prose

This town of churches and dreams; this town I thought I would lose myself in, with its backward ways and winding roads leading to nowhere; but, I found myself instead. -Magic in the Backyard (excerpt from American Honey)

She would not have cared to confess how infinitely she preferred the exactitude, the star-like impersonality, of figures to the confusion, agitation, and vagueness of the finest prose.

Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical. It is the one which is the most secret, which requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one which can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper. Over the last few years, writing a novel on tight finances, I came to appreciate the enormous differences in the material demands between poetry and prose. As we reclaim our literature, poetry has been the major voice of poor, working class, and Colored women. A room of one's own may be a necessity for writing prose, but so are reams of paper, a typewriter, and plenty of time.

... endowing the imperfect and the preterite with all the sweetness which there is in generosity, all the melancholy which there is in love; guided the sentence that was drawing to an end towards that which was waiting to begin, now hastening, now slackening the pace of the syllables so as to bring them, despite their difference in quantity, into a uniform rhythm, and breathed into this quite ordinary prose a kind of life, continuous and full of feeling.

You have never asked for anything, yet you have become an albatross around my neck. Your bony arms are knotted behind my head, I walk bowed under the weight of you.

Never try to outgrow the people who were helping you walk, when you could not even walk.

Nothingness...there in this placewhere nothingness takesbut for the glimmera steadfast shimmerall would be consumed...

You__e lonely,_ they say,but it doesn__ scare me anymorefor it teaches me,and maybe that__ the biggest win from these years:I don__ need anyone else to distract me from myself anymore,like I always thought I would.I don__ break mirrors anymore,like I always thought I would. I can finally stand myself,and I never thought I would.

In a tired time, with the light outside drifting away for another day and the lights inside flickering as they come to life, I cup my hands together and prepare to give thanks ... to the life of a day given to me. A day shared with past and present, living and dying, of body and not, and a realization that in everything that is, there is something that was.

I have hopein who I am becoming.I have belief in every scar and disgraceful wordI have ever spokenor been toldbecause it is still teaching meand I have hope in who I am becoming.They say it takes 756 days to run to someone you loveand they also say that the only romance worth fighting foris the one with yourselfand I know by nowthat they say a lot of things,people talking everywherewithout saying a word,but if it took me all those years to learn myselfor teach myselfhow to look into the mirrorwithout breaking itI know for a fact that it was a fight worth fighting.I stood up for my own head and so did my heartand we are coming to terms with ourselves.Shaking hands, saying __et__ make this workfor we have places to goand people to seeand we will need each other__o I have hopein who I am becoming.It__ Julyand I have hope in who I am becoming.

MotherHushed and sacred silencefills the dawning skyI ponder in this momentof our journey which is nigh...

Don__ try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourselfand let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story.Let your very identity be your book.Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody.

I am a complicated person with a simple life.

Pour Into My Spirit...spread your arms around meconsole me and keep me close -wield your mighty swordto vanquish all my foes...

I was never afraid of the dark and I spent my youth walking through empty playgrounds at midnight, worried mothers telling girls to be careful and __he world is an ugly place and not everyone wants you well_. But I was not afraid and I wished for adrenaline to make my veins pulsate in that way that puts them more on the outside of my skin than inside.After the first night with you I never walked alone at night again because suddenly I had something to lose. Something to save.

...unquestioning automatonsblindly marching to the beat -an eerie crunching soundhoards of shuffling feet...(from silent moments)

One day, I decided to be an island. I took off my clothes and walked into the sea, then floated there, bobbing along with the tide, suspended by my inflatable tube and water wings.

For me a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of good prose is when one hears the noise of battle.... A page of good prose seems to me the most serious dialogue that well-informed and intelligent men and women carry on today in their endeavor to make sure that the fires of this planet burn peaceably.