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My job as a poet is to tell the truth. To tell it, as Audre Lorde wrote, with as much beauty and clarity as possible. I want my work to enter listeners through the heart and gut.

— Shailja Patel

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More quotes by Shailja Patel

Ready is never a question just a reminder
to breathe and jump.

We are so used to decentring ourselves and marginalising ourselves that we don’t even recognise that we’re doing it.

Then they said Why did you have to go to the police? Don’t you know how trivial
such allegations are? You should have come to the community
instead of filing charges.

Seal the borders
of my body to pain
seal my eyes, mouth, belly
to any hunger not
my own.

I rename myself America. No love
no grief in the world but mine.

All Shailja Patel quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Shailja Patel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.