My poetry idols have always been Dr. Sonia Sanchez and Professor Lucille Clifton. Both women were queens of tight, direct, verse. They both excelled at using spare words with spare punctuation, and images that were utterly delicious.

Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, and Haki Madhubuti make up the big four of the Black Arts Movement poets. Baraka is already an ancestor, now Nikki joins him. One thing about that generation is that they were very generous to younger poets in terms of their time & attention.

I went to see Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez read their work in Nov. 2000. I was a young poet and they both signed my notebook. I still have it.