I Feel The Need To

The Blues Is An Impulse To Keep The Painful Details And Episodes Of A Brutal Experience Alive In One's Aching Consciousness, To Finger Its Jagged Grain, And To Transcend It, Not By The Consolation Of Philosophy But By Squeezing From It A Near-tragic, Near-comic Lyricism. As A Form, The Blues Is An Autobiographical Chronicle Of Personal Catastrophe Expressed Lyrically.

I Am Not Ashamed Of My Grandparents For Having Been Slaves. I Am Only Ashamed Of Myself For Having At One Time Being Ashamed.

By And Large, The Critics And Readers Gave Me An Affirmed Sense Of My Identity As A Writer. You Might Know This Within Yourself, But To Have It Affirmed By Others Is Of Utmost Importance. Writing Is, After All, A Form Of Communication.

For, Like Almost Everyone Else In Our Country, I Started Out With My Share Of Optimism. I Believed In Hard Work And Progress And Action, But Now, After First Being 'for' Society And Then 'against' It, I Assign Myself No Rank Or Any Limit, And Such An Attitude Is Very Much Against The Trend Of The Times. But My World Has Become One Of Infinite Possibilities. What A Phrase - Still It's A Good Phrase And A Good View Of Life, And A Man Shouldn't Accept Any Other; That Much I've Learned Underground. Until Some Gang Succeeds In Putting The World In A Strait Jacket, Its Definition Is Possibility.

The Blues Is An Art Of Ambiguity, An Assertion Of The Irrepressibly Human Over All Circumstances, Whether Created By Others Or By One's Own Human Failing.