We should understand the impact that Malcolm had on the whole of American society.

The major poets of New Jersey have all suffered, whether it's Whitman, who lost his job for 'Leaves of Grass,' or William Carlos Williams, who was called a communist, or Ginsberg, whose 'Howl' was prosecuted, or myself. If you practise poetry the way I think it needs to be done, you're going to put yourself in jeopardy.

To name something is to wait for it in the place you think it will pass.

As a political artist, I think you have to learn how to create art, no matter what your ideology is.

I just think that the older you get, the more you appreciate the responsibility of politics.

I know I'm not supposed to have any opinions about politics, because I'm famous.

The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed.

From the age of 8, I was running media campaigns on global issues back home in Australia. I was ever so slightly precocious. I would meet with senior Australian government officials, including the prime minister and foreign minister, proposing various solutions to third-world debt and malnutrition.