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more by visiting Fetzer .org. It

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feels good and right this

0:24

week to sit with the beloved

0:27

writer, Nikki Giovanni's signature mix

0:29

of high seriousness, sweeping perspective and insistent

0:31

pleasure. She was a She was

0:33

a poet of the black arts

0:35

movement that nourished civil rights. rights.

0:37

She's a professor at Virginia

0:39

Tech where she brought beauty

0:41

and courage after the 2007

0:43

shooting there. there. and an adored

0:46

voice to a new generation, an

0:48

enthusiastic elder to us all, us

0:50

at home in her body and

0:52

in in the world of her

0:54

lifetime, even while she sees and

0:56

delights in the beyond of

0:58

it. of it. You're always doing

1:00

the best that you can.

1:02

And you're always always

1:05

whatever ingredients you are given making

1:07

whatever it is that you can

1:09

make And so being a black a and I don't

1:11

I to mean to bring in like

1:13

that, but being a black American

1:15

I'm used to taking little bits

1:17

of this than the other this grandmother

1:19

My not waste waste. was nothing that

1:21

came into her kitchen that she

1:23

didn't find a use for and

1:26

I feel the same way with

1:28

experience and with words and as

1:30

I have grown older, I

1:32

refuse to let who I

1:34

was at who I was at 25 inform or

1:36

make me be who somebody else

1:38

thinks. I should be at be at 72.

1:40

I'm Krista Tippett and this

1:42

is on Being. Nikki

1:50

Giovanni has received numerous awards

1:52

for her books of poetry her

1:55

her works for children. a

1:57

She's a distinguished professor in the

1:59

English department. at Tech,

2:01

where she's taught since 1987. I

2:03

spoke with her in 2016. One

2:05

of the most striking things that

2:07

just jumped out at me all

2:09

the way through your writing and

2:11

writing about you and all the

2:13

way to the latest volume of

2:15

poetry you've published in 2013 is

2:17

how from the very beginning you

2:19

were held and cherished and taught

2:21

by courageous loving women. Your mother,

2:23

your first name is Yolanda, right?

2:25

So you can name it. Yeah,

2:27

it used to be, when mommy

2:29

passed, I had it legally changed

2:31

to Nikki, just because that's what

2:33

everybody knows me. I would have

2:35

never done it when mommy was

2:38

here. I wouldn't want her to

2:40

think I didn't want to carry

2:42

her name. I'm Yolanda Jr. So

2:44

how old were you when you

2:46

changed your name legally then? Mommy's

2:48

been dead 10 years, so I

2:50

was 62, something like that. 63

2:52

years old. And how do you

2:54

say your grandmother's name? Livania? Livania?

2:56

Livinia? Livinia. But everybody actually calls

2:58

her Emma Lou. Okay. Emma Livinia

3:00

Watson. Right. Also that you were

3:02

all, it sounds like foodies before

3:04

the name, the word had been

3:06

invented. Oh, definitely. Grandmother was a

3:08

foodie and grandmother's friends were foodie.

3:10

And of course, I ended up

3:12

living with grandmother, not ended up,

3:14

but was fortunate to live with

3:16

grandmother. So mommy was a good

3:18

cook because she was grandmother's daughter

3:20

and my aunt Anne was a

3:22

good cook. Living with grandmother, I

3:25

learned all of their tricks, you

3:27

know. My favorite was of course

3:29

her greens. And I'm still, still,

3:31

still working on that. Because working,

3:33

making greens is one of life's

3:35

difficulties. You know, it looks like

3:37

you just clean them and stuff.

3:39

Well, mommy, grandmother too, you pull

3:41

the stems, then you tie the

3:43

stems, and you put the leaves

3:45

in, and you use the stems

3:47

to flavor. And then you pull

3:49

it out. And so she was

3:51

very good at that, but the

3:53

other thing I was laughing, and

3:55

I'm laughing about this, you didn't

3:57

asked me about this, but in

3:59

green. Day, you know,

4:01

you used to go to the market

4:04

and you bought a live chicken. Actually,

4:06

Grandpapa did the marketing and he would

4:08

bring it home and they'd put it

4:10

in the backyard. And then grandmother would

4:13

go out Saturday morning and ring its

4:15

neck. Yeah, yeah. But you know, you

4:17

learn to. You learned to do that

4:19

and I guess I have learned too.

4:22

It's something that I'm dealing with on

4:24

another kind of level. But for something

4:26

to live, something else usually dies. There's

4:29

a transition. It's not something I would

4:31

have been able even to say to

4:33

you at even 50 years ago, my

4:35

20s I wouldn't have. It's really, it's

4:38

been interesting. Mm-hmm. You were born in

4:40

1943, is that right? Yes. And you,

4:42

so you grew up in, I like

4:44

this, you talk a lot about what

4:47

we call the 60s, what is called

4:49

the 60s, which you really date from

4:51

about 1954 to 1968, which was such

4:53

a dramatic moment. I mean, a lot

4:56

of transition. I mean, you've just been

4:58

using that word. One question I ask

5:00

people, whoever I'm talking to is, you

5:03

know, how would you describe the religious

5:05

and spiritual background of your childhood? And

5:07

I wonder how you would start to

5:09

talk about that, and I really mean

5:12

the fullness of that, you know, that

5:14

your family, but also that world you

5:16

came into. First of

5:18

all, I grew up, of course,

5:20

Baptist, because grandmother was a Baptist, Mount

5:23

Zion Baptist Church. But when Mommy

5:25

married, my father married, we called

5:27

him Gus, we called Daddy Gus.

5:29

When Mommy married Gus, they moved

5:31

to Cincinnati because he couldn't get a

5:33

job. He was a college graduate

5:35

and he couldn't get a job in

5:37

Knoxville. And so they moved to Cincinnati

5:40

where he could get a job.

5:42

And Mommy joined the AME Church. But

5:44

if we're just gonna just kind of

5:46

breeze on religion getting into anybody's

5:48

business, you know, I recently have been

5:51

fascinated with why it is that

5:53

we don't actually look into the manger

5:55

moor. We always look at the cross.

5:57

And I think that one of

5:59

the with the manger is

6:02

that we have to give Mary credit

6:04

for bringing God to Earth. And the

6:06

book that I'm working on right now

6:09

actually is called A Good Cry. And

6:11

it's just because I realize women keep

6:13

a lot of things in them. I

6:15

do know this for Mary and I'm

6:18

giving Mary credit having a baby hurts.

6:20

I don't care who it is or

6:22

where it came from having a baby

6:25

hurts. So I want to give Mary

6:27

her props. And I also want to

6:29

deal with the fact that as we

6:32

are giving this birth a part of

6:34

what the Christian religion is supposed to

6:36

do is give birth to a new

6:38

human being. You ask one kind of

6:41

question I don't know if I'm answering

6:43

it strangely. No, that's great. I think

6:45

this question lands wherever in us it

6:48

wants to be given voice. I mean,

6:50

you also once said you always think

6:52

it must have been a woman who

6:55

developed the spiritual... Oh, gosh, yeah. When

6:57

we look at slavery, which actually slavery

6:59

is only going to be the end

7:01

result, we have to look at the

7:04

kidnapping in Africa, we have to look

7:06

at no matter what the country, we

7:08

have to look at the fact that

7:11

somebody sold. and somebody purchased, and that

7:13

just cannot be denied. We were upset,

7:15

of course, with the Europeans because we

7:18

said, oh, they created slavery. They might

7:20

have, but they didn't create the buying

7:22

and selling of human beings. That had

7:24

been going on for quite some time

7:27

all over. So we had the people

7:29

coming across that ocean, not knowing where

7:31

they were going to go back. to

7:34

where they used to be. So somehow

7:36

or another they had to make a

7:38

decision, how do we go forward? But

7:41

it had to be a woman because

7:43

we're back to the manger, we're back

7:45

to Mary, we're back to that's what

7:47

women do. It had to be a

7:50

woman who said, I need to settle

7:52

my people down. And when you consider

7:54

that there were a lot of languages

7:57

going to be. So

8:00

when we get to what is

8:02

going to ultimately become the United

8:04

States, these people had created a

8:06

way to speak to themselves, to

8:08

each other, through the language through

8:10

spirituals. Yeah. So

8:12

when you were 25, you wrote, I'm 25

8:14

years old, a revolutionary poet, I love. I

8:16

don't want to ask you about the I

8:18

love tacked on at the end of the

8:20

sentence, but I also want to ask you

8:22

about what you meant at 25 when you

8:24

said you were a revolutionary poet and how

8:26

you look at that now as Nikki Giovanni,

8:28

quite a few years later. I think 25

8:30

was good, but I always thought 25 was

8:32

one fourth of my life and I felt

8:35

the same way at 50. I don't feel

8:37

the same way at 75. I'm not sure

8:39

that I'll make 75. But I always felt

8:41

like, okay, this is a fourth of my

8:43

life. What am I doing and what am

8:45

I trying to do? Well, a part of

8:47

what I'm doing is articulating. I would be,

8:49

if I would be unfortunate enough, if I

8:51

can say it like that, to be on

8:53

that ship, I would be the person who

8:55

started the song. Because somebody has to raise

8:57

a voice, somebody has to raise, I don't

8:59

know what the word is, it's not just

9:01

courage, but the foresight or something to say,

9:03

we have to talk. And this is how

9:05

we go on to... Or the soul of

9:07

a poet, maybe somebody has to have the

9:09

soul of a poet? Sure. That works for

9:11

me. I mean, that song had to come

9:13

from some place. And I would like to

9:15

think that if I were on that ship,

9:17

I would raise that song. But since I'm

9:19

not, I'm at 25, I'm at a turning

9:21

point in America. And we had to raise

9:23

our voice to say, it is now time.

9:25

you know, middle passage is over, this is

9:28

segregation, it's time that we moved into a

9:30

new world, a new generation. And of course

9:32

I had the great pleasure ultimately of knowing

9:34

Mrs. Parks, but it was so... There was

9:36

a parks. Yes, it was so important that

9:38

somebody... up. I didn't I

9:40

didn't know Thurgood Marshall.

9:42

I have been wonderful have had

9:44

a glass of wine

9:46

with Thurgood. wine with Thurgood. Oh

9:48

goodness, what a brilliant,

9:50

brilliant man. brilliant came

9:52

up came up. at a time

9:54

that I thought I

9:56

could be of some

9:58

use, that my voice

10:00

could be of some

10:02

use. I'm not strong,

10:04

I'm not fast, I

10:06

don't have any I'm

10:08

I'm not that pretty, you

10:10

you know. all So

10:12

all of the things

10:14

that one normally thinks

10:16

about women and what

10:18

they should do, I

10:21

really don't do it,

10:23

but I am smart. I

10:25

am smart. I have to

10:27

do to do use my

10:29

smart to be of

10:31

some service to human

10:33

beings. I'm

10:39

Krista Tippett and this is on Being.

10:41

and this is with

10:44

the today with the

10:46

poet Niki Giovanni. You

10:58

know, I'm curious about, and this

11:00

this is a huge question,

11:02

but I'm so curious about

11:04

what you might share about

11:06

how you're inhabiting this moment

11:08

now. now, and a grandmother of

11:11

a young woman who's going

11:13

to be growing up in

11:15

this world and of an

11:17

adult son. an adult son, also

11:19

been watching, been watching you know, on YouTube,

11:21

these interviews that a lot

11:23

of great of great young black hip-hop people

11:25

and people and actors and

11:27

entertainers do with you. And

11:29

the like look up up to you.

11:31

I'm And so I'm curious

11:34

about the conversation you're having

11:36

inside yourself also with your

11:38

friends and across generations about

11:40

what you live through and and

11:42

in in the in and

11:44

50 years later. 50 years later. So where,

11:46

know, you make sense of

11:48

now or critique now or worry

11:51

or be proud

11:53

or hopeful about where

11:55

we are now? now.

11:57

I actually think of actually

12:00

think of myself as

12:02

the quintessential existentialist. So

12:04

I live now and one of my

12:06

either great strengths or great faults I

12:08

haven't figured out and I probably won't

12:11

is that I don't go back. I

12:13

don't reread poetry like that. I don't

12:15

rethink myself. I just try to bring

12:17

the best that I have today. incredibly

12:19

thrilled that the youngsters, I have a

12:22

thug life tattoo on my arm. And

12:24

when I get a minute, I'm going

12:26

to put another, I said I was

12:28

only going to have one tattoo, but

12:30

I'm going to put another tattoo as

12:33

soon as I come back actually from

12:35

vacation. And it's going to say Hokies

12:37

don't hate, because I think that that

12:39

was important. And Hokies is the, what's

12:42

the, Virginia Tech, kind of, I don't

12:44

know, what do you say, their nickname?

12:46

the situation in Paris, you know, people

12:48

were picking on the Muslims and the

12:50

community, the Virginia Tech community, had a

12:53

big rally on the drill field and

12:55

they gave out bands. I don't have

12:57

an on right now, but the band

12:59

said, Hokies don't hate. And I thought,

13:01

yeah. next to Thug Life, that's the

13:04

next statement that I think it's important

13:06

to make. Hokies don't hate, we don't

13:08

hate. I'm, as I say, I am

13:10

incredibly thrilled that the youngsters look at

13:12

my work and look at some of

13:15

the things that I've done and they

13:17

found some good in it. I like

13:19

to think, you know, essentially I'm fertilizer

13:21

and so they're growing something. I don't

13:23

meddle. I really don't, and I get

13:26

asked, you know, I'm 72, so I

13:28

get asked, well, what do you think

13:30

the kids should do today? And I

13:32

don't know what the kids should do

13:35

today. They know what they should do

13:37

today. I like, you know, Black Lives

13:39

Matter, I think that that's important. I

13:41

have the button, I can't breathe, I

13:43

think that that's important, but they don't

13:46

need me to tell them what to

13:48

do. They're perfectly capable, and I think

13:50

they're doing an incredibly good job. And

13:52

one of the great thrills of my

13:54

life is I'm a space freak, I'm

13:57

an apple. I was born in Knoxville,

13:59

Tennessee, grew up in Cincinnati, and I'm

14:01

now here. I was in New York

14:03

for, you know, 20 years or so,

14:05

but I am now here in Roanoke,

14:08

Virginia. So I spent most of my

14:10

life in Appalachia. We are used to

14:12

the quiet, and we are used to

14:14

looking at the star, in my opinion,

14:16

looking at the stars dreaming. And if

14:19

we're going to really go into space,

14:21

we really more black people involved. and

14:23

we need wine. And we have to

14:25

find a way to deal with the

14:27

wine. And if we can do that,

14:30

then you can spend 500 days going

14:32

up to Mars. And you can be

14:34

saying when you get there. You see

14:36

what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. So

14:39

at the very beginning of your book,

14:41

of the Chasing Utopia book, you just

14:43

tell this quick story about interviewing Mae

14:45

Jemison, who was the first black woman

14:47

to go into space. And that's such

14:50

a great story. You asked her how

14:52

did she avoid getting bored? Mm-hmm. And

14:54

when she said, I pay attention, or

14:56

what did she say, boredom, I can't

14:58

remember, what would you, do you remember?

15:01

I'm not looking at in front of

15:03

me. But Mae Jemison's a great kid.

15:05

I called Essence magazine, and I've been

15:07

knowing essence forever. I remember when they

15:09

started, Mae Jemison was going into space.

15:12

I called Essence, and I said, listen,

15:14

this is, I want you to understand

15:16

so that there'll be no misunderstanding. And

15:18

I said, OK, Nikki, you can do

15:20

it. And I was so pleased. And

15:23

May did that. She paid attention. But

15:25

May did not have 500 days. And

15:27

we might get it down to 400.

15:29

But that's a little over a year

15:32

to sit on a spaceship. And you

15:34

know, you're not going to have any

15:36

sex. You know, I mean, the things

15:38

that you wouldn't normally do within a

15:40

year. You're not going to have it.

15:43

And so what we have to do

15:45

is find a way. and find the

15:47

people who are used to being within

15:49

themselves. You also connect these things to

15:51

your aspiration and imagination about the black

15:54

connection to the future of planet Earth.

15:56

it goes back to middle me interrupt

15:58

you from it. It goes back to

16:00

middle passage. Because if you can survive

16:02

that journey from west coast of Africa

16:05

to the east coast of the United

16:07

States and be sane when you get

16:09

here. And that's what we haven't looked

16:11

at. And so again, a part of

16:13

my research that I'm trying to do

16:16

now, and hopefully I'll live long enough

16:18

to get. more done than I've been

16:20

doing, though I'm working on it. A

16:22

part of my research is that we

16:24

have not dealt with the fact that

16:27

they were saying when they got here.

16:29

I just wrote a poem and I

16:31

said, one of the lines and the

16:33

poem said, Pluto will one day be

16:36

another, will be a planet and we're

16:38

going to send black kids up there

16:40

to learn how to ski. And I

16:42

love it. We have got to quit

16:44

dealing now. Race was a bad idea

16:47

200 years ago, 300 years ago. It's

16:49

a ridiculous idea. And it's a ridiculous

16:51

idea today. We're on the third planet

16:53

from Yellow Sun. We have got to

16:55

come together to see. And how do

16:58

we make sense out of this? And

17:00

how do we find a way to

17:02

bring the sanity into this? How do

17:04

we find a way to make the

17:06

best of us? We're

17:15

going to Mars because whatever is

17:17

wrong with us will not get

17:19

right with us. So we journey

17:21

forth carrying the same baggage. But

17:23

every now and then leaving one

17:25

little bitty thing behind. One day

17:27

looking for prejudice to slip, one

17:30

day looking for hatred to tumble

17:32

by the wayside. Maybe one day

17:34

the Jewish community will be at

17:36

rest. The Christian community will be

17:38

content. The Muslim community will be

17:40

at peace. And all the rest

17:42

of us will get great meals

17:44

at holy days and learn new

17:47

songs and sing and sing and

17:49

harmony. We're going to Mars because

17:51

it gives us a reason to

17:53

change. I was as I was

17:55

reading, you're passionate about space. There's

17:57

a space freak, as you say.

17:59

Have you ever heard of this

18:01

language of the overview effect? It's

18:04

actually a documented effect of something

18:06

that happens to astronauts, people who've

18:08

been in space, that they get

18:10

this sense of perspective that is

18:12

kind of life altering, that changes

18:14

the way they then come back

18:16

to culture. Have you ever heard

18:18

of that? No, I didn't. I

18:21

mean, here's one way somebody described

18:23

it. It says, it refers to

18:25

the experience of seeing firsthand the

18:27

reality of the Earth in space,

18:29

which is immediately understood to be

18:31

a tiny fragile ball of life,

18:33

hanging in a void, shielded and

18:35

nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere. From

18:38

space, national boundaries vanish, the conflicts

18:40

that divide people become less important,

18:42

and the need to create a

18:44

planetary society with the united will

18:46

to protect this pale blue dot

18:48

becomes both obvious and imperative. I

18:50

don't know if that's what you're

18:52

talking about, but that's... Yes. Is

18:55

it? And said much better, but

18:57

that is exactly. Can you imagine

18:59

when we have people doing sort

19:01

of a normal... Oh, what are

19:03

you going to do next weekend,

19:05

John? Well, you know, Mary and

19:07

I were thinking, you know, we

19:09

just run up to the space

19:12

station and have a glass of

19:14

champagne and we'll be back. Can

19:16

you imagine sex in space? I

19:19

have to confess I've never thought

19:21

about it before. All right. I'm

19:23

sorry I didn't mean to embarrass

19:25

you. No, no you didn't. I

19:27

just I think we have to

19:29

return to Earth here for a

19:32

little while in this conversation though.

19:34

I mean You know, we were

19:36

talking about the spirituals before and

19:38

that kind of led into this,

19:40

the question of how people stay

19:42

sane and not just sane, but

19:45

bring beauty into the world and

19:47

the spirituals has such an incredible

19:49

demonstration of that. Oh yeah. I

19:51

mean, you also mentioned Virginia Tech

19:53

and I just, I want to

19:55

come back to that terrible massacre

19:57

in 2007 and you did deliver

20:00

a poem that to me, when

20:02

I read it and hear it

20:04

again, the spirit of the spirituals

20:06

is in it, which is about

20:08

facing reality head-on, and including those

20:10

spirituals were called sorrow songs, right?

20:13

And you said, we are Virginia

20:15

Tech, we are sad today, and

20:17

we will be sad for quite

20:19

a while. We are not moving

20:21

on, we are embracing our morning,

20:23

we are Virginia Tech, we are

20:26

strong enough to stand tall tearlessly,

20:28

we are brave enough to bend

20:30

to cry, and we are sad

20:32

enough to know that we must

20:34

laugh again. When

20:36

Sandy Smith is the president's, Dr.

20:38

Stieger's assistant, called me and you

20:41

know everybody, I knew Mr. Cho,

20:43

I knew the murderer and I

20:45

knew some of the students who

20:47

were killed. I know that Mr.

20:49

Cho, I had kicked him out

20:51

of my class and that's a

20:54

longer story. people said, you know,

20:56

was he after you, but I'm

20:58

never on campus on Monday. So

21:00

I knew Mr. Cho wasn't looking

21:02

for me. He was doing something

21:04

else. And so when Sandy Smith

21:07

called me, she said, Nikki, we

21:09

need you to anchor complication, I

21:11

knew that I was incredibly sad.

21:13

Actually, I'm tearing up right now

21:15

and I apologize. Anybody that knows

21:17

me knows that, you know, I'm

21:19

pretty good on my feet. But

21:22

I knew that I couldn't walk

21:24

into an auditorium as sad as

21:26

I was. I just didn't want

21:28

to trust myself to do the

21:30

right thing. So I just sat

21:32

down and wrote what was important.

21:35

And what was important to me

21:37

was that we are Virginia Tech,

21:39

not what happened. We are Virginia

21:41

Tech. We are sad today and

21:43

we will be sad for quite

21:45

a while. We are not moving

21:48

on. We are embracing our morning.

21:50

We are Virginia Tech. We are

21:52

strong enough to stand tall tearlessly.

21:54

We are brave enough to bend

21:56

to cry. sad enough to know,

21:58

we must laugh again. We are

22:01

Virginia Tech. We do not understand

22:03

this tragedy. We know we did

22:05

nothing to deserve it. But neither

22:07

does a child in Africa dying

22:09

of AIDS. Neither do the invisible

22:11

children walking the night away to

22:13

avoid being captured by a rogue

22:16

army. Neither does the baby elephant

22:18

watching his community be devastated for

22:20

ivory, neither does the Mexican child

22:22

looking for fresh water, neither does

22:24

the Appalachian infant killed in the

22:26

middle of the night in his

22:29

crib, in the home his father

22:31

built with his own hands, being

22:33

run over by a boulder because

22:35

the land was destabilized. No one

22:37

deserves a tragedy. We are Virginia

22:39

Tech. The Hokie Nation embraces our

22:42

own and reaches out with open

22:44

heart and hands to those who

22:46

offer their hearts and minds. We

22:48

are strong and brave and innocent

22:50

and unafraid. We are better than

22:52

we think and not quite what

22:55

we want to be. We are

22:57

alive to the imagination and the

22:59

possibility we will continue to invent

23:01

the future through our blood and

23:03

tears, through all this sadness. We

23:05

are the Hokies. We will prevail.

23:07

We will prevail. We are Virginia

23:10

Ten. And

23:15

it was an incredible poem and also

23:17

what was so striking to me and

23:19

telling really about what you do and

23:22

about who we are as human beings

23:24

is you know there was just the

23:26

incredible applause and then whoever stood up

23:28

next and I don't know if it

23:30

was the president said boy did we

23:33

need that. I

23:35

don't remember. I was just glad that

23:37

I was able to do that. Yeah,

23:39

and if you think about poetry and

23:42

the place of poetry in human life

23:44

and also in common life and how

23:46

it's something we forget, but it kind

23:49

of resurfaces again and again, and I

23:51

felt like that moment after that terrible

23:53

tragedy at Virginia Tech, and you used

23:56

as a poet, you know, saying we

23:58

will prevail, there was this authority of

24:00

that form of language. wonder how surprised

24:02

you might have been at that 25-year-old

24:05

revolutionary poet. There are moments when we

24:07

honor poetry and poets and understand how

24:09

necessary it is. You know, even now,

24:12

to be honest, and I say this

24:14

to my students, I don't, my students

24:16

are too young to understand that you

24:19

don't plan your life. The life of

24:21

a poet is not planned. You're just

24:23

always doing, well, we're back to cooking.

24:26

You're always doing the best that you

24:28

can do. and you're always taking whatever

24:30

ingredients you are given and making whatever

24:33

it is that you can make. Never

24:35

making sense. And so being a black

24:37

American, and I don't mean to bring

24:40

race in like that, but being a

24:42

black American, I'm used to taking little

24:44

bits of this than the other. My

24:47

grandmother did not waste. There was nothing

24:49

that came into her kitchen. that she

24:51

didn't find a use for. And I

24:53

feel the same way with experience and

24:56

with words. And as I have grown

24:58

older, I refuse to let who I

25:00

was at 25 inform or make me

25:03

be who somebody else thinks I should

25:05

be at 72. And I think that

25:07

this is what... maybe the young rappers.

25:10

Jill Scott called me the other day

25:12

and it was really just such a

25:14

pleasure to talk to that young lady.

25:17

But what I was at Jill's age,

25:19

I'm not now. I'm learning something. I'm

25:21

looking again at slavery and I'm going

25:24

to look at it very differently because

25:26

I've learned so much. I'm not a

25:28

novelist and I have good friends who

25:31

are novelists and I'm always laughing at

25:33

you novelists, you know. You sit down

25:35

and you say, this is what I'm

25:38

going to write because this was a

25:40

bestseller. But we don't do that. Poets

25:42

don't have bestseller. I've had a couple,

25:44

but it's been an accident. Nobody knows

25:47

why. But poetry is not on that

25:49

level. So we're always trying to just

25:51

tell the truth as we understand it.

25:54

And I want my students to understand

25:56

that. You have a voice. Use it.

25:58

Never let anybody take your voice. from

26:01

you. That's what's important. And don't waste

26:03

a way back to that. Don't waste

26:05

what you know. You'd be surprised at

26:08

how many people actually waste what they

26:10

know, not to mention, waste what they

26:12

feel. Would you say a little bit

26:15

more about what your reflections that you

26:17

had in that conversation about how you're

26:19

thinking about slavery now in ways that

26:22

you didn't think about it before? Well,

26:24

we all know, let me approach you

26:27

this way, if you don't mind. We

26:29

all know Rosa Parks, and we all

26:31

know Mrs. Parks refused to give up.

26:33

Mr. Blake said to her, I want

26:35

you all to give up this seat.

26:37

It was four of them sitting there.

26:39

And Mrs. Parks, who was sitting on

26:41

the aisle, and there was a man

26:43

on the window and two people across,

26:46

Mrs. Park said no. She got up

26:48

to let the man on the window

26:50

out and she sat back down. What

26:52

I asked my students. And what I'm

26:54

sharing with you is what did the

26:56

white man who was standing there think

26:58

when he saw this woman standing up

27:00

by sitting down for herself? Who was

27:02

he? We've never looked at who is

27:05

he? And what? What were his thoughts?

27:07

And so when you say, as I

27:09

look into slavery, well we know that

27:11

there were victims in slavery, I don't

27:13

have any problem with that, but we

27:15

also know that something good came out

27:17

of slavery because we in black America

27:19

became Americans. Because we, you know, no

27:21

matter what Marcus Garvey or any of

27:23

the rest say, there is no back

27:26

to. This is it for us because

27:28

we have no place to go back.

27:30

I'm, what, a fifth generation American, something

27:32

like that, if I'd have to do

27:34

the math, but there's no place to

27:36

go back. So it's not unusual for

27:38

somebody like me to be in love

27:40

with something like Mars, because all my

27:42

people have ever done is go forward,

27:45

and we go forward with a sanity

27:47

and a love. And I think that

27:49

that's so important, that planet Earth, tap

27:51

in to that, quit playing these little

27:53

stupid race games, and find out what

27:55

it is that these people are bringing

27:57

to all of us as we go

27:59

forward. This

28:14

is a a point, no. It is

28:16

a celebration of the road we

28:18

have road we It is a

28:20

prayer for the a yet to

28:22

come. This is an explosion. This is

28:25

The original big bang that

28:27

makes the world a hopeful, loving

28:29

place. This loving place. This is the all

28:31

our trouble and glory our all

28:33

our past history and future

28:36

forbearance and all that ever made

28:38

love a possibility. This is

28:40

about us giving pride, us. giving

28:42

sucker, pride, giving voice, giving encouragement,

28:44

giving whatever we can give. can give.

28:47

This is about us us ourselves

28:49

and a well -deserved honor it

28:51

is. Light the candles. This

28:53

is a rocket. Let's

28:55

ride. it is. Light

28:58

the candles, this is a

29:00

rocket. Let's ride. After a

29:02

short break, more a

29:05

short break,

29:07

more with Niki

29:09

Giovanni. I'm

29:23

Krista and this is on

29:25

this is on This week week,

29:27

beloved writer, writer, a vowed freak

29:29

and enthusiastic elder, Niki

29:31

Giovanni. we're We're soaking up her

29:33

signature mix of high seriousness, sweeping

29:35

perspective and insistent pleasure. How How

29:38

she's able to be at home

29:40

in her body body in the

29:42

world of her lifetime while

29:44

also seeing and and in the

29:46

beyond of it. beyond I interviewed

29:48

her in 2016. 2016. You

29:51

know, one thing that just runs all the

29:53

way through a picture, getting a picture of your

29:55

life is that you've been loved well. You were

29:58

loved well in the beginning and and you've well. well.

30:00

these famous lines from some of

30:02

your early poetry that black love

30:05

is black wealth and they'll probably

30:07

talk about my hard childhood and

30:09

never understand that all the while

30:11

I was quite happy. I mean

30:13

you just use the word love.

30:15

Does that word figure in as

30:18

you think about a vision for

30:20

us as human beings, you know,

30:22

in terms of race and beyond

30:24

race and this world that you'd

30:26

like to see us be creating?

30:29

Well, you know, love is important. I

30:31

think my father was an idiot. And

30:33

more than I don't think that. My

30:36

father was an idiot. And he was

30:38

abusive, right? He was. Yeah, he was.

30:40

And I don't know what. I couldn't

30:42

begin to tell you what made me

30:44

understand that whatever was going on with

30:46

Gus had nothing to do with how

30:48

mommy felt about me and felt about

30:50

Gary. Gus was crazy, but he loved

30:53

us. So I think it's Tony Morrison

30:55

that said love is no better than

30:57

the lover. Crazy people love crazy. And

30:59

I think she's absolutely right. And I

31:01

don't know what let me separate so

31:03

that I didn't learn to dislike him.

31:05

I just didn't let that which does

31:07

not suit me determine who I am.

31:10

And I feel the same way. And

31:12

I think that we're looking at young

31:14

black. youngsters and young white youngsters today.

31:16

I said that to my students because

31:18

I have white youngsters. They didn't create

31:20

slavery. So there's no reason for them

31:22

to feel guilty about it. What we

31:24

all need to do is decide how

31:27

we want to go forward. And I'm

31:29

making sense from this. I'm going to

31:31

be sorry when I retire. because I

31:33

like the freshness that they bring and

31:35

the other word would be, I like

31:37

the love that we have, my eight

31:39

o'clock class, they come to me from

31:41

their dreams and I come to them

31:44

from mine. And I would give up

31:46

a lot of things in terms of

31:48

teaching. I really don't want to give

31:50

up my eight o'clock because I like

31:52

the freshness that they bring and the

31:54

other word would be, I like the

31:56

love that we have for each other

31:58

as we come into that class. I

32:01

think you have to make up your

32:03

mind what you're going to love. And

32:05

the other day I had the pleasure,

32:07

the absolute pleasure of having okra made

32:09

with chicken feet. And I hadn't had

32:11

chicken feet since, oh, since I lived

32:13

with grandmother, she's been dead a long

32:15

time. I just couldn't believe it. I

32:18

just sat there. I wanted to lick

32:20

the bowl. It was so good. I

32:22

don't know if you've ever had ochre

32:24

with, I don't know if you've ever

32:26

had chicken feet because nobody does it.

32:28

I'm not sure, I've had chicken feet.

32:30

I haven't had ochre with, I do

32:32

love ochre, but I haven't had it

32:35

with chicken feet. Oh my, well. It's

32:37

so wonderful. Is that where your mind

32:39

and heart go when you're thinking about

32:41

love, it ends up with food? Is

32:43

that? Yeah. If I had a choice

32:45

between food and sex between food and

32:47

sex between food. The

32:50

sex wasn't bad in some

32:53

cases, but the food was

32:55

always wonderful. So you're saying

32:57

love is a great thing,

32:59

and also it's not always

33:01

healthy, and so it's not

33:03

necessarily that useful to throw

33:05

it around as a word.

33:08

No, you can't just throw it around. I think

33:11

you have to make up your mind what you

33:13

love and what loves you. And I think that's

33:15

a two-way street. And I think you have to

33:17

be patient with your love. All love doesn't work.

33:20

We know that. Whether it's food, whether that's a

33:22

human being, whether that's a dog, whether that's the

33:24

garden you used to grow, I mean, whatever it

33:26

is. But outgrowing something or not needing it, doesn't

33:29

make you dislike it. It just means that. You've

33:31

learned that lesson. You have earned what it had

33:33

to offer you. You've done that and now you

33:35

move on. I'm not married, but I have friends

33:37

who are divorced and it was like, oh, it

33:40

was such a mistake. Well, it wasn't a mistake.

33:42

It was a lesson learned. You had 10 good

33:44

years and you have children and, you know, whatever,

33:46

the house or whatever. But everything is a lesson.

33:49

And so you have to find out what's the

33:51

lesson and how do I embrace this lesson? how

33:53

do I do I go

33:55

for it? have to watch out have

33:58

to watch out for

34:00

the bitterness. That's what you

34:02

don't want to be

34:04

bothered with. with. You

34:15

were gone like a fly lighting

34:17

on that wall with a spider in

34:19

the corner. You were gone. were Like

34:21

last week's paycheck for this week's

34:23

bills, you were gone. you Like the

34:25

years between 25 and 30, as if

34:27

if somehow never existed. And it

34:29

wouldn't be for the be for I'd

34:31

never know that you had come.

34:33

come. There's

34:49

another line I wrote down

34:51

from your talk with James

34:53

with James 1973. 1973. So one thing you

34:55

thing you said to him said,

34:57

one said one of the

34:59

nicest things we created as

35:02

a generation was just the

35:04

fact that we could say, we

35:06

could I don't like white

35:08

people. And then you said

35:10

it was the beginning, of

35:12

course, of of being able to

35:15

like them. like them. Yeah. Which is

35:17

Which is such an honest. That

35:19

sense. sense. Yeah. That That makes

35:21

total sense. Because once you

35:23

can articulate, once you can

35:26

get it out, then something

35:28

else can come back in. can

35:30

It makes total sense. total sense.

35:32

I don't know what else

35:34

to say say that. that. Well, and

35:36

it seemed helpful to me.

35:39

to me. I like we're in

35:41

this moment, moment, so much has much

35:43

has come to the surface

35:45

that obviously needed to come

35:47

to the surface, but we

35:49

still don't know quite what

35:52

to do with it. know quite

35:54

I feel like it. at this

35:56

point, you know, 50 years

35:58

on from on from the... that rights

36:00

movement of Dr. King and

36:02

all the people of that

36:05

era, the we think we're

36:07

supposed to know how to

36:09

do this. And we don't. how

36:11

to do we don't know how

36:13

to tell each other the

36:15

truth or tell ourselves the

36:18

truth. And so that statement

36:20

that you made, so that we

36:22

could say, hey, I don't

36:24

like white people. that so

36:26

refreshingly true and real. refreshingly true and

36:29

real. not even really a question. Well, the line you

36:31

were quoting Icky Rosa earlier, and I could push it

36:33

back from where you were, and the line was, and

36:35

I really hope no white person ever has cause to

36:37

write about me, because they never understand black love as

36:39

black wealth. and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood

36:42

and never understand that all the while I was quite

36:44

happy. And I think that what I'm trying to say,

36:46

you know, I don't want to second guess myself either,

36:48

but I think what was important to me is that

36:50

I don't want to be put into a box. We

36:52

need to stop that old-fashioned racism and get back into

36:55

where we as human beings are going. We really do.

36:57

Right. I mean, you also are on a college campus

36:59

a lot. Do you think there's, isn't there something healthy

37:01

right now about the fact that there's truth being told

37:03

and these things that happen are, they're being reckoned with,

37:05

I mean, imperfectly, but that has changed. Do you see

37:08

that too, or do you have a different way? I'm

37:10

not sure what you mean when you say truth being

37:12

told. Well, that, you wrote in 1988, you wrote in

37:14

1988, you know. People get shot and it's not, there's

37:16

no outcry, there's, there are no marches, there are no

37:19

sanctions. And now there are pictures and there's an outcry

37:21

and there's sanctions and we're not quite sure what to

37:23

do with it. But these things aren't invisible anymore. I

37:27

just wrote a, and I'm struggling with

37:29

it by the way, because it's on

37:31

a deadline. It happens even when a

37:33

few poems are on a deadline. And

37:35

I'm trying to make it, but the

37:38

third line in the poem says, you

37:40

know, we cannot be unraped. And I

37:42

was interested because, you know, we've had

37:44

a lot of, you know, campus rape

37:46

and then we find out that some

37:48

of it isn't quite accurate. But no

37:50

matter what it is, we cannot unrape.

37:53

And I'm not sure. I'm having this

37:55

argument with myself. I don't know where

37:57

this is going to go, by the

37:59

way. I'm not sure that justice can

38:01

come from any of that. Only thing

38:03

that can come from that is revenge.

38:05

And revenge is a bad idea. I

38:07

mean, the Greeks learned that 800 million

38:10

years ago. That justice can come from

38:12

any of what? That there is no

38:14

judge. If you right now came in

38:16

here and beat the living crap out

38:18

of me. There is no justice. I

38:20

had the living crap beaten out of

38:22

me. I can sue you. I can

38:25

get revenge. I can get revenge. but

38:27

I can't, there's no justice. And so

38:29

I'm beginning to wonder, should we change

38:31

this dialogue we have? And I'm sorry

38:33

to say it like that, I'm not

38:35

Nambi Pambi, but we're going to have

38:37

to find a way to talk to

38:39

each other. And I think that that's

38:42

what's important. So I'm probably not making

38:44

sense. No, you are making sense. I

38:46

mean, you said a minute ago. that

38:48

we need to work with where we're

38:50

going. And it strikes me, and I

38:52

think that's also what you're saying here,

38:54

that there's the anger and pain at

38:57

injustice, which is real, and there's also

38:59

this other work, if you say that

39:01

there's no justice, then there's this other

39:03

work of also creating the world we

39:05

want to live in, which may be

39:07

so imperfectly tied to writing those wrongs.

39:09

or just trying to learn to live

39:12

with the fact that some things we're

39:14

going to say you cannot do. And

39:16

then some things we're going to say,

39:18

but though you have done them, we

39:20

have to find a way to live

39:22

with them. And that doesn't mean we

39:24

reward you for what you've done, but

39:26

it also means that we need another

39:29

level of dialogue. I'm a big fan

39:31

of the Greeks for a lot of

39:33

reason, not because they have terrible wine,

39:35

as you know, but I'm a big

39:37

fan of the Greeks. But it would

39:39

have been fun to have lived at

39:41

the time that you could walk around

39:44

and talk to, you know, Socrates or,

39:46

you know, Aristotle or somebody and say,

39:48

you know, let's remake the world. My

39:50

students and I, because we talk about

39:52

everything, because we're writers. we were

39:54

we were talking about

39:56

how imbalance. I an

39:58

imbalance, I don't have

40:01

to tell you

40:03

that. There is a

40:05

terrible, terrible imbalance

40:07

in privileges. And one of my And one

40:09

of my students, a young man that, he

40:11

that, he you going to are you going to

40:13

do? And to said, do? I don't know what

40:15

I'm going to do. What I'm going

40:17

to do is tell you that it needs

40:20

to be changed, because it does. The The

40:22

economic system that we live on

40:24

needs to be changed. can't think of it think

40:26

of it, because I'm 72 and

40:28

I'm already stuck with what I am.

40:31

But the youngsters coming up are

40:33

going to find another way to handle

40:35

this. Childhood

40:45

remembrances are always a drag a you're if

40:47

you're You always remember things like living

40:49

in woodland with no inside toilet. toilet. And if

40:51

you become famous or something, they never

40:53

talk about how happy you were to

40:55

have your mother all to yourself. And

40:58

how good the water felt when you

41:00

got your bath from one of those

41:02

big tubs big in Chicago folk in in. And

41:05

somehow, when you talk about home, it

41:07

it never gets across how much

41:09

you understood their feelings as the whole

41:11

family attended meetings about about And

41:13

even though you remember, your

41:15

biographers never understand your father's pain

41:17

as he sells his stock his another

41:20

dream goes. goes, and though you're poor, it

41:22

it isn't poverty that concerns you.

41:24

you, and though they fought a lot,

41:26

it isn't your father's drinking that

41:28

makes any difference, but only that

41:30

everybody is together. is And you and

41:32

your sister sister happy birthdays and good good

41:35

And I really hope no person

41:38

ever has ever a right

41:40

about me, because they never

41:42

understand black love black love, wealth.

41:44

And they'll probably talk about

41:46

my hard childhood my never and never

41:48

the while that was quite

41:50

happy. I'm

42:05

Krista Tippett and this

42:07

is on being, today

42:09

with the poet Nikki

42:12

Giovanni. You're enjoying being

42:14

in your 70s, I

42:16

sense. I do, I

42:18

recommend it. I do,

42:21

I love it. And

42:23

I love how you

42:25

are just continuing to

42:27

wrestle and change your

42:30

mind and ask questions

42:32

and, uh, Your

42:35

vision is just constantly evolving, it

42:37

seems. But everybody says the only

42:39

difference between me and most people

42:41

is that I'm not afraid to

42:43

talk about it. Yeah, that's right.

42:45

You talk about it very openly.

42:47

You know, something, here's something, I

42:49

don't know where you wrote this.

42:51

The state of the world we

42:54

live in is so depressing, you

42:56

wrote. And this is not because

42:58

of the reality of the men

43:00

who run it, but because it

43:02

just doesn't have to be that

43:04

way. The possibilities of life are

43:06

so great and beautiful that to

43:08

see less wears the spirit down.

43:10

I was at a gathering recently

43:13

and the topic of the gathering

43:15

was on beauty. It was a

43:17

gathering of, you know, writers, artists,

43:19

architects, philosophers, psychologists, people working different

43:21

fields. And one of the points

43:23

of contention that we got to

43:25

in the room was, you know,

43:27

somebody said, And

43:30

he was a white man of,

43:32

you know, in his 60s maybe,

43:34

said that he believed that there

43:36

is a canon of beauty, that

43:38

there are certain works of art

43:40

and works of writing that you

43:42

basically have to be made out

43:44

of stone not to, you know,

43:46

to experience and get shivers and

43:48

perhaps cry be moved by. And

43:50

he was saying that we should

43:52

take beauty seriously as a cultural

43:54

good and that we should have

43:57

a kind of a canon that

43:59

we that children and

44:01

they claim as their own. But this

44:03

was also controversial because the idea was

44:05

that in fact we've had an idea

44:07

in the West that there's a canon

44:10

of beauty and it's excluded a lot

44:12

of other people's sense of what is

44:14

beautiful and what is meaningful. I wonder

44:16

how you take in that idea, but

44:18

also I think more importantly as, you

44:21

know, I'm curious like, what would be

44:23

your canon of beauty? Another hard question.

44:25

But I'm not against the cannon. Let

44:27

me be really clear about that. I'm

44:30

not against the cannon because if we

44:32

give you a cannon, then you will

44:34

vary on it. Okay. And so I

44:36

don't have any problem with that. If

44:38

for example, I learned, which I just

44:41

went to see the other day, the

44:43

Messiah, I don't have a problem with

44:45

the cannon because it will change. You

44:47

build on what you know. And I

44:50

think that it's up to all of

44:52

us to say, well, this I want

44:54

you to learn. I want you to,

44:56

I got no problem with Mona Lisa.

44:58

This is what I want you to

45:01

look at. But I also know that

45:03

there's Ashley Bryan. And I know that

45:05

Ashley Bryan and the work that he

45:07

does, which is so beautiful, he does

45:10

a lot of work on illustrating the

45:12

spirituals. I don't want to exclude, I

45:14

don't want some teacher to stand up

45:16

there and say, well that's crap because

45:18

it's not that, you don't want that.

45:21

What you want to say is, now

45:23

let's look at, let's look at them

45:25

on release and she's smiling. Well, I

45:27

think she's probably smiling because she was

45:30

listening to the fish Jubilee singers and

45:32

they were singing. If I ask you

45:34

when you look around the world right

45:36

now today in your 72nd year, you

45:38

know, where do you see beauty? What

45:41

gives you hope? What comes to mind?

45:43

Well, see, I like the people. First

45:45

of all, I've always been fun of

45:47

the people. I really do, of course,

45:50

enjoy the food. I'm an American, and

45:52

I really, really like what we're doing

45:54

in the black communities. I wish we

45:56

had more resources because I would like

45:58

to see the black community having better

46:01

housing, better housing, better schools. You know,

46:03

you know, just some basic things. we

46:05

know they need. But I love what

46:07

they're doing with rap. I love what

46:10

they're doing with the music. I love

46:12

what they're doing to bring their spirits

46:14

up. And I think that that's, again,

46:16

this is something that I think the

46:18

world benefits from. And of course, I'm

46:21

a fan of travel. So, you know,

46:23

you want to see everybody traveling back

46:25

and forth and back and forth and

46:27

I think that that's important. I enjoy

46:30

that. But I also like my friends.

46:32

I'm just trying to be a good

46:34

writer. And I'm not trying to change

46:36

the world, but I'm trying to, when

46:38

I do say something, trying to make

46:41

sense out of it. Here's something you

46:43

wrote that I loved. Writing is a

46:45

conversation with reading, a dialogue with thinking,

46:47

a dialogue with thinking, talking to you

46:50

as well, that that's how you live.

46:53

You've got to, you know, as I

46:55

say to my students, and again, I

46:57

hate to keep referring like that, but

46:59

I'm always telling my student, you're your

47:02

first reader. So that when you write

47:04

something, the main person that has to

47:06

be pleased with it is you. You

47:08

know, writers don't stand on the corner,

47:11

and it's important that the young writers

47:13

realize that you're not writing so that

47:15

you can write a bestseller, you're not

47:17

writing so that it can be turned

47:19

into a movie. You're writing to tell

47:22

the truth. And you're writing to satisfy

47:24

that in you that says, I have

47:26

this truth to share. And you have

47:28

to be proud of that. Well, Nikki

47:31

Giovanni, I'm glad, very glad that you've

47:33

shared your truth. And it's been such

47:35

a pleasure to spend this time with

47:37

you in conversation. Thank you so much.

47:40

Thank you. It's been fun. I

47:45

know my upper arms will grow flabby. It's true

47:47

of all the women in my family. I know

47:49

that the purple veins like dead fish in the

47:51

sand will dot my legs one day, and my

47:53

hands will wither while my hair turns grayish white.

47:55

I know that. day my day my

47:57

teeth will move when

47:59

my lips smile a a

48:01

flutter of hair will appear

48:03

below my nose. nose. I

48:05

hope my skin doesn't

48:07

change to those blotchy colors.

48:10

I hope my shoulder finds a

48:13

head that needs nestling that my feet

48:15

find a foot my feet a good

48:17

soaking with epsom salts. I

48:19

hope I die salts. I hope

48:21

I the life that I

48:23

tried to live. live. Nikki

48:35

Giovanni is a a university distinguished

48:37

professor in the English the at

48:39

Virginia Tech. at Some of

48:41

her best -known collections from which

48:44

the readings in this show

48:46

were taken include this show were

48:48

the Black Eyed Quilting Black Eye Pea,

48:50

Black Talk, Black Black Judgment, and the

48:52

collected poetry of Nicky Giovanni.

48:54

Special thanks this week to

48:56

Virginia Fowler at Virginia Tech and

48:58

Beth Ives at Harper for granting us

49:00

permission to use Nicky Giovanni's

49:02

poetry. The

49:19

The On -being project is located

49:21

on Dakota Land. Our Our lovely theme

49:23

music is provided and composed

49:25

by Zoe Keating Keating. the

49:27

last voice that you hear

49:29

singing at the end of

49:31

our show our show Cameron Kinghorn. On

49:33

On is is an independent nonprofit

49:35

production of of On project. It

49:38

is distributed to public

49:40

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49:46

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