I Will Not Take 'but'

We Younger Negro Artists Who Create Now Intend To Express Our Individual Dark-skinned Selves Without Fear Or Shame. If White People Are Pleased We Are Glad. If They Aren?t It Doesn?t Matter.

Through My Grandmother's Stories Always Life Moved, Moved Heroically Toward An End. Nobody Ever Cried In My Grandmother's Stories. They Worked, Or Schemed, Or Fought. But No Crying. When My Grandmother Died, I Didn't Cry, Either. Something About My Grandmother's Stories (without Her Ever Having Said So) Taught Me The Uselessness Of Crying About Anything."

When Poems Stop Talking About The Moon And Begin To Mention Poverty, Trade Unions, Color, Color Lines And Colonies, Somebody Tells The Police.

When Peoples Care For You And Cry For You, They Can Straighten Out Your Soul.

Life Is An Egg You Have To Be Patient And Careful With It Or It Will Break.