on writing--Amiri Baraka

This guy writes poems to save his life. Jesse Bernstein was the same way.  He wrote with courage I cannot imagine having.  I asked Jesse one time if he ever worried that his drug use or mental illness would interfere with his writing.  His response was "I always write.  If I wake up in jail, I write.  If I wake up in the hospital, I write.  No matter what else I do, I write."

And they say their scary true thoughts.

When I was focused on my poetry, I worried every day that something would stop me.  As it turned out fear stopped me.  I don't know how to say the true things.