People From Michigan

"I lived with deep roots once: Have I forgotten their ways — The gradual embrace Of lichen around stones?"

"The moon draws back its waters from the shore. By the lake's edge, I see a silver swan, And she is what I would. In this light air, Lost opposites bend down — Sing of that nothing of which all is made, Or listen into silence, like a god."

"How can I rest in the days of my slowness? I've become a strange piece of flesh, Nervous and cold, bird-furtive, whiskery, With a cheek soft as a hound's ear. What's left is light as a seed; I need an old crone's knowing."

"I have gone into the waste lonely places Behind the eye."

"Too much reality can be a dazzle, a surfeit; Too close immediacy an exhaustion"

"A terrible violence of creation, A flash into the burning heart of the abominable; Yet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant, The burning lake turns into a forest pool, The fire subsides into rings of water, A sunlit silence."

"Being, not doing, is my first joy."

"To whom does this terrace belong? — With its limestone crumbling into fine greyish dust, Its bevy of bees, and its wind-beaten rickety sun-chairs? Not to me, but this lizard, Older than I, or the cockroach."

"Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire; What burns me now? Desire, desire, desire."

"I bleed my bones, their marrow to bestow Upon that God who knows what I would know."

"Let others probe the mystery if they can. Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will — The right thing happens to the happy man."

"God bless the roots! — Body and soul are one! The small become the great, the great the small; The right thing happens to the happy man."

"And I dance with William Blake For love, for Love's sake;And everything comes to One, As we dance on, dance on, dance on."

"Poetry is not a mere shuffling of dead words or even a corralling of live ones. (p. 89)"

"In our age, if a boy or girl is untalented, the odds are in favor of their thinking they want to write. (p. 89)"

"There's an element of desperation in the insistence of the graduate student's respect for knowledge — as opposed to wisdom. (p. 95)"

"Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't."

"My secrets cry aloud. I have no need for tongue. My heart keeps open house, My doors are widely swung. An epic of the eyes My love, with no disguise."

"My truths are all foreknown, This anguish self-revealed. I’m naked to the bone, With nakedness my shield."

"The light comes brighter from the east; the caw Of restive crows is sharper on the ear."

"And soon a branch, part of a hidden scene, The leafy mind, that long was tightly furled, Will turn its private substance into green, And young shoots spread upon our inner world."

"He loops in crazy figures half the night Among the trees that face the corner light. But when he brushes up against a screen, We are afraid of what our eyes have seen: For something is amiss or out of place When mice with wings can wear a human face."

"This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks, Cut stems struggling to put down feet, What saint strained so much, Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?"

"Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch"

"Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath."

"I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road, As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland; Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance, By pulling off flesh from the living planet; As if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration."

"I think my greatest usefulness lies in what I've had the opportunity to demonstrate -that the most "hopeless" criminal in existence can be salvaged; that he's worth salvaging, on both humanitarian and hard-headed social grounds. Retributive justice and the execution chamber aren't the answer. In seeking a solution to the crime problem, I believe that vision can and should be substituted for vengeance. I'm convinced that there is much that is narrow and negative and wrong in society's attitude toward and treatment of the man who is said to be at "war" with it, and who often is at war with himself."

"We had nonbelievers all along the way, and I have one thing to say to those nonbelievers: Don't ever underestimate the heart of a champion!"

"Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind."

"If you were to secretly ask the most praised hip-hop producers, if given a top three, who they fear the most, Dilla’s name would chart on everyone’s list, hands down. ~ ?uestlove, drummer from The Roots"

"All the greats respected him the most. ... Common actually stayed with him in his last days -- they both stayed in L.A. together -- and we would go over there when we were working on the album. And I remember him giving me drums. It was such an honor for him to actually give me drums because I'd actually stolen so many drums off of his beat CDs. (laughs) ... Let's also talk about how many rappers bit his style. He even inspired a lot of rappers. The way he would space his words on the beat. The patterns he would get... All that. Whenever people do that, that's Jay Dee all day long. ~ Kanye West, Rapper and Producer, from an interview with Semtex on BBC Radio, February 18th, 2006"

"I can't begin to explain the influence his mind and ear has had on my band, myself, and the careers of so many other artists. The most humble, modest, worthy and gifted beatmaker I've known...and definitely the best producer on a mic. ~ Black Thought, MC from The Roots"

"When I found out Dilla passed, I was in Australia. I did not want to do the show anymore, my mind was heavy. Dilla existed in all of us and I felt a piece of myself was missing. How could I give them my all? But then I thought about Jay on stage in a wheelchair. I HAD to perform. The musicians and the true listeners already knew. I have to spread his legacy to the world, forever. The sounds from The Roots, myself, Mos Def, A Tribe Called Quest, Common, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, and of course the slum [Ed. note, Slum Village.] owe to his legacy. Now we are Jay Dee. Rest in peace, Dilla, we love you. ~ Talib Kweli, in one of his blog entries on http://www.talibkweliblog.com"

"Q-Tip comes in the room and says, "I want you to hear something". I'm hella excited 'cause either it's a new Tribe song or it's a beat for me. He tells the kid to put the tape in. He does and I hear a ghostly piano loop that has some shakers in it. Too Salsa for me. That was "Runnin'"! He plays another joint and I go crazy over it. That was "The Jam". He explains to me that the noise I keep flippin' over [is] someone holding the repeat button on the SP when its in 1/32! He played another joint, wasn't my speed. I didn't like the Beastie Boy sample at the top. That was "Drop!" The next joint played and only played for 15 seconds. I wanted that one. He explained that it was just an interlude though. I still wanted it. The next joint was hard, organ sounding joint. Sounds like something a west coast artist would take... w:Ice Cube maybe. That was "Gotta Kick Something That Means Something"! I took three tracks and told Tip that I wanted to add more tracks to the album. He said cool! Yes!!! I got three tracks from Tip!!! Tip looks at me and says, "I didn't make em...he did." I look at the kid and speak to him and he says "What Up Doe?" "What up, kid? What's your name?" "Jay Dee.""

"I knew him for a good three or four years before I knew he was sick! I was blown back by that, man. I never knew he was sick – he always kinda hid it from me. His music will always be alive and well, and I will make sure to that. He was one of the greatest, man. He was the greatest to ever do it, for the new cats. And for his mother to tell me that I was his favorite producer – I was like ‘Wow, that’s dope, man’. He really took it there. He kinda broadened me and opened my eyes again, and got me standing up straight on my toes, ‘cos that dude was really serious with it. ~ Pete Rock"

""That’s how me and Dilla always worked, we had a crazy chemistry. We would just sit there cracking jokes, you know, smoking, he got the headphones on. He’d come up with a beat in like 10 minutes, take the headphones off, the beat’s banging through the speakers. Load it up, make sure the mic’s on, show me where to press play, where to stop at, he’d press record and go upstairs, I’d lay the verse, he’d come back down like done and done. Load the next one up, he’d talk on the phone, I’d lay another song. That’s just how we worked." ~ Phat Kat (on recording the Dedication to the Suckers EP in one night)"

"Peter Rosenberg: How do you rank Dilla [out of the] all time producers?"

"One time we were in the studio and didn't have a drum machine, and he went inside the booth and played the drums on his body. He knew how to EQ it right and everything, like, "Okay, he just made a song using his body." [laughs] It was serious. ~ James Poyser (from the Ruff Draft re-issue liner notes)."

"Dilla was a good cat. He looked out for me, showing me how to work the SP1200, the (MPC) 3000, he used to set me up in his basement, and leave me there all night, while he went out the bar or to mess with some chicks. He was real open-hearted, but he could get on some wild shit. We fell out for a minute, but we mended it and it was all good. He just wanted people to hear the music, but I seen him snap off on cats, he was good people though. He just wanted to make music and do his thing. ~ DJ House Shoes"

"I'm a chess player; I play chess."

"Does he really want to step into the ring with best fighter of this era and embarrass himself? Being the coward that he is, I doubt he'll get in the ring. We'll see what his excuse will be this time... When I retire, I'll get Ricky Hatton to wash my clothes and cut my lawn and buckle my shoes."

"He can have heart, he can hit harder and he can be stronger, but there's no fighter smarter than me."

"People only see the money and cars, and they never saw the hard work or days I was pissing blood because I got hurt training."

"Anything can happen in the sport of boxing."

"I'm older and wiser. Just like fine wine, I get better with time."

"Why not? Everything you've got to own costs money. Everything you do costs money. You can't take your wife on a date for free."

"Me? I'm loyal and honest, and I'm a good person. I call a spade a spade. Money doesn't make me; I make money. Without money, I'd be the same person."

"I'm always thinking, how can I get better?"

"Of all the fighters today, I have to say that Mayweather reminds me most of me," Leonard told Irish boxing writer Brian Doogan in describing the incident. "The kid has every gift and physical attribute, but if he continues to be the kind of person he is, he'll never be one of us. He'll never make it."

"Mayweather is as close to Sugar Ray Robinson as this generation will see. He doesn't have the single-punch KO power of Robinson, but he's just as sweet."