I took journalism in high school and college and then I landed a job with a conservative Gannett newspaper as columnist writing about women, black people, and things they would rather not print.  At 30 I became a poet and met Romare Bearden and conversed with him as though I had arrived.  I hadn’t.  Carried a message from James Baldwin to Bill Gunn, playwright and friend.  I still hadn’t arrived.  Good writing takes time and attention and I was easily distracted.  I have owned my own jewelry business in New York, worked as a secretary, badly, taught drama, performed poetry from homeless centers to Yale University, had three children and a few husbands…but poetry is the gift that keeps giving.  The muse is unpredictable --  a feisty black woman who visits all you can eat restaurants and stuffs food in her pocket book.  But she shows up with a bottle of Merlot, strange tea, incense, and it’s always worth the wait.