I Very Much Dislike The Word "race,"

Literary History And The Present Are Dark With Silences . . . I Have Had Special Need To Learn All I Could Of This Over The Years, Myself So Nearly Remaining Mute And Having To Let Writing Die Over And Over Again In Me. These Are Not Natural Silences--what Keats Called Agonie Ennuyeuse (the Tedious Agony)--that Necessary Time For Renewal, Lying Fallow, Gestation, In The Natural Cycle Of Creation. The Silences I Speak Of Here Are Unnatural: The Unnatural Thwarting Of What Struggles To Come Into Being, But Cannot.

Time Granted Does Not Necessarily Coincide With Time That Can Be Most Fully Used.

Not To Have An Audience Is A Kind Of Death.

It Is A Long Baptism Into The Seas Of Humankind, My Daughter. Better Immersion Than To Live Untouched.

Think About All That We've Lost That Has Been Said Orally Because Nobody Was Taking It Down. I Feel Very Fortunate To Live In A Time Where We Have So Many Different Voices. We Have A Much Richer Literature Than We've Ever Had, And We Can Know America So Much Better.