Poet

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

Violent anger makes me physically ill.

I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class, and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everybody knows - except us - that all Negroes have rhythms, so they elected me class poet.

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.

Very early in life, it seemed to me that there was a relationship between the problems of the Negro people in America and the Jewish people in Russia, and that the Jewish people's problems were worse than ours.

It's such a Bore Being always Poor.

I will not take 'but' for an answer.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?

The Jewish people and the Negro people both know the meaning of Nordic supremacy. We have both looked into the eyes of terror.

I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.