“When you have to teach yourself how to say sounds, when you have to be highly concerned about pronunciation, it gives you a certain awareness of sonics, of the auditory experience.”

I have to interweave my poetry with purpose. For me, that purpose is to help people, and to shed a light on issues that have far too long been in the darkness.

The oration of poetry, I consider to be its own art form and tradition.

I love Black poets. I love that as a Black girl, I get to participate in that legacy. So that’s Yusef Komunyakaa, Sonia Sanchez, Tracy K. Smith, Phillis Wheatley.

Poetry has never been the language of barriers, it’s always been the language of bridges.

Truth is to act out of the best of ourselves.

I grew up at this incredibly odd intersection in Los Angeles, where it felt like the black ‘hood met black elegance met white gentrification met Latin culture met wetlands.

What contributed to my writing early on is how my mom encouraged it. She kept the TV off because she wanted my siblings and I to be engaged and active. So we made forts, put on plays, musicals, and I wrote like crazy.

I don’t want it to be something that becomes a cage, where to be a successful Black girl, you have to be Amanda Gorman and go to Harvard. I want someone to eventually disrupt the model I have established.

You don’t have to be a poet, you don’t have to be a politician or be in the White House to make an impact with your words. We all have this capacity to find solutions for the future.

Poetry is the lens we use to interrogate the history we stand on and the future we stand for.

If a woman doesn’t give herself permission, who will?

No matter how you say it, the hill we climb is a hill we climb together.

I think it made me all that much stronger of a writer when you have to teach yourself how to say words from scratch.

When you’re someone who’s lived a life where certain resources were scarce, you always feel like abundance is forbidden fruit.

What a day. What a life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

It was so incredible meeting Lady Gaga. I mean I’m gaga for Gaga, literally. We kind of just each flew to each other like magnets after the ceremony ended and we were both just crying and hugging.

Did you just call me old? I really prefer the word ‘experienced’.

I don’t study cricket too much. Whatever I have learned or experienced is through cricket I’ve played on the field, and whatever little I have watched.

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.

God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.

I’ve learned one thing: you can only really get to know a person after a row. Only then can you judge their true character!