“Don’t use swear words in public. // Do use swear words to express yourself; / you write so damn much,” – Maya Williams, “Contradictions Of My Mother”

“You always told me it takes time…How much time do you want for your ‘progress’?” – James Baldwin, interviewed

“I used to cry in a genre no one read. What a joke, they said, on fire. There’s no money in it, son, they shouted, smoke from their mouths.” – Ocean Vuong, “Nothing”

“It’s true I’m all talk & a French tuck / but so what. Like the wind, I ride” – Ocean Vuong, “The Last Prom Queen In Antarctica”

“Living on the left bank he listened to boatman songs / rice crops transported upstream migrating birds far and few” – Dong Li, “Live, By Lightning”

“It’s not hard to grow / when you know that you just don’t know” – Damien Rice, “Cannonball”

“Looking through the letters / I can see / into the earth / below, the blue blur / of bones.” – Ocean Vuong, “Logophobia”

“We should be learning from our history” – Before Today, “The Process of Losing and Gaining”

“She choreographed our advance out of the west, / camouflaged in North Face jackets // and New Balance sneakers. Papa hushed” – Jaswinder Bolina, “House Hunters”

“Nobody likes you when you’re 23” – Blink 182