1) Tell us about yourself. I'm a poet. I've really organized my life around this fact. Whatever I'm doing, I'm a poet doing that thing.
2) Who are your influences? I like a lot of 60s and 70s Motown. I'm inspired by the way Lucille Clifton dealt with the spirit as a part of every day life in her work. I learned a lot about creating a kind of public intimacy in tone and voice from reading James Baldwin and Essex Hemphill. I've been reading a lot of Oppen and Hopkins lately.
3) When I read your work, you talk about issues that we, as black folk, leave "in the house" such homosexuality and family issues. Why do you discuss topics so freely which other writers either shy away from or try to cushion? I don't think I get to (or should get to) choose my subject matter. Homosexuality shows up because I think some guys are hot, and whatever I am considering should be able to come through in my work. It's not a good idea for me to hold some part of my thought back when it comes to my poems since my poems want all of me. Also, I don't do any of this on purpose. I'm pretty obsessed with the colors red and green and blue. They appear in my work just as much as elements of sexuality. I'm thinking about a lot of things, and my poems have a right to all of them. I love black people enough to understand that me being more free makes us all more free.
4) As someone who has worked in politics, how can writers express their truth in today's turbulent times? The most important thing is that we be open to telling the truth all the time about everything. This is not easy, but we don't have easy jobs. We just have talent and knowledge. If we are telling the truth, we can't help but become more aware of ourselves as social beings in politicized bodies. And then there can come the telling of the story of each body...
5) I noticed that there is a major difference between how you speak in conversation and how you read your poems in person which I find captivating. How did you find your reading voice and what advice can you give to writers in terms of presentation? Oh, when I read, I try to relay the poem in the music, rhythm, and voice that it came to me. As you know, a good deal of writing feels like transcribing something overheard. When I read in front of people, I want
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