I started writing for the same reason I breathe-because I had to. - Lorna Dee Cervantes

Reading African American women poets politicized me. And it was the fact that poetry politicized me that had to do with then saving my life. Then all of the sudden, I started questioning; that's the dynamic of oppression, and especially as a child and as a woman, a girl coming into it. You look around, and you don't see anybody like you in positions of power, and you don't even question it. You just assume that you are not going to achieve anything and [that] no one expects anything from you. And so when I started reading this poetry, then I started questioning and questioning real hard. And I got angry.

And finally, it is me
only guessing at what secrets
or hatreds they share.

We knew, love, and that was all
we were ever offered.