Speaker 1: I lived my teenage years with my grandparents. They're the
Speaker 1: people who taught me what love is. And living with
Speaker 1: them and watching them sit on the front porch and
Speaker 1: not say anything. That was what was amazing. They would
Speaker 1: say and practically not say anything particular. It was just
Speaker 1: that comfort that they seemed to give each other. And
Speaker 1: I just think that you learned so much from listening
Speaker 1: and watching and being a part of other people's love
Speaker 1: and of loving them, that that's what you're trying to do,
Speaker 1: and you're trying to give and receive that love. That
Speaker 1: was one of America's most famous poets, Nikki Giovanni talking
Speaker 1: about some of the influences on her work, and her
Speaker 1: work is legendary, having been honored with prizes ranging from
Speaker 1: the Carl Sandberg Literary Award, to the American Book Award
Speaker 1: to seven n Double A CP Image Awards, just to
Speaker 1: name a few. I'm a land Vervier and this is
Speaker 1: Seneca's one Women to Hear. We are bringing you one
Speaker 1: hundred of the world's most inspiring and history making women
Speaker 1: you need to hear. Oprah has called Nikki Giovanni a
Speaker 1: living legend. She first burst onto the scene in n
Speaker 1: with her self published book of poetry, Black Feeling, Black Talk.
Speaker 1: That was the start of a career that spanned numerous
Speaker 1: children's books, nonfiction, essays, recordings, film, and of course poetry.
Speaker 1: Fifty three years after her first book, she's still writing,
Speaker 1: teaching at Virginia Tech, and engaging in activism. Listen and
Speaker 1: learn why Nikki Giovanni is one of Seneca's One Women
Speaker 1: to Hear. I'm here today with Nikki Giovanni, one of
Speaker 1: America's foremost poets, and I'm so thrilled to be able
Speaker 1: to engage her in conversation for this podcast. Welcome Nikki,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here. You
Speaker 1: are one of the most famous living poets. You've produced
Speaker 1: almost twenty books of poetry. You've won countless awards, including
Speaker 1: the American Book Award. Oprah has named you a living legend. Somehow,
Speaker 1: You've also found time to write numerous books for children
Speaker 1: as well as nonfiction, and your teaching creative writing at
Speaker 1: Virginia Tech. What an extraordinary contribution you have made with
Speaker 1: your creative genius. How do you see your legacy given
Speaker 1: all of this? Well, thank you that that sounds really great.
Speaker 1: I just try to do my job every day, and
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not trying to be humble, but I grow,
Speaker 1: and as I grow, my work grows with me. So
Speaker 1: I have a child. I have a son. He's grown now,
Speaker 1: and of course I'm going to write children's books because
Speaker 1: I have a son. But as we grow a little
Speaker 1: bit older, he and I. He has a daughter, and
Speaker 1: so I ended up writing children's books because I wanted
Speaker 1: there were Her name is Kai. She's a sweetheart. There
Speaker 1: were things I wanted Kai to to learn, and there
Speaker 1: were things I wanted her to to see and to
Speaker 1: and to hear. I enjoy every day. Well, I'm glad
Speaker 1: every day that I wake up. I think people forget
Speaker 1: that that it's a it's an honor and a pleasure
Speaker 1: and a privilege to wake up every day, and I do.
Speaker 1: And I try to capture if I'm writing, or if
Speaker 1: something occurs to me, I try to capture whatever it
Speaker 1: is that that I'm thinking through. And I don't want
Speaker 1: to sound as I sat on, want to sound humble,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to sound as if I'm somehow
Speaker 1: you know, you wake up and run to the computer
Speaker 1: and type out something. But I think that poetry is
Speaker 1: a story to be shared. I think that the idea
Speaker 1: of poetry is a story to be shared and then
Speaker 1: sharing that story. Uh, it was shared my my grandmother.
Speaker 1: I live with. My grandmother shared stories with me, and
Speaker 1: I'm carrying that tradition on to share stories not only
Speaker 1: with my granddaughter but with with any other kid that
Speaker 1: I can run into it and I enjoy that. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed the writing. So I don't. I don't know what
Speaker 1: the legacy. You know, Like most people, I'm bound to
Speaker 1: be forgotten. Actually, I say to my students, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the probably disadvantages of being a writer is
Speaker 1: that most writers aren't aren't known for being um worth
Speaker 1: anything until a hundred years later. Most of most of
Speaker 1: the writers don't even get published until they're dead and gone.
Speaker 1: So I don't. I don't try to think about that.
Speaker 1: I try to think about what am I sharing today
Speaker 1: and how can I share it and make it make
Speaker 1: it work. Sometimes it's happy, sometimes it's said a lot
Speaker 1: of time it's funny, and uh, you just I just
Speaker 1: wanted to share where I am at that moment. You
Speaker 1: can almost throw my my work up in the air
Speaker 1: and realize how old I was when I wrote that
Speaker 1: whatever that is. That's so beautifully said, and you know
Speaker 1: there's a lot of gems of wisdom packed into your response,
Speaker 1: and and clearly you're not going to have to wait
Speaker 1: a hundred years for people to discover the worth of
Speaker 1: your extraordinary work. So it goes on every day in
Speaker 1: that realm as well. But you know, it really is
Speaker 1: a gift to be able to connect with all levels
Speaker 1: in one's writing, and you seem to manage to do that,
Speaker 1: whether it is a child or whether it is someone
Speaker 1: you know with more years under her belt and looking
Speaker 1: for other insights that you bring. Well, you know, I've
Speaker 1: always well, you don't know, and I don't mean it
Speaker 1: like that. I hate people to start off, you know,
Speaker 1: but um, I've always had an affection for older people.
Speaker 1: And I lived, uh, my teenage years with my grandparents
Speaker 1: and my grandparents, and I mentioned it in my new
Speaker 1: my latest book, it's called Making Me Ring. I mentioned
Speaker 1: that it was and I dedicated it to them though
Speaker 1: they were gone, that they're the people who taught me
Speaker 1: what love is. And living with them and watching them
Speaker 1: sit on the front porch and not say anything that
Speaker 1: was what was amazing. That grandmother would smoke Grandpapa never
Speaker 1: did smoke, but grandmother would at at the end of dinner.
Speaker 1: I had to wash the dishes because I was the
Speaker 1: youngest person there. But she and Grandpapa would go and
Speaker 1: sit on the porch and you learn, you know, you
Speaker 1: learn what you what you watch, and what you listened to.
Speaker 1: And it would just be quiet. They would sit and
Speaker 1: practically not say anything particular, but it was it was
Speaker 1: just that it was just that comfort that they seemed
Speaker 1: to give each other. But I also, if I may share,
Speaker 1: grandmother liked pineapple, which to this day I'm seventy seven
Speaker 1: years old, I disliked pineapple, but grandmother liked pineapple. And
Speaker 1: Grandpapa did all of the shopping. He never would let
Speaker 1: her go. We lived in Knoxville, Tennessee, so it's a market.
Speaker 1: There were no grocery stores like that, and so he
Speaker 1: would go to the he would go to the market,
Speaker 1: and as he would come home, he would have the
Speaker 1: two bags that he was garying. And we lived up.
Speaker 1: He had become a several steps to get to us,
Speaker 1: and when he got to that first step, her name
Speaker 1: is Louvinion, he would say, lou Vina, lou Vinion. They
Speaker 1: had pineapple, and she would being and it was something
Speaker 1: just watching his pleasure and bringing her pineapple and her pleasure,
Speaker 1: and not just the pineapple, but that he thought of her.
Speaker 1: As I said, I just like pineapple. So I knew
Speaker 1: what was going to happen for Sunday ice cream because
Speaker 1: he made the ice cream on Sunday. We were going
Speaker 1: to have pineapple ice cream, which I hate. But I thought, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's what love is. That that little bit. He was
Speaker 1: just so pleased loving you. They had pineapple. And I
Speaker 1: just think that you learned so much from listening and
Speaker 1: watching and being a part of other people's love and
Speaker 1: of loving them. That's what you're trying to do, and
Speaker 1: you're trying to give and receive that love. What a
Speaker 1: terrific story, you know. I can just conceptualize them as
Speaker 1: you describe them. A lot of that has to do
Speaker 1: with your gift as a writer as well. You were
Speaker 1: just recounting some of your years with your grandparents, h
Speaker 1: and I wonder if we can also go back a
Speaker 1: little bit to your years then at university. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: went to Fisk, the historically black university, received your undergrad three.
Speaker 1: Did that have a tremendous influence on you. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it did. Grandpapa was a fifth graduate. He graduated
Speaker 1: in nineteen o five and he was the first person
Speaker 1: in his family and the Watsons who did graduate from college.
Speaker 1: So when I was accepted in Fish and when I
Speaker 1: was an early entrance, so I took a test in
Speaker 1: the eleventh grade and passion and went on to I
Speaker 1: didn't graduate from high school, and I went on to Fisk.
Speaker 1: I have to say, in an all fairness to Fisk,
Speaker 1: Obviously I was immature, and immature people do immature things.
Speaker 1: So ultimately I um, I got kicked out. But while
Speaker 1: I was being kicked out and trying to pull myself
Speaker 1: to getting it wasn't like me or anything, just foolish. Um.
Speaker 1: I finally realized, no, I need my education. I have
Speaker 1: to go back to Fisk. And grand Grandpapa passed, but
Speaker 1: I new grandmother would be pleased what she was. She
Speaker 1: came to my graduation with my mother, Mommy and grand
Speaker 1: and grandmother came and uh, Fisker is a great school.
Speaker 1: Of course, fis created, w b DO boys created sociology,
Speaker 1: and the Fifth Jubilee Singers of course sang for Queen
Speaker 1: Um Queen Victoria excuse me, and became the Jubilee Singers
Speaker 1: because of Queen Victoria. When I met Queen Elizabeth, who asked,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, I asked to see me, because
Speaker 1: one doesn't ask to meet the queen. She asked to
Speaker 1: meet me because she had said, or they said, she said,
Speaker 1: I don't believe it. Oh, she really enjoys your poetry.
Speaker 1: She'd love to meet you. She's going to be in
Speaker 1: the United States. Would you would you come? Would you
Speaker 1: would you like to meet it? And yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I just don't believe things like that, So I have
Speaker 1: a problem. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't, but I
Speaker 1: wanted her to know that we had a connection. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I'll never forget to my
Speaker 1: dying day is, you know, meeting somebody like Queen Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: you have to take time because she meets so many people.
Speaker 1: So I just kind of stood and didn't do any thing.
Speaker 1: And she looked back up. You know, they meet you
Speaker 1: and you say, ma'am, it's such a pleasure, things like that,
Speaker 1: And she looked back up, like, what are you still
Speaker 1: doing here? And I said, man, we have something in common,
Speaker 1: and I will never forget and she said, you know,
Speaker 1: British talked so funny, and I said, yes, ma'am. I
Speaker 1: attended Fisk University and your great grandmother Victoria invited the
Speaker 1: Jubilee singers to come to England. They spent a year
Speaker 1: with her and talked and saying with her for the
Speaker 1: spirit saying for her, saying the spirituals. And she was like,
Speaker 1: you know, and she doesn't know much about the spirituals,
Speaker 1: but I just thought you should know that we have something.
Speaker 1: She and I had something in common. And you're just
Speaker 1: trying to, you know, go through all the Fiskers and
Speaker 1: important and Fisk actually uh as does everybody could probably
Speaker 1: use a little more money and some things like that.
Speaker 1: But in in its beginning we had great and we
Speaker 1: have good people now, but we had great people w
Speaker 1: B two Voyce. As I mentioned, we had Aaron Douglas
Speaker 1: when I was there, and you could see Mr Douglas
Speaker 1: the painter. You could see Mr Douglas walking across campus,
Speaker 1: and you know, you just look at his flower and say, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, and Mr Douglas and you go on about
Speaker 1: your business. Robert Hayden that would talk taught us English,
Speaker 1: taught us uh He was the English teacher, and of
Speaker 1: course Bib Haydon is one of the great writers in
Speaker 1: in America. And one of my mother's favorite poems was
Speaker 1: Those Winter Sundays And when Mommy was buried, that was
Speaker 1: the poem that you wanted one of the poems you
Speaker 1: wanted read. And on A Bonta was our librarian. So
Speaker 1: we had a lot of great people we were around,
Speaker 1: and as we the students. When I came back the
Speaker 1: second time, I wanted to be a little more reasonable
Speaker 1: and put some things together. But we were able to
Speaker 1: say the FIST, we think we need a writing teacher,
Speaker 1: and we we were actually able to hire John Oliver Killings.
Speaker 1: And when John came down, which was really wonderful. He
Speaker 1: came with his daughter, he bought his daughter Barbara, and
Speaker 1: he said, oh, we need a festival, and we ended
Speaker 1: up having a poetry festival and now everybody does. So
Speaker 1: it was kind of FISK is wonderful, and it's still
Speaker 1: it's got to make some changes, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of schools, a lot of people don't want to
Speaker 1: make changes, but changes have to be made, and FIST
Speaker 1: were gonna have to make some in order to uh
Speaker 1: maintain its quality. So you graduated from Fisk. Uh. Then,
Speaker 1: having gone back, you mentioned your grandmother was at your graduation,
Speaker 1: at your commencement, and she died shortly thereafter. As I understand,
Speaker 1: yes she did. That must have been so difficult for you,
Speaker 1: given how close you were to her. Death is difficult,
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, I don't. I don't even know how
Speaker 1: to say that. I'm not indifferent to death. I was
Speaker 1: sorry that. I was sorry to lose grandmother. And when
Speaker 1: I think about home, even now you and I are talking,
Speaker 1: when I say home, I think of and I speak
Speaker 1: of grandmother and Grandpapa in Knoxville, Tendessee. I don't speak
Speaker 1: of my mother and father in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm not
Speaker 1: mad or anything. I just that's not who I think
Speaker 1: of when I think of home. So missing grandmother is
Speaker 1: is a normal to me. You're gonna miss people, and
Speaker 1: I've always uh and I still do. I dislike people
Speaker 1: when you lose somebody, you lose your mom, or you
Speaker 1: lose your grandmother, and somebody will come up and I
Speaker 1: guess they think they're being nice and they say, oh,
Speaker 1: you'll get over it. Well, I don't want to get
Speaker 1: over it. I'm gonna always I'm seventy seven years old.
Speaker 1: I'm going to miss my grandmother until the day that
Speaker 1: I died. And I like to think of grandmother because
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm a Baptist. I grew up in in
Speaker 1: the Her church was Baptist, and I mommy's church was
Speaker 1: a and African Methodist Episcopal. But I like to think
Speaker 1: your grandmother sitting in heaven with Grandpapa sitting on that porch.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, heaven is a good idea
Speaker 1: to me. I know people say, well, you know, how
Speaker 1: do you know that? And what about spirits? But I'm
Speaker 1: I'm into spirits. I think that that you hear things.
Speaker 1: I think that things come to you, that that there
Speaker 1: are times when something says don't go there or do
Speaker 1: this or whatever. And if you listen to your in
Speaker 1: her heart, you will have a lot of things. So, yes,
Speaker 1: I missed grandmother. But if you're born, you're going to die,
Speaker 1: and so that is something we don't accept. Your something
Speaker 1: that has to happen. But I don't have a right
Speaker 1: to keep her from being with Grandpapa sitting in heaven
Speaker 1: and she's smoking, and I'm sure that that she's smoking
Speaker 1: and he's sitting there and saying, you know, Louvinia, if
Speaker 1: you don't stop that, but you you're always going to
Speaker 1: miss the people you love. That's that's why you love them.
Speaker 1: But her passing was very pivotal to your poetry, was
Speaker 1: it not. Grand mother was and remains the person that
Speaker 1: I want to please. So I'm doing things and I
Speaker 1: want my grandmother to be proud of it. When the
Speaker 1: African American Museum opened in Washington, d c uh, I,
Speaker 1: like many people during the Black Guardsmith movement, I was
Speaker 1: a part of it. And I went to not to
Speaker 1: the legacy opening because that was gonna be uh the
Speaker 1: President of the United States. I was going to be
Speaker 1: Barack Obama was going to be there, and then had
Speaker 1: the Secret Service, so we went the the day before
Speaker 1: when when you just didn't have all of that. And
Speaker 1: I was walking and walking and walking and you turn
Speaker 1: and turning, and unless you've seen the museum, uh, it's
Speaker 1: difficult to explain. But it's a circle. You just go
Speaker 1: up and up and up. And I got to one
Speaker 1: point on the second level and I went I turned right,
Speaker 1: and in turning right, you see a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of photographs and left are the ladies, the old ladies,
Speaker 1: wonderful old ladies who are stopping, stopping to tell their story.
Speaker 1: But I turned right and there was a photographer. There
Speaker 1: is um a photograph of me. And without without even thinking,
Speaker 1: I turned left to say grandmother, and I realized I
Speaker 1: had said it. I had actually said grandmother because I
Speaker 1: wanted her to see see I did my job and
Speaker 1: it's most I mean, tears came to my eyes when
Speaker 1: I realized what I had done. I was wanting my
Speaker 1: grandmother to be there to see it. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: there's just people you do care about that people you
Speaker 1: not that I don't care about other people, but there
Speaker 1: are people that you want to please, and there are
Speaker 1: the people that you just want to do a good job.
Speaker 1: Seneca has one hundred women to hear. Will be back
Speaker 1: after the short break. So your first collection was Black Feelings,
Speaker 1: Black Talk, Um, and you published that at a young age.
Speaker 1: You weren't long out of college and you self published it. Now,
Speaker 1: why was that? Because at that point nobody was interested
Speaker 1: in what ultimately became black arts. And I had this
Speaker 1: little book. I had some poetry, and that's that's what
Speaker 1: I could do. I can't play tennis, I i can't sing,
Speaker 1: I can't dance. You know, I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: a movie star. All I can do is right, and
Speaker 1: I have stories to tell. And so I had it.
Speaker 1: I had some stories, and I thought, well, rather than
Speaker 1: try to do that which cannot be done because at
Speaker 1: that point, nobody's going to publish the Black poets writing,
Speaker 1: I mean that, I wuld have been a fool to think.
Speaker 1: So so I found a publisher. I found a printer
Speaker 1: who was a very nice guy, and I was living
Speaker 1: in New York, and my my question was how much
Speaker 1: would it cost for me to get a hundred books?
Speaker 1: And so he left. He said, well, I can get
Speaker 1: you a hundred books for a hundred dollars and I said, well,
Speaker 1: that great, because then I can sell a hundred books
Speaker 1: at a dollar apiece and I will break even. But
Speaker 1: the good part, and this is the best part, is
Speaker 1: that when I if I sell those hundreds, when I
Speaker 1: come back, I can sell I can get a hundred
Speaker 1: more at fifty dollars because the print thing of the
Speaker 1: Juggie's had already been made. The print was the publishing anymore.
Speaker 1: We just had to print it. And so that would
Speaker 1: make me get a hundred books for fifty dollars, and
Speaker 1: that was really great because I did that the second
Speaker 1: time and when we sold that, which was really wonderful,
Speaker 1: I have fifty dollars as it would be to the good. Now,
Speaker 1: anybody who writes foretry knows you're not gonna get rich
Speaker 1: being a poet, and so no, none of us are.
Speaker 1: I'm not either, But that fifty dollars is going to
Speaker 1: allow me to bring another book. And so that's what
Speaker 1: we that's what I did. I published them and then
Speaker 1: they have the Detroit Festival of Fine Arts, and I
Speaker 1: met Dudley Ran and I said to Dudley, well, I
Speaker 1: am going to publish my books. Because he was publishing Broadside,
Speaker 1: which was a broadside, it was one single. He was
Speaker 1: very close to Gwyn Brooks, and so he's going to
Speaker 1: publish that. And I said, well, why don't why don't
Speaker 1: we come together and I will simply have my next book,
Speaker 1: say a Broadside publication, but I will take care of everything,
Speaker 1: and if there's any money, which there is not going
Speaker 1: to be very much, I'll have it. And if there's
Speaker 1: any if we lose, you won't lose anything. So Dudley
Speaker 1: and I got together to decide we should we should
Speaker 1: take that second step, and that's how we did it.
Speaker 1: And then um uh, William Morrow came to me. I
Speaker 1: had lunch with philth a young man, wonderful young man
Speaker 1: named Philip Petrie. Phil Petrie came to me and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, we've been watching what you're doing. It we'd
Speaker 1: like to publish you. I said, I would like to
Speaker 1: be published because running of businesses is difficult and I
Speaker 1: did ever want to be a business person. And I said,
Speaker 1: that's that's super, that's great, you know, do it, and
Speaker 1: so I ended up. And I've been with him every since. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was I think twenties six years old or twenty
Speaker 1: seven years old, and I've been with William Morrow, who
Speaker 1: is a part as you know, of Harper Collins. I've
Speaker 1: been with them every since. I um, I won't change.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get another publisher. I would always be with them,
Speaker 1: and it's good because I'm not I didn't want to
Speaker 1: jump around. I wasn't looking for anything special. As I said,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're a poet, you're not gonna make
Speaker 1: a lot of money. So the first thing you have
Speaker 1: to do is let yourself go. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: deal with trying to make a lot of money. And
Speaker 1: once you do that, then you can you can go
Speaker 1: on and do your work, which is writing. My work
Speaker 1: is writing. Well. Breaking into William or Morrow was a
Speaker 1: huge accomplishment and at a very young age, very reputable publisher.
Speaker 1: Um so that was that has to have been just
Speaker 1: a terrific opportunity for you. Now, one of the most
Speaker 1: famous poems that you've written is Nicky Rosa, and it
Speaker 1: starts childhood remembrances are always a drag if you're black.
Speaker 1: Tell us what that poem means to you and what
Speaker 1: prompted it. Well, what prompted that poem, of course, was
Speaker 1: that everybody wants to tell black people how terrible it
Speaker 1: is that your life. And I'm still quite tired of him.
Speaker 1: And people say, oh, you know, it was really hard.
Speaker 1: We were poor. At everybody's pool. You know, you've got
Speaker 1: to relate in the world. You probably have a half
Speaker 1: a dozen rich people. So I got tired of hearing
Speaker 1: that that that that sobs story. And I really like
Speaker 1: Nicki Rose. Did they that that's that's what they called me?
Speaker 1: Was Nicky Rose at that point just called me Nikki
Speaker 1: and uh, I just thought all the while, whatever else
Speaker 1: it is, I didn't mention my grandparents at that point.
Speaker 1: In that point, but the last line is so important
Speaker 1: that and all the while I was quite happy, and
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say that that you can't let
Speaker 1: other people make a decision about your life and about
Speaker 1: how your life is and how you should look at it,
Speaker 1: because of everybody's life is not the life we live,
Speaker 1: but the life we imagine we're living, and so you
Speaker 1: have to be careful, you know. But I'm not very good.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you, uh now through a podcast on
Speaker 1: uh really these things that computer, but I'm not very
Speaker 1: good at any of the electronic things. And I think
Speaker 1: that my generation is very lucky not to have had
Speaker 1: Facebook and and and Twitter and and all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: because you've got so many lies and all of those
Speaker 1: lives start to make people feel, oh, something is wrong
Speaker 1: with me. I got a note yet last night from
Speaker 1: so and so and they had a good time at
Speaker 1: the party and I wasn't invited to the party. And
Speaker 1: the next thing you know, they're upset about that, and
Speaker 1: you're thinking, no, wait a minute, you need to get
Speaker 1: off off of the computer and and get down to
Speaker 1: something that makes a little more sense. You need to
Speaker 1: find your own your own happiness, because happiness is an
Speaker 1: inner it's something inside of you, it's not something outside
Speaker 1: of you. And I think that it's very I think
Speaker 1: it's very important that that do not allow, for lack
Speaker 1: of a better word, lies to keep coming at you.
Speaker 1: And you're thinking, I'm the only one who's not happy.
Speaker 1: I'm the only one who's not rich. I'm the only
Speaker 1: one who's not getting good grades. And I feel sorry
Speaker 1: for the kids because I think they have a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure on them that my generation didn't have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's that's also a lesson, I think in terms
Speaker 1: of what you've just imparted now, you've been associated with
Speaker 1: the black arts movement, certainly in the sixties and on.
Speaker 1: You're an activist as well as a poet. How do
Speaker 1: you see the connection between politics and poetry. I've often
Speaker 1: thought that artists can see society, see politics through a
Speaker 1: very special lens. What's the artist's role in the social
Speaker 1: movements of our time? I think that are that poets
Speaker 1: particularly have always been a part of the leadership of
Speaker 1: changing the world. And uh, I think that we and
Speaker 1: I'm saying we, we who are writers. Now we're lucky that,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody is crucifying us or nobody is burning
Speaker 1: us at the cross or something. And the poets have
Speaker 1: been that kind of fight. We we have been We've
Speaker 1: been considered witches, we have been considered just terrible things.
Speaker 1: And as we go through the last couple of thousand years,
Speaker 1: you can see that poets have always been in the leadership.
Speaker 1: And I think that as a poet, you just want
Speaker 1: to do your job and you would like not to
Speaker 1: be killed. And so right now we're getting a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are being killed, but they're not being poets.
Speaker 1: So obviously somebody is doing something either right or wrong.
Speaker 1: I have a great affection, of course, for Black lives matter,
Speaker 1: because I think they're doing and and and and enormously
Speaker 1: important and good and good job. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: we who are poets are just trying to trying to
Speaker 1: say this is what we see and this is how
Speaker 1: we see it, and we are we have now gotten
Speaker 1: to the point that we seldom I'm not gonna say never,
Speaker 1: because when we look at at Russia, and we look
Speaker 1: at at eastern uh Europe, we look and at at
Speaker 1: at parts of Africa, we look at people who are
Speaker 1: still being killed because they're trying to tell the truth.
Speaker 1: And we're looking at people like our former president, who
Speaker 1: has these great lives and has everybody afraid of him
Speaker 1: because they're trying to tell the truth. And so poets
Speaker 1: are going to continue to tell the truth and hopefully, um,
Speaker 1: we won't get we won't get shot of Bahamadr. You know,
Speaker 1: the plane won't fall out of the sky. You know,
Speaker 1: hopefully we'll We'll live to to do our job. That's
Speaker 1: all we can do. Yeah, And it is a vital
Speaker 1: role that so many poets and artists have played in
Speaker 1: that respect. What do you think of today's young poets.
Speaker 1: I understand you were very moved when Amanda Gorman got
Speaker 1: up and recited her poem at the inauguration. I was
Speaker 1: very happy for I am very happy for Ms Gorman
Speaker 1: and for the publicity and the she's building a career.
Speaker 1: And I hope that it I hope that it does well.
Speaker 1: I would. I am the little lady who's fond of
Speaker 1: seeing some of the younger kids come up. And I
Speaker 1: think though everybody, especially writers, have to be careful, and
Speaker 1: a part of what you have to be careful about
Speaker 1: is that you do your work and that you don't
Speaker 1: get so tied up in who you are or what
Speaker 1: magazine cover you on. But I think that Ms Gorman
Speaker 1: is in an intelligent obviously, she's an intelligent young woman,
Speaker 1: and I think that she will find a way to
Speaker 1: make sure that she's doing her uh. My favorite celebrity,
Speaker 1: I was trying to think of what the word is,
Speaker 1: but my favorite celebrity is Venus Williams because Venus has
Speaker 1: handled celebrity better than any of her generation, and she
Speaker 1: has she's done, she has been so cool. It was
Speaker 1: just the word. She has really handled herself. And you
Speaker 1: have to admire watching the pressure that Venus Williams was
Speaker 1: under and how she handled that pressure. And of course
Speaker 1: Serena is very lucky to have had a big sister
Speaker 1: to look out for. And that's that's what you're hoping
Speaker 1: that that that we go, that we go forward. So
Speaker 1: i'm uh. I was. I was, of course, who wasn't
Speaker 1: pleased with Ms Gorman's um uh poem. And I wish
Speaker 1: her the best, as I'm sure we all do. But
Speaker 1: I think that again, and as someone who has been
Speaker 1: through a lot of that, I wish that I really
Speaker 1: wish she could talk to as a tailor. I wish
Speaker 1: that Elizabeth Taylor were alive and could talk to her
Speaker 1: about the kind of pressure you can be under. And
Speaker 1: I say, let's tell her because I always think of
Speaker 1: the people who got under so much pressure and still
Speaker 1: had to kind of find a way to handle it.
Speaker 1: You have to be careful with all of that uh
Speaker 1: so called celebrity. You have to be careful because all
Speaker 1: of the people smiling that you don't like you. You know, Nikki,
Speaker 1: you seem to have such a wonderful outlook of life.
Speaker 1: You talked to a little bit ago about being grateful
Speaker 1: for each day, uh and observing all of those small
Speaker 1: things that are yet packed with so much meaning. Um,
Speaker 1: what makes you optimistic these days? And how do you
Speaker 1: keep writing? What keeps you writing? Well? I write because
Speaker 1: words are all I know. And if it's all you know,
Speaker 1: then that's what you that's what you do. I at
Speaker 1: one point in my life I wish that I could
Speaker 1: ain't And I've painted a couple of things that if
Speaker 1: you're at my home, you'd see a couple of my
Speaker 1: paintings and then you would see why I couldn't be
Speaker 1: a painter. But it's it's really I like to write,
Speaker 1: and I like to share my ideas, and I like
Speaker 1: to explore my ideas. I am a space freak, which
Speaker 1: most people know, and I'm really excited about what Earth is,
Speaker 1: how Earth is going to respond to life in the
Speaker 1: in the galaxy. We do know that there must be
Speaker 1: life in the galaxy because we know that there's water
Speaker 1: on Mars, and wherever there is water, there is life.
Speaker 1: So these are the kind of things we need to
Speaker 1: be teaching our children. If I could be president of
Speaker 1: the United States or the head of the United Nations
Speaker 1: or something really important, I would try to make all
Speaker 1: of the nations teach their children. And there are people
Speaker 1: that we are Earthlings, that we have lived long enough
Speaker 1: trying to be black and white and and Christian and
Speaker 1: Jewish and Muslim and whatever. Whatever. It's finished. Third planet
Speaker 1: from yellow Sun is Earth. And as we are going
Speaker 1: around and around, and we have problems here because the
Speaker 1: water is it's having problems, and air is having problems.
Speaker 1: But we are spending some time in the galaxy, and
Speaker 1: as we are, we have to be prepared. Somebody's going
Speaker 1: to ask us in some kind of language, whether we
Speaker 1: know it or not. Who are you? And the answer
Speaker 1: to that has to be I'm an earthly because nothing
Speaker 1: else will make sense. And I think that it's time
Speaker 1: for us to take those steps. So if you say,
Speaker 1: what what makes me excited? Uh? But what I'm excited about?
Speaker 1: And I don't know my my uh, my father, my
Speaker 1: grandfather's family lives a long time. My grandmother, um, they
Speaker 1: don't live so long. But I'm really hoping that I
Speaker 1: can live long enough to see a real what we
Speaker 1: are calling alien. But I live with aliens every day.
Speaker 1: So the alien was elected president of the United States
Speaker 1: in two so it doesn't get more alien than that
Speaker 1: to me. So I'm I'm looking for what what the
Speaker 1: life form is that's coming. And I hope I'm around.
Speaker 1: I hope that I'm I'm around, and I don't smoke,
Speaker 1: but I do have a glass of champagne most evenings.
Speaker 1: And I'm just hoping I would be sitting and my
Speaker 1: I have a little fish pond, and I'm hoping that
Speaker 1: I'd be sending my fish pond and the fish would
Speaker 1: all of a sudden start talking or whatever it is
Speaker 1: fisher do, and I will realize that something living is
Speaker 1: sitting next to me and I can turn around and say,
Speaker 1: how are you. I'm an earthly and I want them
Speaker 1: to say I'm a Martian, or I'm a jube to
Speaker 1: Ryan or whatever. I just I would love to find
Speaker 1: out what other life form there is, because it's illogical
Speaker 1: in this galaxy that we on Earth are the only
Speaker 1: life forms. It's that's just a logical. So it's time
Speaker 1: that we begin to prepare ourselves for the logic of
Speaker 1: what else is living with us. Well. To all of
Speaker 1: the earth wings who are listening to this wonderful conversation,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Nikki Giovanni for spending time with us.
Speaker 1: I hope that our listeners who are not acquainted with
Speaker 1: your work will become acquainted. It is a wonderful feast
Speaker 1: to be able to engage with you by reading uh
Speaker 1: your great work, and that they will certainly pick up
Speaker 1: your latest collection called Make Me Rain, Speaking of water,
Speaker 1: Make Me Rain. Thank you so much, Nikki Giovanni. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you. There was so much wisdom and what Nikki
Speaker 1: Giovanni had to say. There are three things I took
Speaker 1: from that fascinating conversation. First, Nikki reminds us of the
Speaker 1: beauty of everyday life as She says, people forget that
Speaker 1: it's an honor and a pleasure and a privilege to
Speaker 1: wake up every day. Second, Nikki shows us the power
Speaker 1: of observation. She so movingly described what she learned when
Speaker 1: living with her grandparents, the joy of listening and watching,
Speaker 1: and what she calls being a part of other people's love. Finally,
Speaker 1: Nikki's enduring curiosity is invigorating. She calls herself a space
Speaker 1: free enthusiastic to find out how our world will respond
Speaker 1: when we come in contact with life from other planets.
Speaker 1: She reminds us how much we all have to look
Speaker 1: forward to tune in next time to hear about our
Speaker 1: next featured woman and discover why she's one of Seneca's
Speaker 1: one Women to Hear. Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear
Speaker 1: is a collaboration between the Seneca Women Podcast Network and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, with support from founding partner PNG Have
Speaker 1: a Great Day.