Hard Times Require Furious Dancing - Alice Walker

Preface

I am the youngest of eight siblings. Five of us have died. I share losses, health concerns, and other challenges common to the human condition, especially in these times of war, poverty, environmental devastation, and greed that are quite beyond the most creative imagination. Sometimes it all feels a bit too much to bear. Once a person of periodic deep depressions, a sign of mental suffering in my family that affected each sibling differently, I have matured into someone I never dreamed I would become: an unbridled optimist who sees the glass as always full of something. It may be half full of water, precious in itself, but in the other half there’s a rainbow that could exist only in the vacant space.
I have learned to dance.

Alice Walker

Poet, novelist, and activist Alice Walker discusses her new poetry collection "Hard Times Require Furious Dancing" and shares her thoughts on writing. Host Michel Martin speaks with the Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Listen or read it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130699176