“I wrote those poems for myself, as a way of being a soldier here in this country. I didn't know the poems would travel. I didn't go to Lebanon until two years ago, but people told me that many Arabs had memorized these poems and translated them into Arabic.”
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The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think.
But, based on my friendship with Evie as young mothers, I started going on freedom rides in 1966.
So, poetry becomes a means for useful dialogue between people who are not only unknown, but mute to each other. It produces a dialogue among people that guards all of us against manipulation by our so-called leaders.
To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way.
