There is something very special and very identifiable about it and it is my struggle to find that elusive but identifiable style in the books. My joy is when I think that I have approached it; my misery is when I think I can’t get there.
Toni Morrison on Black literature from “Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation”


I kick extra hard, like I am running a race, and my head bobs above the water but the hand of the hurricane pushes it down, down again. Who will deliver me? And the hurricane says sssssshhhhhhhhhh. It shushes me through the water, with a voice muffled and deep, but then I am being pushed up and out of the water, held by Skeet, who is barely treading, barely keeping me and him afloat.
Jesmyn Ward from Salvage the Bones

“Put on the Sleeves of Love”

Sonia Sanchez