SOURCE: "Interview with Dennis Brutus," in Palaver: Interviews with Five African Writers in Texas, Bernth Lindfors, Ian Munro, Richard Priebe, Reinhard Sander (eds.), The University of Texas at Austin, 1972, pp. 25-36.

In the following excerpt, Brutus speaks to an African literature class about the personal experiences and literary influences that shape his poetry

I'm glad to be here, and it seems to me the most useful thing I can do is to spend most of the time answering questions on the things that interest you. I ought to warn you that I don't know all the answers, and when it comes to poetry, even my own, I don't always give the same answer to the same question. This may sound odd, but I believe one tends to look at the same thing at different times in different ways. I think only dead people don't change, and even they...