Table of Contents
Introduction ix
Prose
Poetry Is Not a Luxury (1977) 3
The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action (1977) 9
My Mother's Mortar (1977) 15
Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power (1978) 29
The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House (1979) 39
Sexism: An American Disease in Blackface (1979) 45
The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism (1981) 53
Fourth of July (1982) 67
I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities (1985) 73
A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer (1988) 81
Is Your Hair Still Political? (1990) 167
Difference and Survival: An Address at Hunter College (undated) 173
Poetry
From The First Cities (1968)
A Family Resemblance 183
Coal 184
Now that I Am Forever with Child 185
Spring III 186
To a Girl Who Knew What Side Her Bread Was Buttered On 187
Father Son and Holy Ghost 188
Generation 189
If You Come Softly 190
Suffer the Children 191
A Lover's Song 192
Suspension 193
From Cables to Rage (1970)
Rooming houses are old women 197
Bloodbirth 198
Martha 199
Sowing 209
Making it 210
On a night of the full moon 211
From From a Land Where Other People Live (1973)
Progress Report 215
Moving Out or The End of Cooperative Living 217
Change of Season 220
Generation II 222
Love, Maybe 223
Conclusion 224
Movement Song 226
Who Said It Was Simple 228
From New York Head Shop and Museum (1974)
New York 1970 231
The American Cancer Society Or There Is More Than One Way To Skin A Coon 234
A Sewerplant Grows In Harlem Or I'm A Stranger Here Myself When Does The Next Swan Leave 236
One Year To Life On The Grand Central Shuttle 238
The Workers Rose On May Day Or Postscript To Karl Marx 240
Cables to Rage or I've Been Talking on This Street Corner a Hell of a Long Time 242
Keyfood 244
To The Girl Who Lives In A Tree 246
Love Poem 248
Separation 249
Song For A Thin Sister 250
Revolution Is One Form Of Social Change 251
The Brown Menace Or Poem To The Survival of Roaches 252
Sacrifice 254
From Between Our Selves (1976)
Power 259
Solstice 261
Scar 263
Between Ourselves 267
From The Black Unicorn (1978)
A Woman Speaks 273
Coniagui Women 275
Chain 277
Sequelae 280
A Litany for Survival 283
Portrait 285
Therapy 286
Recreation 287
Artisan 288
Contact Lenses 290
But What Can You Teach My Daughter 291
From Inside an Empty Purse 292
A Small Slaughter 293
Sister Outsider 294
"Never Take Fire from a Woman" 295
Between Ourselves 296
From Chosen Poems: Old and New (1982)
The Evening News 301
Afterimages 303
A Poem For Women In Rage 308
From Our Dead Behind US (1986)
To the Poet Who Happens to Be Black and the Black Poet Who Happens to Be a Woman 315
Outlines 317
Equal Opportunity 324
Diaspora 327
A Question of Climate 328
Florida 329
Political Relations 331
There Are No Honest Poems About Dead Women 333
From The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance (1993)
Making Love to Concrete 337
Thaw 339
Inheritance-His 340
Jessehelms 345
The Politics of Addiction 347
Today Is Not the Day 349
Notes 353
Prose Index 355
Poetry Index 365