In a Room With Alice Walker

"To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make oursleves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps, to God; or to Gods. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die. The grace with which we embrace life, inspite of the pain, the sorrows, is always a measure of what has gone before."
- Alice Walker, "Fundamental Difference

A poem she read in a workshop at Hong-Ik University Seoul, South Korea.

Be Nobody's Darling

Be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contridictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.

Watch the people succumb
To madness
With ample cheer;
Let them look askance at you
And you askance reply.

Be an outcast;
Be pleased to walk alone
(Uncool)
Or line the crowded
River beds
With other impetuous
Fools.

Make a merry gathering
On the bank
Where thousands perished
For brave hurt words
They said.

Be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Qualified to live
Among your dead.