"I like to think that the poem is trying to hit you in the gut. I like to think that the poem comes from someplace [of] deep and intense emotion and [is] this thing that I can't run away from..."

"…it’s really easy to get caught up in how you’re hurt and not really think about whom you are actually hurting. At football games, they kneel, but they’re not kneeling for domestic violence in the NFL. They’ve had a huge rate of domestic violence, intensely physical domestic violence that has become public, and you know that’s the tip of the iceberg. That’s not even talking about accusations of sexual assault. It’s not talking about the actual murdering. This is part of the culture where men, who have been professional athletes, have done things. We don’t talk about that. They aren’t kneeling for that."

"…You consciously weave certain things in. Then some things are unconsciously woven into the book, both because you write one poem at a time but also because the motivations for each poem exist within the world of that poem. They subconsciously transcend the world of that poem and go to other places…"

"…I like to think that I'm just part of the struggle because we all sort of exist in this thing, trying to figure out what it means to be human day-to-day and what it means to have, like, suffered and made other people suffer."

"… I am a grown-up, sensual woman, even at this age and size. People would think you wouldn't be. I'm open to the whole of human experience."

"One thing poetry teaches us, if anything, is that everything is connected…There is so much history that we have not validated."

"(The book that...shaped my worldview:) Lucille Clifton’s poetry collection Good Woman. I have long considered her the secret godmother of my writing since I was 15, and this was the first collection of hers I owned."

"I would also suggest that everyone read the poetry of Lucille Clifton, a black heterodox Christian woman who seems to me the most important spiritual poet in America today."

"Lucille stayed late, singing the song of/carrying on, admitting the truth.../"Things don't fall apart. Things hold. Lines connect/in thin ways that last and last . . ."/Lucille gave everything she had."

"People I read a lot to my son were people like Robert Bly and Lucille Clifton, Frank O’Hara for some reason, Chinese poems, Japanese poems."

"One of my favorite poets is Lucille Clifton, author of a good number of fine books, including Blessing the Boats, Quilting, and Two-Headed Woman."

"Food in these poems is a connection to the natural world, to what Lucille Clifton calls "the bond of live things everywhere" in her poem, "cutting greens.""

"Lucille Clifton is able to do something difficult: take the strengths of poetry and apply them in such a way that you have first-rate prose."

"born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself?"

"Other than “the unanswerable question”… It’s the heart speaking, maybe that, maybe the human heart speaking."

"… A lot of women have borne a lot of things; a lot of people have borne a lot of things. There’s a certain kind of human that I want to be. There is not shame in my life. There is certainly misfortune, but I’m not the only one. I do know that. And sometimes, one of the things poetry can do is say to an audience: you are not alone. It can also speak for those who have not yet found their voice to speak. That’s part of the human condition. And if we’re going to talk about humans, why are we just going to talk about the pretty ones."

"When the warrior returns, from the battle afar, To the home and the country he nobly defended, O! warm be the welcome to gladden his ear, And loud be the joy that his perils are ended: In the full tide of song let his fame roll along, To the feast-flowing board let us gratefully throng, Where, mixed with the olive, the laurel shall wave, And form a bright wreath for the brows of the brave."

"O say can you see by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines in the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country, should leave us no more? Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation. Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"

"If we believe in the existence of a great moral and political evil amongst us, and that duty, honour, and interest, call upon us to prepare the way for its removal, we must act."

"So sings the world's fond slave! so flies the dream Of life's gay morn; so sinks the meteor ray Of fancy into darkness; and no beam Of purer light shines on the wanderer's way.So sings not he who soars on other wings Than fancy lends him; whom a cheering faith Warms and sustains, and whose freed spirit springs To joys that bloom beyond the reach of death.And thou would'st live again! again dream o'er The wild and feverish visions of thy youth Again to wake in sorrow, and deplore Thy wanderings from the peaceful paths of truth! Yet yield not to despair! be born again, And thou shalt live a life of joy and peace, Shall die a death of triumph, and thy strain Be changed to notes of rapture ne'er to cease."