Quotes: Appalled by racism, she would marry outside her race not once but twice, and go on to lavish what seemed like an inexhaustible love on her two brown children. Incensed by societal constraints put upon women, she’d divorce both men when they proved overbearing or disappointing, carving out a career of her own choosing, raising her kids according to her own standards of decency, and pretty much doing whatever she damn well pleased. – A Promised Land

“You know, Barry,” she said (that’s the nickname she and my grandparents used for me when I was growing up, often shortened to “Bar,” pronounced “Bear”), “there are people in the world who think only about themselves. They don’t care what happens to other people so long as they get what they want. They put other people down to make themselves feel important.“Then there are people who do the opposite, who are able to imagine how others must feel, and make sure that they don’t do things that hurt people. – A Promised Land

While community college and public university interiors may not boast the gothic arches and antique seminar tables of more moneyed institutions, they are no less sacred, meaningful spaces. Inside these walls, students receive (or should receive) the time and support for intellectual and personal development. The physical classroom, shared with a spectrum of folks with disparate nationalities, ethnicities, religions, gender identities and perspectives, offers an important education beyond mere curriculum. – In defense of the classroom.

Higher education does not simply concern lectures and exams but also what is learned in their interstices, at the times one might least expect a worldview to be altered. These experiences cannot be replicated in online sessions only accessible to some.  – In defense of the classroom.

I didn’t want to write poems that moralized the issues of young people. I wanted to write poems that confronted the questions I felt as a teen. I wanted to write poems in a way that might give a young person in similar circumstances some comfort. I hoped my poems would be used to write new poems and to launch a million more stories. – Maybe I could Save Myself By Writing.