I guess my writing through time has focused on a number of dimensions that reflect separately on the meaning and social place of the female body.

Writing a poem is unwriting a knot, like untying a shoelace that is clubbing your foot.

New formalism is writing with language as flow, like the flow from a dam, running through a desert that has had no rain for decades.

Poetry must speak of others, in order to speak for the poet's imagination, in order to speak of itself; it is slowed down by poetics after its flight is over.

As I grew older - and even when I was younger - it had puzzled me why I continued and continue to be heterosexual.

Poetry has roots, but they are sometimes cut off and still poetry is written.

At a certain point, the struggles with teaching and mothering and so on and so forth, those decline, those lessen.

I'm in my 60s, and a cancer scare just makes you more aware of mortality.

Working women went through a time when they believed that.

[My muse] she's impatient with me, because I don't do what I should do: sit down and write.

Agency over one's sexual self - and the articulation of that kind of agency - might seem transgressive to readers who don't expect it in a woman's text.

I believe in nonjudgmental love

Where will I be five years from now? I delight in not knowing.

My mission is to let black kids know that their dreams can happen.

Literature in its most comprehensive sense is the autobiography of humanity.

After every difficulty, ask yourself two questions: 'What did I do right?' and 'What would I do differently?

I know what you're going to say! 'They are men, and men should be free.' A free man is dangerous to himself and everyone else. Freedom should be left to those who can put it to good use.

Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.

I understand that absinthe makes the tart grow fonder.

When you stay too long in the same place, things and people go to pot on you, they rot and start stinking for your special benefit.

Heroes are never perfect, but they're brave, they're authentic, they're courageous, determined, discreet, and they've got grit.