I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.

In this image of “hurl[ing] words into…darkness,” Wright frames writing as an act of existential risk and social intervention: language is thrown out without assurance of reception, and meaning depends on whether any answering “echo” returns. The “darkness” suggests both personal isolation and the broader silencing forces surrounding Black life and dissent in Wright’s America. If even a faint response is heard, the writer’s task becomes iterative and collective—sending “other words” that do not merely describe but “tell, …march, …fight,” turning literature into a catalyst for action. The closing “hunger for life” casts art as a way to awaken desire, agency, and solidarity against numbness and despair.