36 quotes
Art is a refining and evocative translation of the materials of the world.
Black Poetry Writing (1975)
Truth-tellers are not always palatable.
There is a preference for candy bars.
Gottschalk and the Grande Tarantelle (1988)
Art hurts. Art urges voyages—
and it is easier to stay at home.
The Chicago Picasso (1968)
You don’t get all your questions answered in this world.
Winnie (1988)
Exhaust the little moment.
Soon it dies.
And be it gash or gold it will not come
Again in this identical guise.
As you get older, you find that often the wheat, disentangling itself from the chaff, comes out to meet you.
Report From Part One (1972)
Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
It is brave to be involved
To be not fearful to be unresolved.
I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker.
And all the little people
Will stare at me and say,
"That is the Crazy Woman
Who would not sing in May."
When I start writing a poem, I don't think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done.
I am interested in telling my particular truth as I have seen it.
Wherever life can grow, it will.
It will sprout out,
and do the best it can.
Winnie (1988)
A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.
Report From Part One (1972)
My Poem is life, and not finished.
Winnie (1988)
To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
consider the big fists breaking your little bones,
or consider the vague bureaucrats
stumbling, fumbling through Paper.
Small Mabel whimpered all night long,
For calling herself the cause.
Her oak-eyed mother did no thing
But change the bloody gauze.
Be careful what you swallow. Chew!
Maud went to college.
Sadie stayed at home.
Sadie scraped life
With a fine-tooth comb.