8 Quotes by Toi Derricotte

A picture in a book, a lynching. The bland faces of men who watcha Christ go up in flames, smiling,as if he were a hookedfish, a felled antelope, some wild thing tied to boards and burned.His charred bodygives off light--a haloburns out of him. His face is scorched featureless; the hair matted to the scalp like feathers. One man stands with his hand on his hip,another with his armslung over the shoulder of a friend,as if this moment were large enoughto hold affection.

Poetry asks people to have values, form opinions, care about some other part of experience besides making money and being successful on the job.

These are the stories of travelers on a spiritual quest between worlds. Part mythmaker, part poet, Omar Castaeda is an original, and these stories are unlike any in our literature.

The job of the artist is not to resolve or beautify, but to hold complexities, to see and make clear.

It is not just the language that we are sharing, it is what we don’t say. We are calling each other out of loneliness, across space, out of recognition of our beauty and power, and we are willing to go past the destruction and hurt we have done to reach each other.

Light skin gives me such privileges that my complaints are not worthy. I’m not “positive” enough. Not “black” enough. I’m not a “real” black person. Worst of all are the terrible choices – the possibility of losing connections to those I love, betraying them, those who have done terrible things but at the same time have had to survive within the context of racism. Whose side am I on?

Sometimes memory is like a dream. The worst nightmares are forgotten. Sometimes living is a nightmare. Just getting up, meeting your neighbors, and walking down the street.

I hate it when, after I let a white person know they’ve said something racist, I end up having to listen for hours to their life.