“I have nothing to give but my singing. And all I offer here is the distilled poetry of my experience.”

Reducing a life's gift to song drawn from experience · Autobiography, A Long Way from Home, 1937

• Experience
• Poetry
• Vocation

“Even though many of my themes were racial, I wrote my poems to make a universal appeal.”

Insisting that protest themes need not cancel a general human address · Autobiography, A Long Way from Home, 1937

• Poetry
• Race
• Readers

“I own allegiance to no master. I have never found it possible to accept in entirety any one poet.”

A declaration of artistic independence from schools and single models · Author's Word, Harlem Shadows, 1922

• Independence
• Poetry
• Poets