<TABLE><TR><TD> Paint me Hopeful </TD><TD> Paint Me Futuristic </TD><TD> Paint Me Nikki </TD></TR><TR><TD></TD><TD> I'm a Poet</TD><TD></TD></TR></TA… - Nikki Giovanni

If I were advising someone on a writing career, the deal is this: write. If you get it published, good. If somebody pays you, better, because you have to eat, but the deal is you have to write.

if it does not sing discard the ear
for poetry is song
if it does not delight discard
the heart for poetry is joy
if it does not inform then close
off the brain for it is dead
if it cannot heed the insistent message
that life is preciouswhich is all we poets
wrapped in our loneliness
are trying to say

Politics is personal. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s ideological. It means that one cares about what she or he is doing, what he or she is writing…