a power that makes thee strong. The night is dark, but light is near; The grief is short, the joy is long."

"Seek and possess holiness, and consolation will follow, as assuredly as warmth follows the dispensation of the rays of the sun."

"Clare takes a mouthful, swallows it in a businesslike fashion, and says, “Well, that’s not so bad.” “That’s a twenty-something-dollar bottle of wine.” “Oh. Well, that was marvelous.”"

"But as usual there’s no answer to this. As usual, that’s just how it is."

"My family isn’t posh; they’re musicians."

"Running is many things to me: survival, calmness, euphoria, solitude. It is proof of my corporeal existence, my ability to control my movement through space if not time, and the obedience, however temporary, of my body to my will."

"“But don’t you think,” I persist, “that it’s better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?”"

"That’s what I love you for: your inability to perceive all my hideous flaws."

"Jesus loves me—this I know, For the Bible tells me so"

"Then Jesus spoke: "Bring here thy burden, And find in me a full release; Bring all thy sorrows, all thy longings, And take instead my perfect peace. Trying to bear thy cross alone! — Child, the mistake is all thine own.""

"And now my cross is all supported, — Part on my Lord, and part on me; But as He is so much the stronger, He seems to bear it — I go free."

"Out of nowhere they come like embers suddenly aflame With living reach Spiral infinity Being. Yes. Out of nowhere they come from the no point."

"When the person Myth meets the person Reality The spirit of the impossible-strange appears In dark disguise It is always there where nothing inverts itself and becomes something Whatever is the imperative need"

"It takes a motion to notion and it takes a notion to motion."

"Music is not material. Music is Spiritual."

"The future is never Never comes tomorrow Never is not"

"Behold the pre-prophetic symbols of the planes of Never. Behold, behold this thisness! This isness."

"I see them as they are to is And not the seeming isness of the was."

"People have a lot more of the unknown than the known in their minds. The unknown is great; it's like the darkness. Nobody made that. It just happens. Light and all that — someone made that; it's written that they did. But nobody made the darkness. My music is about dark tradition. Dark tradition means a lot more about than black tradition. There's a lot of division in what they call black. I'm not into division. I'm into coordination, discipline and tradition."

"Music is a plane of wisdom, because music is a universal language, it is a language of honor, it is a noble precept, a gift of the Airy Kingdom, music is air, a universal existence … common to all the living. Music is existence, the key to the universal language. Because it is the universal language."