Spirit in Action
Poetry From the Soul of a Black, a Woman, a Tennessean
Nikki Giovanni is an original. Through her poetry, other writings and talks, she shares vivid glimpses of the human experience which, in her case, includes the experience of growing up in the near-South of the USA in the age of segregation. Nikki is all about breaking loose and choosing direction as is evidently clear from her reflections on her experience drawing on many facets of her experience, including that of a black, Tennessean, woman, and much, much, more.
- Broadcast on:
- 31 Oct 2010
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeat. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ I've got a gem of a guest for today's Spirit in Action. Nikki Giovanni is widely known for her several dozen books, speaking powerfully of the human experience. Her poetry ranges widely, but draws significantly on her experience as a woman, as a black woman, and as a black woman native to Tennessee. She is witty, insightful, and speaks plainly and wisely, and it's a pleasure to welcome her to Spirit in Action. I spoke with her before an audience at the Friends General Conference gathering recently held at Virginia Tech, where Nikki Giovanni is a professor of English. Well, Nikki, thanks so much for joining me. We're broadcasting live from Virginia Tech University here in Blacksburg. Nikki Giovanni is with us here. She's a local girl, but not originally, right? Where did you actually start from? Where did you grow up? I'm actually a Tennesseean by birth. I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee at the old Knoxville Baptist Hospital. For those of you who know that, no longer exists. And I grew up in Cincinnati, which, though Cincinnati doesn't say it, is actually the top of Appalachia. When you look at the map, Cincinnati's motto sort of was "gateway to the south" when we had the old railroad station, which was so beautiful. It would say "gateway to the south." And I was also just fascinated by that because, actually, Cincinnati is part of the underground railroad, too, and it sure said "gateway to the north." You know, something that made it a little more sense. And you say Cincinnati, which I can't say because I'm genetically predisposed as a Wisconsinite. I don't say those words right. All your life, you live Cincinnati or lower, right? Cincinnati or lower. Well, I spent 11 years in New York. And, of course, it was very funny because we're here on radio, so nobody could see that. But in New York, the first thing you learn in this business do not touch the mic. And nobody will ever say they've ever, in 40 years in public life, seeing me touch a mic. It's not allowed. So even when I ask you about the mic, somebody else does that because they make sure that you learn that one. Well, I'll have you know that you're monks Quakers here now, Nicky, even if you are a Baptist. And we don't have hard and fast rules. So I want you to have the first experience of your life. I want you to touch the mic. No, no. No, it'll blow up on me. Well, I do welcome you for joining us. It's really great and that we can come to your home, too. I ask some folks here if they had questions for you ahead of time. And I'm going to go into some of those questions right away. First of all, one of the questions was how did you end up in Blacksburg? Well, I am a Tennessee and by birth. And actually, if you had a long enough arm, you would stretch right here from Blacksburg. It goes right to Knoxville, Tennessee. It's a straight shot. You go 81 to 40, you run right into Knoxville. So I'm quite much at home here. I think Tekka is a good partner to anybody. I can't imagine that there would be an artist who actually took a look at us and wouldn't realize what an advantage it is to be a part of the Virginia Tech family. I'm a very proud hokey and I'm delighted to be in this really quite nurturing, not only the university, but the hills themselves. I don't see how people live without hills. I've had hills all of my life and just recently had the wonderful occasion of being in Prague. Of all of the places, I truly love Portofino in Italy. But Portofino's in the mountains, Prague is sitting on ten hills. Everything that I love seems to be up in a mountain someplace. I'll probably die and go to hell, but it'll be flat. You don't think they have hills down there, huh? No, no hills in hell. You were raised Baptist. You continued Baptist. Or is there a different variety of Baptist? I'm just laughing because I'm here with you guys. And these matters come up. No, my grandmother's Baptist, Mount Zion Baptist Church. I'm a backslider, you know, and a very proud backslider, I must say. Because relationship becomes such an embarrassment in the nation. But it is a particular pleasure, which I'm sure to mention also, because I've been invited to speak with your group and I am. It's a particular pleasure as would be the case with any black American to speak with Quakers because you were such good friends of the Underground Railroad. And we recognize that the Underground Railroad was a black enterprise. It was started by slaves leaving the South. But the Quakers did not have to join us. And they did. In many cases, at great expense to their freedom and their property. Because, you know, many people were arrested and people were killed hiding slaves. And so that's something that is always going to be between these two particular groups that we would always appreciate because they brought out the best in both of us. It is a point of pride amongst Quakers that that's part of our history. Also the way that we've dealt with women in our past. But one of my thoughts, and I'm a convinced friend that is to say I grew up Catholic and became a Quaker as an adult. I can't claim any of that. I mean, I associated with the group, so maybe some of their goodness is supposed to rub off on me or something. But what's really issue is what we're doing today and how we're confronting racism and all the other isms in us today. Have you had to learn or unlearn racism yourself? I don't think that victims of racism can be considered racist. No, that's not my question, actually, because it usually keeps people internalized. People internalize it. That's part of what I want to know. No, you ask, but you ask me, and I'm sorry, how do I confront racism in myself? And I'm saying I don't think that I have racism in myself. I mean, it'd be like the black community is not going to lynch anybody. Whatever else the black community does, we don't lynch. And actually, I'm not even aware of a whipping post in the black community. Because whipping is just something black community doesn't do because it's something we don't do. We might kill you, you know, there's no question. No, we don't kill you. We don't have that problem. But how we kill you is going to be very specific. You're not going to see anybody hanging, and I don't think you're going to see anybody whipped it. That's just something that is repugnant. I mean, there'd be sort of like Jewish people building crematories and killing people. You know, there's just some things you don't do. Actually, and I'm sure my question was not specific enough. Women in the '50s, for instance, grew up with the idea that they're on a pedestal. And a lot of women prevented women's liberation because they thought, "Hey, this is how I'm supposed to be. This is women's work." You grow up in a milieu and you end up adopting the ideas of it. So maybe you didn't have to go through that phase, but most of us have to learn. I, as a man, have learned that men don't cry. I grew up that way, right? Of course, and you can make me cry, but it's something that I've had to learn because I grew up with a role. And I was just wondering, I think I've seen in your poetry where you started growing beyond where you were. Well, I should hope that I do, but I just saw a great man about three weeks ago, cry. His name is Roger Federer, and he won his 14th Grand Slam, and he won the French Open. So he has a career Grand Slam, which he's one of six men to ever do that. So I don't know where men get off with that foolishness. Great men cry. I saw Kobe Bryant just have to bury his head when he finally won a ring without Jack, right? So I don't know why if your son is dead, you wouldn't cry. What kind of foolishness is that? And how much sense does it take for people to recognize, "Oh, I don't need to listen to that crap. That's about somebody controlling me." But I am a woman, of course. So, Joan, the truth, answer that. And aren't I a woman? She answered that one a long time ago. I'm not on anybody's pedestal. That's not what I do. I'm just a woman out there trying to be who I am to flower on my own. But I mean, that whole pedestal thing, I don't know whose world they live in. I don't know women who don't work. I never did. My mother worked, the black women that I know worked, but the white women that I knew worked. My attorney is a woman. She works. You know, so I'm not aware of, I mean, what's this pedestal bit? I look at Father Knows Best when I was growing up. I looked at the Donna Reed show, you know, all that crap. The Loretta Young Show, quite charming, all of that. But again, these were working women. And I knew that. I know that I'm looking at a television. So, how do you look at a television set and see actresses and think, "Oh, they're not working." Of course they're working. And as far as I could see, everybody did. The only people that I knew they didn't were having serious mental or emotional problems. Well, of course, those things have changed a lot in, I've been alive, 55 years. Oh, you're baby. And then I've seen a lot of those things change because 40 years ago, the percentage of women who worked outside the home, they worked their butts off at home, right? But could they have been that attorney? It was really hard, not too many decades ago, that the first women got to be doctors and attorneys and so on. So this has changed, and it's been our history. And remember, you started out in school. I don't think, at least at the schools I went to, up until middle school, mid-60s, females couldn't wear pants. You got sent home. I mean, you got roles that you got shoved right into. Yeah, but I'm a 60s person. I'm not disagreeing with you, Mark, but I'm a 60s person. I went to Fisk University, which is in Nashville, Tennessee. My grandfather graduated Fisk in 1905. And we were only allowed to wear pants on Saturday. But we were the class that said, "You're crazy." And so we put our pants on. We had a professor, and he turned out to be a very nice man. He's a friend. His name is Leslie Collins. He's one of the Renaissance poets. And if you walked into Leslie's room, his classroom, and you had us, which I did once, and had a run in my stocking. And he commented on it, "Dr. Collins, I'm going to leave now." And you figure out what you want to do about it. Because I'm not going to have him. No, we didn't have sexual harassment. But obviously, if I have a run in my stocking, either I can't afford the stockings. I didn't know it. But whatever it is, why are you looking at my legs? And so we're just not having that one. I mean, it was very good. But we were the sit-in generation. We were the generation that we could change the world. And we have continued to change the world. Not just we who are black women, but we've continued to change the world. And the world has continued to need changing. So I always think if you keep following the women, it's going to work. I say, amen. Amen. Yes. Well-spoken. And that's what I want to learn about. I mean, you were part of that generation. Did you actually participate in sit-ins? Did you do all that kind of stuff? Any striking moments you can call up that you care to admit? Well, you sat in because you were young, and that's what you did. And the only regret that I have done that period is that I didn't go to the Mississippi summer in '64. I would have been 20. And my mother was just having a fit. I mean, she was totally convinced I was going to get killed. But the funny thing is, my grandmother was a very militant woman. She just broke no fools. I mean, she just, right? And when we had the bombing in Birmingham, the church, and grandmother, the women, the grown-ups, I should say, actually, went up to the church because that was a Sunday morning, as you know. So a special meeting was called. And after church, special meeting is going to be called. So the children, which would be me, I live with my grandmother at that point, are going to go home and the adults are going to figure out their response. Well, grandpa was 20 years older than grandmother, right? And grandmother was my grandmother, so I don't know, grandmother must have only been about 50 or something, but she seemed way older. And what they decided was that they were going to have a march in Knoxville, because we were in Knoxville, and that they were going to respond that way. So grandmother came up, and I always knew, I adored my grandmother. But I always knew when she was up to something, because there'd be this sparkle in her eye, and this sort of SH, without grin. And she was looking at me, and she smiled, and she said, "Nicky." And I thought, "Oh, I don't even like the sound of this." She said, "We had a meeting at the church." I said, "Yes, grandma, I knew that." She said, "And they called for volunteers to march." And I was like, "Oh, no." And she said, "And I was the first one on my feet." And I said, "John Brown is my grandpa. John Brown and I are too old to march, but Nikki will be there." I said, "Does my mother know you're going to get me killed?" I mean, that was no question. I mean, she was so pleased. And so the next morning, she wakes me up at like 6.30, so that I conveyed. And I had to look, you know, in the sit-ins, we all looked nice. You have to remember, every time you see us in, we are all dressed, so you had to be dressed. And I think these people are going to be spinning on me, and, you know, ugly things. And this is my best dress, and we're not rich. You know, I was like, "Okay." And she made a good breakfast. She said, "Here's your breakfast. You don't need it." "No, I'm going to die, so it won't matter what the content of my stomach is." And she said, and she was just so delighted. She said, "John Brown and I will take a cab, and we'll be up around 10 o'clock to look at you." In the audience, I suppose. Yeah, I mean, she would take the cab because they're too old to walk, you know. So she would take a cab and come up, and, you know, I'm walking the pick and learn. I agree, mother. You know, I survived it, but grandmother was quite wonderful. Did you really think you were going to die? I don't do premonitions, but when you consider how many people got killed at civil rights, yeah, sure. I mean, you knew every time you left your home, there was a good chance that you wouldn't come back or that you'd be in jail. I always carry a book. I still do. And that's from the whole sit-in, because you never knew when you were going to be arrested. And if you're going to be arrested, you may as well get some study in done. You may as well get, you know, something done. So, yeah, I mean, but I was, I afraid of dying like that, you know, like, oh, my God, but you know, these people go by. We still have a gun problem in the United States because people now, of course, just walking to your classroom. So if you said, am I afraid here at Virginia Tech that I'm going to get shot down by a student? The answer is actually no, but am I afraid that it will happen again? The answer is actually yes. As long as the NRA rules, instead of the Constitution and Common Sense, we're going to have a problem. I wanted to hear more about your grandmother because obviously she's an influence. She's part of what fed you, right? Tell me a little bit. I want to know this woman. She's wonderful. Grandmother was born in Albany, Georgia. She attended normal school, which is high school, would be high school. And of course, grandmother is a really pretty woman. Grandpapa, who was from Albany, Georgia, the Watson's, when he came back from college, unfortunately, had married and met grandmother, Lavinia Taylor, fell in love with her. And they used to laugh about that because we'd be like, "Grandmother cooked," and she was a great cook, and I'm a pretty good cook. Grandma's a great cook, but she believed if you cooked, then somebody else had to wash the dishes. So when Momma shared three daughters, and so when the girls were home, they did it, but then as they married and moved on, Grandpapa had to do it, and she meant it. She was like, "She does not do dishes," and so she trained. But they would talk back and forth. He was very quiet. He was Latin scholar. And he'd say to me things like, "You know, I only wanted to kiss your grandmother." And you can't corrupt the innocent. So I was like, "Grandmother, why wouldn't you kiss him?" Because you know, you're taking kisses. And she was, "John Brown, if I had let you kiss me, you would have never married me." It took me the longest to realize, "Oh, kiss is a metaphor." [LAUGHTER] Which got you started as a poet, hearing those metaphors. But that's so funny, because he definitely had to divorce his first wife, and he married her. But Grandmother had a lot of mouth, and continued to get into trouble with the white people in Albany, Georgia. Albany, Georgia, if you have to realize, was the first time that Martin Luther King, Jr. was unsuccessful in a march. Pritching them from Albany, just, I mean, it's moved on. But if you've gone back to the '60s, it was a very not nice place to be caught in. And so finally, the family had a meeting and said to Grandpapa, "John Brown, if you go, they would live in here, you need to move." He taught Latin at the high school, Austin High School, job came up, and he took it, which was probably smart. He moved to Tennessee. And of course, Tennessee is a great state. You know, Tennessee was the only state that didn't have to undergo reconstruction. It's a volunteer state because they sent many as one side as another. And so they were able to avoid the discomfort of occupation. And it's probably why Tennesseeans today have a different view of themselves. I don't mean just me, I mean, the state, as opposed to the occupied states of Alabama or Georgia or Mississippi. You know, that kind of thing. So where did you grandmother get her mouth? I think grandma's like anybody else. She just thought that life should be a little better, that there should be some joy and why should she have to get off the sidewalk because some white person is coming. And so she felt comfortable to say it. I have no idea. One, she was a pretty woman, and pretty women do things differently. And two, when she finally married Grandpapa, she had a man who simply adored her and would have done anything necessary, who was never going to try to rope her in. Many people are compromised by not the outside forces, but their families. That the people that you expect to say, "Yeah, you should do that. Don't." And Grandpapa always thought whatever grandmother did was totally wonderful. Was education part of it? It seems to me like education is big in your family. Education is big, but you know, education needs an S on it. I had the privilege of speaking over at Richmond on the Brown versus Board of Education, you know, on the anniversary there. I constantly remind people there are many different kinds of educations. I don't think the poor people, for example, are ignorant. I think that education does one thing, but you know you're being cheated. You don't have to be smart to know that. I don't think that you have to read a lot of books to know that some things you shouldn't take, which is why, again, when you look at the Civil Rights Movement, who started it? It was the people who started it. The college kids picked it up later, but it was the people. And when we got to, actually to Birmingham, after all of the horror of Birmingham, who was it that went out? It was the sixth graders. I mean, that's who got arrested. That's because even Linda Johnson is like, "No, we can't have this." Because you had Alabama arresting sixth graders for God's sake, and that had to stop. But that's not an education position. That's a position of, "Why can't I go downtown? Why can't I ride my bike? Why can't I go to a movie theater? Why can't I drink out of a fountain?" So I'm a big fan of education. I teach in a university, and I'm very proud to be here. And I write books, and I'm glad that people read them. But I'm a third-generation college graduate, and that is, I think, a privilege. But I don't think that that's why I do what I do even. I think that when I get arrested, I'm happy because I could read a book. When other people get arrested, they're happy because they sing. Do you make a regular practice of getting arrested? I mean, is this a principle? No. It's a bad idea, and I'm actually totally at this point. I started off wanting prison reform. I'm an acquaintance of Angela Davis and had joined in with many of her initiatives on that. But I no longer want reform. I want an abolishment. Prison is just a... [applause] It's just a bad idea whose time has passed. What it started off to do was to take people away. But what we're doing now is we have an industry going. It's not good. It's not good for everybody, and what we're producing is better criminals and unhappy people. And we're pulling... I'm a single mother. But it's important that we not strip the black and the Latino and the poor white community of males. We're going to have to find a way to reintegrate these people into their communities so that the love and the caring. Because it's not protection. I mean, that's one of those rules that obviously we don't need protection because you look at the community without them. But we need to reintegrate these men particularly into their community so that we get a balance going. And prison is just a bad idea, and it's a bad idea getting worse. I hate to give you a little history lesson. You said something nice about Quakers back in the day. You know, knew that to get off the slavery and move in another direction. Quakers are largely responsible for the fact that we have prisons like we know them now. And, you know, we've learned and we've moved on. We said, "Yeah, well, we went through that developmental phase and we're on to the next one." But it was an improvement over, I think, what we had before. I guess, where's the next stage? What are you going to do if we're not going to put them in prison? You must know the answers. No, no, I'm never a fan that social reform comes from people who know the answers. Social reform comes from people who raised the questions. And I think that it's important. I do know your history. And I do know that that was an improvement. I do know that when we created the idea of prison, it was better than what we were doing. Like when we created mental institutions to put people in, it was better than what we were doing. And these two have become not a good way to do it. But you can't always put Rochester's wife up in the attic and think that everything is going to be all right. We are now at a point of trying to find a way to deal with behavior that is unacceptable, that we cannot, in fact, live with. And we're trying to find a way to say, "How do we control some of that?" One of the things that we have to look to is electronics. I'm a big fan right now of just putting a monitor. You know, if you've got a predator, you put a monitor around. Or you've got a restraining order. You look at what happened to celebrities, you know, and we only hear about some of the big cases. But they're being stalked all the time. You take out a warrant, put a monitor on them, and keep track of who's doing what and letting them know we do that. That's going to be a part of it. A part of it is that perhaps, sadly, we're not going to be able to live with some people. And then that would be another way of looking at it. So I don't know. I know the question has to be raised because right now, we're in an untenable, we in the United States particularly, because we have more people in prison than anybody else. And we're supposed to be a free society. But then I'm not a big fan of the NRA. I'm not a big fan that everybody should have a gun. I think that guns, when I read the Constitution, it said militia. And militia is not Joe Bob down the street that he can get an automatic rifle. I don't see any excuse for anybody to have an automatic rifle other than you're going to kill somebody, whether it's not a good idea. And we just had a tragedy here, as you know, in Afton. I'm not sure of the circumstances of why the father killed his wife and one child in himself. One child, as you know, was shocked, but escaped. Right now, people are under a lot of pressure. And if you can just pick up a gun, you lose your job, you consider yourself responsible for your family. Shoot them all. That's how you take care of them. I don't think this is a good idea. I just think it's a question. And I am a big fan of electronics. So let's start with what we know we can do. And then let's see where we have to move to see where we go from there. I think a big alternative to a lot of bad behavior is to have something you're pursuing. You could call it a myth or you could call it an image. You could just call it a role model. So I think actually back in the 80s, when Jesse Jackson was running for president, I saw the pictures of the audience there and I went, those are some happy people who have got hope in their lives. Their lives are changed by a prospect. And so many of us were so thrilled when Obama was elected, it's like, could this happen in the U.S.? You bet it could. It's exciting. I think that poetry and writing is another thing that inspires people, gives them alternatives. You've written a lot. Is there anything that you think that was particularly helpful in terms of moving the world forward to giving them a different image? People who read it say, yeah, I've got hope in my life. You've got two books sitting right here. Could you grab anything out of them that would fit? No, if we could write a point and change the world, don't you think we all would have? A lot of us try. A lot of us aim for that. And we're very disappointed in ourselves. I think that I am a Christian, so if I believe in good, I also have to believe in evil, to go back to what we're talking about. And I just don't think everything is a question of take your meds. And we had the doctor in Kansas who was killed recently. I'm having a lot of trouble. What do you do with somebody who believes in death? Because when you have a deliberate murder, he is saying, I believe in death and I'm killing you. I mean, it's not like OG, and that would be unhappy. I was a little drunk and my car ran you down. We didn't mean to do that. Or, oh, golly, I didn't mean to push you out to win in the screen, right? These are tragic accidents. But when somebody's just coming in just to kill you, obviously they are believing that they can silence you. And in silencing you, they are believing that they are going to get their way. In this particular case, the abortion clinic has closed down, which means that people don't have choices. It's nobody's business. Again, I am a Christian, and I think that Jesus said something about if I left Iowa, Fendi, or was it the right? I'm sure it must have been the right, as I think about it. Tae, pluck it out, right? And I'm a big fan of -- this is my body. I'm a big fan of the 14th Amendment, and it says that I have a right to it, and I have a right to what comes into it and what goes out of it. And I don't think that you have a right to sort of change that. So we arrested a young woman in North of South Dakota recently because she was drunk breastfeeding her baby in her home. Now, what kind of craziness and what kind of intrusion is that? So I'm having trouble with people saying, okay, rustle them by them. I want to get the government off of my back, but the government seems to be not on my back, but in my bedroom. I would like to get the government out of my bedroom. Hey, man. If you just tuned in now, you're listening to Northern Spirit Radio. This is called Spirit in Action, and we're with Nikki Giovanni here today. And here is Blacksburg, Virginia. We're at Virginia Tech, where she's graciously joined us for this afternoon, but she's also going to be on stage speaking for the assembled group. Mark McNamee is our provost and Mark invited me to come. I knew I was going. I'm working on a pie pipe project. I've been working lately in children's literature, which I am so enjoying. My mother was a third grade teacher, which for those who are teaching, you know, that's reading readiness. So I grew up with listening to children's literature. Grandpa, as I said, was a Latin teacher, and he always enjoyed doing the old myths. So Grandpa was the one that's going to read ASOP's Fables to us and do things like, or I shouldn't say else, actually, to me. I was one of the grandchildren he would put up with, because he probably was a lot older and, you know, just didn't want to be bothered to squeakly grandchildren. But Grandpa always liked ASOP because ASOP was always teaching these lessons. I don't know how old I was, but even as a kid, I knew something was wrong with that kind of ASOP-iness of it. And, of course, ASOP was a thrashing, as you know, you know, he was a slave. And so once that really made sense to me, and I was grown, believe me, by the time that it hit me. Well, of course, you'd rather tell stories to the master's children than have to be out in the field doing work. So I began to understand ASOP a little better, but I was always offended by the grasshopper in the ants. It offended me because every Sunday that I went to church, and we went to Sunday school, Grandpa was a deacon, so you go to Sunday school, and then you could get a nickel. Grandmother would give you a nickel to sometimes a dime. If you got a dime, you had to put a nickel in church, so you only had the nickel to spend, right? And it made sense, and then you go get ice cream. You could get ice cream for a nickel then. Ha, ha, ha. Can't do that anymore. And then you go back to church, right? And then we would come home, change clothes. One of the things Grandmother always did, and it's something that I subscribe to, is that we would take a plate. And we'd be, and my sister and I at that point, to the sick and the shut, and so Grandmother would maybe take, we would have three people that we would take a plate to, you know, and you'd come back home and do it, and do it. And the grasshopper, if you remember, and the ants, the grasshopper and the ants got along all during summer, they enjoyed it. And then when winter came, the ants had the larder that they had worked on, and the grasshopper came and knocked on the door, and he was hungry and cold. And their response was, you know, we told you to put something away. And Grandfather would read that like it made sense, and it stayed on my heart. And it was like, no, I don't have any experience of turning anyone away from the door, white or black, in Knoxville, Tennessee. People would knock on your door and ask you, could you do something? This is very southern, so anybody from the south, you know that they knock on the door, any number of men, can I mow the lawn, can I take the garden, can I do something? And then they would get a plate of food. We're not that far from having that experience again. So I had no concept of turning people away. And it stayed on my mind to the point that my editor's name is Mark Aronson. Mark said, you know, Nick, even complaining, and that was not the word he used about this story for a while. Why don't you just write something about it? And I thought about it, and I said, yeah, I can do that because nobody's ever tried to correct ASAP. But what I wanted was I wanted James Ignatius Grasshopper, who now has a name, and the beginning of my book is the Grasshopper song. The first line in the book was Jimmy Grasshopper was furious. So what he's going to do is he's going to sue the ants, because he is an artist. And the music that he made, because as you know, the ants have no sound, that's why people buy ant farms, because you don't have to hear anything from them. Ants don't have a cadence, and they wouldn't have a cadence unless somebody said it. So James Grasshopper made the music that set the tone that allowed them to do that. We do know that music is what helps to keep us calm, for example. So Mr. Grasshopper is pointing out in his petition. You know, at lunch, when I was tired, I played music, which helped him relax. We all know that because you're going to a restaurant right now. They're going to have some music on. We know when we get on an elevator, go on up a hundred floors, in order to keep you calm. That's the truth. We play music, and you think, oh, it's okay, that's the Beatles, so it must be all right. I must be safe. When you get on an airplane, what do they do? It's all music, right? So we know that music is important. And so what he's going to do, he's suing the ants, and of course the ants are responding by saying we have no contract. What I wanted the kids to learn is that we do not actually function in the United States on the Constitution. The document that the Constitution emerged from was the Mayflower Compact, which is why, as I'm always pointing out, the compact is the reason why we do what we do in New Orleans. And that we help. It's not because of the Constitution, it's not because you're in good hands with all state, it's because we made an agreement of mutual assistance at times of difficulty. It's why the state of Virginia, while we here in South West Virginia, sent firefighters out to California to help. It wasn't because the insurance companies did it. It's because we know if fire sweeps through it, you need help. And so you didn't have to ask anybody about that when that happened. I remember the first years I was here, we had the, my mother lived in California, and we had that earthquake, the embarcadero film. Mommy lived in Danville, California, which is on the other side of Berkeley. You didn't have to ask anybody to go out there. The engineers from Virginia Tech, and I've always been so proud of the service that Tech offers. Engineers of Virginia Tech packed it up, got on a plane, and went out to say, "How can we help? Not do you need. Don't you hate people when you're having a tragedy? Call you up and say, "If you need anything, girl, give me a call. Well, you know damn well they need something." And so that's what I wanted the kids to understand, that the ants were wrong, that they were wrong to turn their back. And it's not a question of a contract. Our coming together in the world, whether it's United States, whether it's around the world, I have Michael, Secretary Bird fly in from Africa with the new information on music. I'm a big fan, by the way, of the godfather. And you remember when Michael was in trouble, the brother flew in and silenced the other brother, actually. Because the other brother was saying, "Michael was a murderer," and his brother just came and sat there, you know, and then flew back. So I did some things like that. And I had a good time with it. Mr. Grasshopper hired Robin, Robin, Robin, and Ren, which is the best law firm. The best law firm in the medal, and Harry Robin Jr. said, "Well, Mr. Grasshopper, if we take your case, what do you want?" And I had to give a shout out to Aretha on that one. Gee said, "R-E-S-V-E-C-T." We had a good time. But it was time that we looked at that because artists do something. We're not just having a good time. You asked earlier. No, we can't. And I don't think that there's an artist on Earth that's ever produced anything of any work that was trying to change the world. What we're trying to do is to hold the mirror up. And as we hold the mirror up, you make the change. We just hold the mirror. Because every time somebody tries to tell you what to do, it's boring and they're hypocrites. So you have the governor, South Carolina, for example, voting against Bill Clinton, because he said, "We need moral leadership." And then he's on a plane. At the States, it's meant to be his mistress. I don't care who his mistress is or what he does with her. I'm not married to him. I am not likely to be one of his mistress's. But I do know this. I'm tired of the hypocrisy. And I'm tired of people telling me what I should do while they're doing crazy things that if they wouldn't be hypocrites, if he hadn't voted against Bill, I wouldn't be mad at him because he's none of my business. And somebody could say, "Well, Nikki, he's married, but he's not married to me." That's Jenny's problem. Her name is Jenny. It's not my problem. And it's not for me to judge because he's a grown man, and he is having an affair with a grown woman. And his wife is a grown woman. Again, I'm just an old-fashioned credit judge, not lest you be judged. I don't want to judge that. I want to judge, "What are you doing in South Carolina?" Well, he was blocking $700 million coming in when people need work. That's hypocrisy. And you're spending those people's money to go down so you can have sex with their mistress. That is not acceptable. [applause] There's a threat I don't want to lose. So we've heard a little bit about the Ant and the Grasshopper. Where are we going to be able to read it? Oh, it's out. The Grasshopper song is out. I hope that it's one of the books we bring because I love it so much. It's so much fun. And again, the kids get to learn plaintiff and defendant. They get to see how an argument evolves, and they get to see why it is that we think the ants owe something to the Grasshopper. Because the Grasshopper did something. Those of us who sing, those of us who create poetry, those of us, well, who was that, Tennyson? We also serve, who sit and wait. And I think that one of the things I wanted them to see is that the Grasshopper participated in this process. You just can't say, "We worked, and you didn't. We all work." I think it's so important, so I enjoyed that. But I had to go to Hamlin. That's what we started doing. And the Pied Piper has fascinated me for forever. And I started doing some research work into it. Actually, a couple of years have been a two-year project. And I finally got the point that I knew I needed to go to Hamlin. And so that's what I did. I went to Germany, and I went to Hamlin. I walked the streets where the Pied Piper walked. And I wanted to see the mountain, because, you know, the theory is that he took the kids to the mountains. You know, their books now call the other side of the mountain in terms of the people who go through the mountain. And some people have tried to say, "We know 185 boys left Hamlin that we do know." Now, the question was, "Is it the Crusader? Did we lose them to the plague?" And we know that the Piper probably is not a person who came. On the other hand, I kind of like the Piper because, one, we're talking gypsies, which everybody was afraid of the gypsies, or we're talking North Africa. And we know that the Germans and the North Africans had communication. So if this was a North African, it's very easy to see why they wouldn't pay, because they were racist. They just figured, "What should we pay you? What are you going to do? You're going to sue us? We have the courts. We have everything." So I'm working through the story, and you do that. I haven't spent very much -- I've spent time in Africa, but not much time in North Africa because I am a woman. It can be problematic. Not the best atmosphere for that? It's not the best atmosphere, because you get tired of having to cover your face or cover your knees, and I'm an old woman. So, you know, I need, though, just to do a little bit in, you know, like from where Hannibal and some of them came from, because we know these people migrated in and out just so, again, to kind of walk. I know that the flute is indigenous to North Africans. It's a read. So I'm just -- I'm probably another year and a half, two years away from the story, but it was such a pleasure to walk in the streets of Hamlin. What does pied mean? I know what piper is, but a pied piper? I don't know. Well, the audience has spotted. Striped, spotted. Okay, good. It's amazing how we can say something all of our life and have no idea what we're saying. It's a big issue. I love language for that reason. And, of course, when you write poetry, you get a chance to savor the words. I was wondering if you could share some poetry of your choice. This is Spirit in Action. This is a Northern Spirit radio production. You can always find this recording again via my website, northernspiritradio.org. And on that site, you can also see where we're broadcast. Our guest today is Nikki Giovanni. She's joined us to share, I guess, some of her wonderful perspective on -- It's not just art. It's life. It's the art of life, huh? Is that what you're doing? I don't know. Poets get to do everything, but I'm a foodie. It's so nice, and then we never have to make sense. Bicycles. Bicycles came out because Blacksburg actually had two tragedies. And one was William Marver on the 31st of August, a guy named William Marver broke out of what he got taken to the hospital and broke away from the garden. And he shot a hospital security man. And then he came over to the Huckleberry Trail, and I don't know if you've seen it, it's really nice. Ran into a policeman's sumpter. And McFarland and something. He shot and killed him, also. And so the first day of class at Virginia Tech had to be closed because they were looking for Marver. And my mom and my sister died within six weeks of each other. So I was going through personal dismay. I mean, it was painful. And it's sad. And before you actually came out of that, we had the situation of April 16th. And so physically, I don't know, I write physically. Things come to me justically. And I had this circle going about what is William Marver and how does this fit because Blacksburg didn't have tragedies like that. And then we had this. And so I had these two circles going, and I kept saying to myself, "You have to do something because I was being incredibly sad. You can't go but so far down. You can't let yourself because then you don't have any reason to go forward." And so I thought, "Okay, Nikki, you've got to do something. You've got to do something." But I had these circles, and I thought, "Connect them. What will connect these two tragedies?" And of course, I'm old enough. I'm 66 now. But I'm old enough to know that the only healing is love. And so I thought, "Okay, let's just do some love poems. Just write some love poems." Because once you start writing love poems, first of all, it makes you happy and you smile. And then people are smiling back, and then you're thinking, "Oh, Nikki, you." And one thing then and then, so I had these poems coming together, trying to tie in. And that's the beginning of the book and the end of the book. I was at a book club with one of the kids, and she's one of the young women said to me, "How did you start your book with violence?" And I said, "I didn't, and I don't. I didn't think of it as violence. I thought of it as loss." And so I had this loss, and we put it together, and I thought, "Oh, what do I need here?" Well, I needed a handle. If I could find a handle for this, I would actually have a bicycle, which is how we came up. And it's bicycles because love, too, requires trust and balance, which is exactly what you have to have to write a bicycle. So the poem that I like, Bill Morris was teasing me, I really love Bill. And he's like, " Nikki, you know, these poems are very sensual." And I said, " Bill, you know, little old ladies have hormones." You didn't give it up when you were 40, I mean, for God's sake. So I'm going to read a love poem because I'm a foodie. I like boiled turnips, boiled potatoes, boiled rutabakers with butter and sea salt, but not every day. I like fried Virginia flounder, fried sand dabs, fried smelts, but usually only on Friday nights. I want drop biscuits, miniature Parker House rolls, extra thin white bread when I uncharacteristically make a sandwich. I like garlic straight off the vine and chovies anytime, and good red wines because I'm too old to drink cheap. I like to pound and grill my veal. I rub my beef in a special chili mixture. I really don't eat anyone else's ground meat. In other words, I'm normal. So this is the question, why am I so enchanted with you? I really am very proud of this book, I'm very happy with it. Yes, your audience cannot see, but it's a red bicycle and it's got white hyacinths in it. And the wheels have hyacinths. And the book is Bicycles Love Poems, Nicky Giovanni. And this one is how recent, let me see. This just came out. Just came out. You got some more poetry to share with us. I always have a lot of poetry. I mentioned the -- How many books do you have total? I'll tell you truth, I don't know, I think about 26, something like that. But you know, I write little books, it's not like I'm doing novels. I write little short books, so it's not -- Could you live off of your books? Sure. I did school, obviously. I do live off of books. I do live off of books. I have a day job to handle my radio habit, right? You could live off of it now, but how long was it that you actually -- I just took a job at Virginia Tech 22 years ago, I'm 66. And so I've lived most of my life off of my work. And again, I came to teaching at last, not at first. And I think that that's kind of important because one, I have a respect for artists. Earning and living as an artist takes a certain discipline and concentration. I was going to read a poem from my mother, but this is -- We were talking about Tennessee. And I wrote a poem for Tennessee because the nation invited me to do it -- The Nation magazine -- because they invited 50 writers from 50 states to do their state. I thought, you know, what a nice idea. I am a Tennesseean by birth, and so it's kind of a long poem, but it's called -- It's a long state. It is. You ever try to drive across it? Tennesseean by birth. I'm a native Tennesseean. I was born there during the age of segregation. When you couldn't go to the same amusement park or the same movie theater. When the white guys would cruise up and down the streets and call out to you. When the black guys were afraid of being lynched. But we went to church each Sunday and we sang a precious song. And we found a way not to survive. Anything can survive. But to thrive and believe and hope. I'm a native Tennesseean. I was born there. But I was only two months old when my mother and father moved my sister and me to Cincinnati. During the age of segregation. When Dowd drugstore wouldn't serve us. When neighborhoods were redlined. But at least Monica get a job teaching and Daddy could get a job behind a desk. And after all if you're a college graduate that's the least you can expect. Though the Pullman Portas took us south each summer. And watched over us with an unfailing faith. And got us from there and here. I'm from Knoxville, Tennessee. I was born there. In the only state in rebellion that didn't have to undergo reconstruction. In the volunteer state that sent as many for one side as another. In an area where if I just have to have my car break down. I would prefer any holler to any city neighborhood. But there was no work and no way. And the chronic angers that flared would chase us to Ohio. We were not lies across the river. Just four people. Two in love and two who were loved. Who needed to put the rest to the rage. But the rage stayed and someone had to go. I chose me. But I was born there. So the going was a coming. I'm a native Tennessean. I take no joy in Davy Crockett nor Jim Bowie. They were wrong to be at the Alamo. They were wrong to fight for the theft. I love James Agie. I loved Thunder Road though I. The native Tennessean was not allowed to play a bit part when the crew came to town to film the movie. Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Quinn came to take a walk in the spring rain. And despite it all, I like Andrew Jackson. At least he knew the big guys were wrong. I'm a native Tennessean. I graduated Fisk University in Nashville. I know that the freedmen paid for that school. Nobody gave them anything. Pennies and Nichols in prayer and determination. The freedmen paid for it. And many others. I know the American Missionary Society took the money that you believe singers made to save Fisk and used it for other purposes. I know the American Missionary Society was wrong. I was educated by the singers of those songs. I love those songs. How can I not love Nashville? How can I not love Dinah Shore? Who invited the Jubilee singers to sing at the Grand Ole Opry? Then had to hear the rumors. She sang on, sang until she saw the USA in her Chevrolet mum. I once saw on a plane. I was going to the cabin. She was in first class. I said, "Hey," she smiled back and said, "Hey." When I got Georgia on my mind, I rode the Chattanooga choo choo to look out mountain. I saw Memphis and was enchanted. From the mighty Mississippi gracefully turning all red to Bell Street beats at midnight. All those blues from so many bloods decided to turn my blues to Memphis gold. W.C. Handy, Bobby Blue Bland, B.B. King. The late, great Johnny Ace. Stacks and Stacks of Music. American Music. The Athens of the south held Tennessee music. But Memphis put the tears to the lonely and crossed over. Everybody wants to rock to my rhythm. I am Memphis. I heard the shops that took Martin. I know who killed the king. I'm a native Tennessean. I know what it is to be free. I am singing the country blues. I am whittling a wooden doll. I am underground. Mining coal. I am running moonshine. I'm a white boy with a banjo. Native to West Africa. I'm a black boy with a twang. Native to the hills. I am smart. I am cool. I am unafraid. I am free. Yeah. I'm a native Tennessean. (Applause) You know, for a jeopardy answer, if you ever on jeopardy, you know, they were going to name Tennessee Franklin. Aren't you glad they didn't? (Laughter) Who was your favorite poet? Who was your inspiration coming up? You became a writer, and I think you probably didn't figure you were the first. Oh, no, I'm definitely not. I'm not a big fan of inspiration. I like stories, and so I grew up in a part of Tennessee. I dare say, if I had been born in Memphis, I would have been a different kind of writer, because I would have grown up one with the river as a constant. You hear the hills there, but the river is something different. For those of us who are lovers, for example, of T.S. Eliot, he was St. Louis, but you always hear that river. And no matter how much time you spend in England, you never get away from those blues. You know, I think that my advantage was being in the hills with the storytellers, because everybody tells stories. And I always like to point out, because she's a great old gal, that the most famous storyteller from my area of the state is Dolly Parton. And Dolly, of course, tells stories through song, but she's a great storyteller. It's one of the reasons she's done extraordinarily well, speaking of women who just decided to make their own way. And people keep asking, "Dolly, how did you do?" And she said, "I couldn't see why I wouldn't." You know, she's good. And the best thing she did was leave Porter, though, as the song said, which has been a hit for everybody, "I will always love you." She still had to leave him to be herself. And what she did with Dolly Wood and what she did for Easton, Tennessee, we all have to be extremely proud. But I think women have to be extremely proud of Dolly, because she is open door, door, door, door, door. So many people that we see today wouldn't be here if Dolly hadn't made it. Well, then I shouldn't say that. It would have been more difficult, because she certainly made it easier. So she's one of your inspirations? No, Dolly's actually walking alongside you. She's younger than I am. No, we were just talking about, I just thought, give a shout out to Dolly because she's a great kid. But if I said, "Who inspired me?" Is that my grandmother had a great, great, great influence on me. But I look at my generation. I'm not a sociologist. I was a history major, and I now teach in the English department. But I think that if I were a sociologist, the one thing I'd want to study is the grandmothers, because when we start to look at the influence right now of the rappers, of the football players in FL, NBA, we are looking at grandmothers, and their influence on their grandchildren. And I'm of the opinion that one of the reasons they're successful, and they mostly are, is that they can't tell their grandmother they couldn't do it. And so they went out to change the world in their own way. I'm very proud of the next generation. As I said, I'm 66, so I actually, two generations down. If I look at the 20-year-olds now, I think that they're doing just a wonderful job. And everybody's kind of dumping on them. But I think these kids are opening doors, and certainly in the black community, for the first time, we are holding on to our wealth. And I think that that's important, because we've made money. Jazz musicians made money. You know, we look at the entertainers. They've made money. But they haven't been able for a variety of reasons to hold on. And we now have a society that we're going to be able to pass wealth down. And I think that that's going to be a significant change in black neighborhoods. If I was sociologist, I'd study it. You know, Giovanni does not strike most people as an African-American name, right? My friend, Kijana, he took that name when he was 18. Young man, young warrior, you know, Swahili name. He took it. He said, genetically, he's identified in the United States as a black man. But he says, "I probably have more scotch in me than any other nationality." What's your mix? I mean, you've got a Giovanni name, and, you know, you're Tennessean, of course. But, you know, what is... My father's name is Jones Giovanni. We call him Gus. Gus is from right outside of Mobile, Alabama. But we have to remember that Mobile is a port. And so Giovanni is a first name. I'm a big kid. Anytime I'm in Italy, everybody just loves my name. And Giovanni, you get that name. And I said, "Remember Hannibal." So I have a problem with it at all. I am not one to contemplate a whole lot about what flows, because I'm not genetically inclined. I'm not interested. I'm interested to know, for example, my grandfather was Watson. That's Scott's, for God's sake. And when I was in Scotland, I got a scotch, because there's a Watson scotch, you know. And I bought it back, and we had a scotch night, you know, one of those kind of things. But my grandmother was Terrell before she married the Watson's. So where does that come from? And we laugh in the black community, because nobody knows anybody white named Washington. George Washington is only white Washington, we know. And everybody else said, "You know, name Washington black." So any time you see Washington, you look for a black name. But, you know, we're American. And I think that I'm a big fan of the DNA project. And I'm just so thrilled that we finally scientifically have come to another point, because we only have six strands of DNA on planet Earth for human beings, and all six reside in Africa. So scientifically, and we know that, because it's been there, we know that race was always a construct. But now we know that life did start on the African continent. And once we can get just a smidgen more beyond our basic racism, we're going to go back, and we're going to start to seriously look for Eden. Because I'm convinced that human beings, it's not that we don't have an imagination. I think we do, but it's grounded in something. So when we say we have a story coming through the Bible, the Christian Bible of, you know, it began in Eden, and Adam, and Eve, and Yak Yak Yak, you know that you're looking for a garden that would support life in another form. Now, we know that we didn't exist at the same time, for example, as dinosaurs, so you're looking at a timeline. I'm a big fan of evolution, and I have no question in my mind that things have evolved. But I also have no question in my mind that some things simply were. Some things came as, and I laugh about it, because you look at the palatopus, you have the devil to that get together. I mean, you can see the primates and how they did that, you know what I'm saying? And you can see some fish, but there's some questions, and each question doesn't close the door, questions open the door. As we move away from the need for essentially, for lack of a better word, white racism, we will come into a point that we can begin to understand how this planet emerged. I know that everybody's upset, are excited about planetary warming, but the reality still is the planet has been warming up since the ice age. If it hadn't warmed up, we wouldn't be here. I mean, it's been warming up, so that says... I'd be dressed warmer. You'd be dressed a lot, we wouldn't have made it. And of course, I'm a Cincinnatian, and up at the top of our state is one of the great lakes, but the great lakes came out of the glaciers, now the glaciers are melting, so something else is going to happen. We have to make an adjustment to a warmer planet. We can slow it down, and I think that's a good idea. We can quit poisoning the air, I think that's an excellent idea, and I'm a big fan of water, so I think that developers, because I don't think that they develop, I think of them as destroyers, should not be allowed to channel water underground, because that has to have an effect on the exchange between air and water and the rains. I mean, these are just kind of basic things, you know, this only makes sense. You can't keep growing the same crop on the land, you're going to eat it up, you're going to lose it. There's something called "get a life and learn something", you know, and you really do have to do that. But we're going to have to adjust, and our progeny, because we're looking at probably another 200-300 years at least, is going to have to adjust to a warmer planet, but they can do that, because whatever else it is, there's going to be adjustments in it. Human beings will probably at one point not be able to survive on this planet. It will not be to the disadvantage of the planet, it will be to the disadvantage of human beings. But every species ends, and we too will do that, doesn't mean you can be careless, because we are still stewards of a great planet. Third planet from the yellow sun is a wonderful thing. But as we are learning things, we are also learning, we have got to get out. Nothing can come here, because we are very unstable. You'd have to be a really stupid lifestyle, not to understand, coming to planet Earth is not a good idea. So seriously, you know, anybody look at it and say, "Nah, I ain't going there." So what we're having to do is find a way to go someplace else, and we keep looking at, I hate what they do with science fiction, because they're always assuming that something is out there to harm us. And we don't go in peace, we go to conquer, that has to stop. We have to change the way we look at things, and begin to find out what it is and how it is that we can live under the influence of the yellow sun in a better way. That was most of my visit with Nikki Giovanni, poet and professor of English at Virginia Tech. Keep listening to Spirit in Action to hear the conclusion of my interview with Nikki in the near future, combined with portions of her plenary address at the 2009 Friends General Conference Gathering held at Virginia Tech. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along, and our lives will feel the echo of our healing.