Marilyn Nelson

“Writing in form is a way of developing your thinking - your thinking along with the tradition. In a way, it's not you alone, it's you in partnership.”

“Back when I was in college, people used to talk about the alienation of the artist, not ever quite fitting in any place.”

“One of my graduate school professors, to whom I started sending poems when I started writing again after a 10-year hiatus, suggested I prepare a book manuscript which he could send to publishers for me.”

“Since she seen Fortune head in that big pot Miss Lydia say that room make her feel ill, sick with the thought of boiling human broth. I wonder how she think it make me feel? To dust the hands what use to stroke my breast; to dust the arms what hold me when I cried; to dust where his soft lips were and his chest what curved its warm against my back at night. From the poem "Dinah's Lament" (15)”

“Many performance poets seem to believe that yelling a poem makes it comprehensible. They are wrong.”

“After you kind of find your footing, sonnets are what comes easiest.”

“For much of my life - my sister and I have talked about this - when we moved, we just thought the world behind us disappeared, and all of the people, they just didn't exist any more.”