‘BEING A BLACK WOMAN WRITER is not a shallow place but a rich place to write from. It doesn’t limit my imagination; it expands it. It’s richer than being a white male writer because I know more and I’ve experienced more.’       

                                          —Toni  Morrison

I COULD SEE THE DOVES FROM MY DESK

It was a brick school

a grade school

a Catholic grade school

with the priest’s house 

sharing the parking lot 

it was that close

there was a big church there too

I don’t remember if there was a convent

for the nuns who taught at the school

one taught across the hall from me

she had those felt hand-made wall hangings

with doves on them and peace

she also had a Corita Kent poster and 

she played folk songs on a guitar

it was 1970

she’s no longer a nun

I was teaching there to avoid going to Vietnam

so I liked the doves 

she had on the wall.

 

‘IF YOU GIVE PEOPLE LITERACY, bad ideas can be attacked and experiments tried, and lessons will accumulate.’

                                        —Steven Pinker

 

‘People don’t realise how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.’ 

                          —Malcolm X