There were never any doctors in my family. But my grandparents and my mother had a strong social conscience that was formative.
Reality, the oppressor's tongue.
Every poem breaks a silence that had to be overcome.
You have to give your art everything you can - I don't mean only writing, but studying other poets and poetics, thinking, reading what poets have written other than their poetry.
The moment when a feeling enters the body is political. This touch is political
A life I didn't choose chose me: even my tools are the wrong ones for what I have to do.
Love, our subject: we've trained it like ivy to our walls.
Read two newspapers a day. And not just online. Hold them in your hands. Get ink on your fingers.
I wear my heart on my sleeve.
Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius.
Since chemical fertilizer burns out the soil organic matter, other farmers struggle with tilth, water retention, and basic soil nutrients. The soil gets harder and harder every year as the chemicals burn out the organic matter, which gives the soil its sponginess. One pound of organic matter holds four pounds of water. The best drought protection any farmer can acquire is more soil organic matter.