it is the responsibility of society to let the poet be a poet.
it is the responsibility of the poet to stand on street corners giving out poems and
beautifully written leaflets.
it is the responsibility of the poet to go in and out of ivory towers and two-room apartments on avenue c and buckwheat fields and army camps.
it is the responsibility of the poet to be lazy and to hang out and prophesy.
there is no freedom unless earth and air and water continue and children also continue.
it is the poet's responsibility to speak truth to power as the quakers say.
it is the poet's responsibility to learn the truth from the powerless. it is the responsibility of the poet to say many times: there is no freedom without justice.
it is the responsibility of the poet to listen to gossip and pass it on in the way
storytellers decant the story of life.
there is no freedom without fear and bravery.
it is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman, to keep an eye on this world and cry out like cassandra, but be listened to this time.
