I Am Not Wrong: Wrong

Suicide Is Absolute, And If You Think You Will Survive By Hiding Who You Really Are, You Are Sadly Misled: There Is No Such Thing As Partial Or Intermittent Suicide. You Can Only Survive If You - Who You Really Are - Do Survive.

I Wrote Those Poems For Myself, As A Way Of Being A Soldier Here In This Country. I Didn't Know The Poems Would Travel. I Didn't Go To Lebanon Until Two Years Ago, But People Told Me That Many Arabs Had Memorized These Poems And Translated Them Into Arabic.

There Is A Man Who Exists As One Of The Most Popular Objects Of Leadership, Legislation, And Quasi-literature In The History Of All Men. . . . This Man, That Object Of Attention, Attack, And Vast Activity, Cannot Make Himself Be Heard, Let Alone Understood. He Has Never Been Listened To. . . . That Man Is Black And Alive In White America Where The Media Of Communication Do Not Allow The Delivery Of His Own Voice, His Own Desires, His Own Rage.

The First Function Of Poetry Is To Tell The Truth, To Learn How To Do That, To Find Out What You Really Feel And What You Really Think

Our Earth Is Round, And, Among Other Things, That Means That You And I Can Hold Completely Different Points Of View And Both Be Right. The Difference Of Our Positions Will Show Stars In Your Window I Cannot Even Imagine. Your Sky May Burn With Light, While Mine, At The Same Moment, Spreads Beautiful To Darkness. Still We Must Choose How We Separately Corner The Circling Universe Of Our Experience. Once Chosen, Our Cornering Will Determine The Message Of Any Star And Darkness We Encounter.