Mother, Father,
so young, so hot, so jazzy,
so like Zelda and Scott
with drinks and cigarettes and turbans
and designer slacks and frizzy permanents....
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
Occasionally the devil has crawled
in and out of me,
through my cigarettes I suppose,
my passionate habit.
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
I know black women in Tennessee who have worked all their lives, from the time they were twelve years old to the day they died. These women don’t listen to the women’s liberation rhetoric because they know that it’s nothing but a bunch of white women who had certain life-styles and who want to change those life-styles. They say things like they don’t want men opening doors for them anymore, and they don’t want men lighting their cigarettes for them anymore. Big deal. Black women have been opening doors for themselves and lighting their own cigarettes for a couple centuries in this country. Black women don’t quibble about things that are not important.
—Wilma Rudolph (1940–1994)