The country that I was coming from, the island I was in, hadn't been written about, really. So I thought that I virtually had it all to myself, including the language that was spoken there, which was a French Creole, and a landscape that is not recorded, really, and the people.

I have no curiosity. I'm an island boy.

There's always a need at a critical time for poetry.

What is taught in schools generally in the West Indies is that if something is your thing, it's better than anybody else's because it's yours. It's extremely provincial and also damaging. You prevent people from learning things. The biggest absurdity would be, 'Don't read Shakespeare because he was white.'

I don't travel with them, but they can't be missing in my home. There have to always be dominoes... I used to play with my family - dad, my grandpa, my uncles.

Both my mother's family and my father's family go back almost a hundred years in the district. I was born in the district, raised in the district, raised my family in the district. And so that's the way I see myself.

Raising me as a single parent, my mother held many jobs. Most of them had to do with the betterment and the advancement of our community and society at large. I grew up seeing her active in ministries at our church, with the homeless, as a social worker, with elderly, with youth, as a children's rights organizer with the Urban League of Chicago.

Generally, I do not talk about people - family or friends. This is how I am.