Creative Writing And Literacy Go

As An African-american, As A Woman I Think That I've Been Sensitized To The Way In Which History Privileges The White Male And The Way In Which Certain Aspects Of History, The Things That We Are Taught In School, The Things That Are Handed Down Never, Never Entered The Picture Though They Might Have Been Very Important.

People Write Me From All Over The Country, Asking Me, And Sometimes Even Telling Me, What They Think A Poet Laureate Should Do. I Found That Immensely Valuable.

What's A Word, A Talisman, To Hold Against The World?

I Prefer To Explore The Most Intimate Moments, The Smaller, Crystallized Details We All Hinge Our Lives On.

My First Advice Would Be To Read, Read, Read, Which Sounds Interesting Coming In A Digital Age, But It's So Much Easier To Listen To A Poem Than It Is To Sit Down And Actually Read It And To Hear It In Your Head And That Is Something That Every Poet Or Aspiring Poet Needs To Be Able To Do, I Think To Hear It In Their Head.