The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni
Page 4
2002–03 Giovanni publishes Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems (2002). Caedmon records and releases The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection (2002). Receives honorary doctorates from Pace University (2002) and West Virginia University (2003). Featured in Foundations of Courage…A Cry to Freedom! on BET. Appears in A&E television’s Witness: James Baldwin. Wins NAACP Image Award for Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea (2003). Judge for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Awards (2002). Serves on Multimedia Advisory Panel for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (2002–). Receives the first Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award (2002). Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, Delta of Tennessee Chapter, Fisk University (2003). Performs a tribute to Gwendolyn Brooks with Elizabeth Alexander, Ruby Dee, and Yusef Komunyakaa (2003). Contributes to a Smithsonian special exhibition, In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Black Feeling Black Talk
1968
Detroit Conference of Unity and Art
(For HRB)
We went there to confer
On the possibility of
Blackness
And the inevitability of
Revolution
We talked about
Black leaders
And Black Love
We talked about
Women
And Black men
No doubt many important
Resolutions
Were passed
As we climbed Malcolm’s ladder
But the most
Valid of them
All was that
Rap chose me
On Hearing “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”
He has a girl who has flaxen hair
My woman has hair of gray
I have a woman who wakes up at dawn
His girl can sleep through the day
His girl has hands soothed with perfumes sweet
She has lips soft and pink
My woman’s lips burn in midday sun
My woman’s hands—black like ink
He can make music to please his girl
Night comes I’m tired and beat
He can make notes, make her heart beat fast
Night comes I want off my feet
Maybe if I don’t pick cotton so fast
Maybe I’d sing pretty too
Sing to my woman with hair of gray
Croon softly, Baby it’s you.
You Came, Too
I came to the crowd seeking friends
I came to the crowd seeking love
I came to the crowd for understanding
I found you
I came to the crowd to weep
I came to the crowd to laugh
You dried my tears
You shared my happiness
I went from the crowd seeking you
I went from the crowd seeking me
I went from the crowd forever
You came, too
Poem
(For TW)
For three hours (too short for me)
I sat in your home and enjoyed
Your own special brand of Southern
Hospitality
And we talked
I had come to learn more about you
To hear a human voice without the Top Ten in the background
You offered me cheese and Horowitz and
It was relaxing
You gave me a small coke
And some large talk about being Black
And an individual
You had tried to fight the fight I’m fighting
And you understood my feelings while you
Picked my brains and kicked my soul
It was a pleasant evening
When He rises and Black is king
I won’t forget you
Poem
(For BMC No. 1)
I stood still and was a mushroom on the forest green
With all the moiles conferring as to my edibility
It stormed and there was no leaf to cover me
I was water-logged (having absorbed all that I could)
I dreamed I was drowning
That no sun from Venice would dry my tears
But a silly green cricket with a pink umbrella said
Hello Tell me about it
And we talked our way through the storm
Perhaps we could have found an inn
Or at least a rainbow somewhere over
But they always said
Only one Only one more
And Christmas being so near
We over identified
Though I worship nothing (save myself)
You were my savior—so be it
And it was
Perhaps not never more or ever after
But after all—once you were mine
Our Detroit Conference
(For Don L. Lee)
We met in
The Digest
Though I had
Never Known You
Tall and Black
But mostly in
The Viet Cong
Image
You didn’t smile
Until we had traded
Green stamps
for Brownie Points
Poem
(For Dudley Randall)
So I met this man
Who was a publisher
When he was young
Who is a poet now
Gentle and loving and
Very patient
With a Revolutionary
Black woman
Who drags him
to meetings
But never quite
Gets around to
saying
I love you
Poem
(For BMC No. 2)
There were fields where once we walked
Among the clover and crab grass and those
Funny little things that look like cotton candy
There were liquids expanding and contracting
In which we swam with amoebas and other Afro-Americans
The sun was no further than my hand from your hair
Those were barefoot boy with cheeks of tan days
And I was John Henry hammering to get in
I was the camel with a cold nose
Now, having the tent, I have no use for it
I have pushed you out
Go ’way
Can’t you see I’m lonely
Personae Poem
(For Sylvia Henderson)
I am always lonely
for things I’ve never had
and people I’ve never been
But I’m not really
sad
because you once said
Come
and I did
even though I don’t like
you
Poem
(For PCH)
And this silly wire
(which some consider essential)
Connected us
And we came together
So I put my arms around you to keep you
From falling from a tree
(there is evidence that you have climbed
too far up and are not at all functional
with this atmosphere or terrain)
And if I had a spare
I’d lend you my oxygen tent
But you know how selfish people are
When they have something at stake
So we sit between a line of
Daggers
And if all goes well
They will write Someday
That you and I did it
And we never even thought for sure
(if thought was one of the processes we employed)
That it could be done
Poem
(No Name No. 1)
And every now and then I think
About the river
Where once we sat
Upon the bank
Which
You robbed
&nb
sp; And I let you
Wasn’t it fun
Poem
(For BMC No. 3)
But I had called the office
And the voice across the line
Swore up and down (and maybe
all the way ’round)
That you wouldn’t be in
Until 11:00 A.M.
So I took a chance
And dialed your phone
And was really quite content
After you said
Hello
But since I had previously
Been taught
By you especially
That you won’t say
Hello
More than once
I picked a fight
Black Separatism
It starts with a hand
Reaching out in the night
And pretended sleep
We may talk about our day
At the office
Then again
Baseball scores are just
As valid
As the comic page
At break fast
The only thing that really
Matters
Is that it comes
And we talk about the kids
Signing our letters
YOURS FOR FREEDOM
A Historical Footnote to Consider
Only When All Else Fails
(For Barbara Crosby)
While it is true
(though only in a factual sense)
That in the wake of a
Her-I-can comes a
Shower
Surely I am not
The gravitating force
that keeps this house
full of panthers
Why, LBJ has made it
quite clear to me
He doesn’t give a
Good goddamn what I think
(else why would he continue to masterbate in public?)
Rhythm and Blues is not
The downfall of a great civilization
And I expect you to
Realize
That the Temptations
have no connection with
The CIA
We must move on to
the true issues of
Our time
like the mini-skirt
Rebellion
And perhaps take a
Closer look at
Flour Power
It is for Us
to lead our people
out of the
Wein-Bars
into the streets
into the streets
(for safety reasons only)
Lord knows we don’t
Want to lose the
support
of our Jewish friends
So let us work
for our day of Presence
When Stokely is in
The Black House
And all will be right with
Our World
Poem
(No Name No. 2)
Bitter Black Bitterness
Black Bitter Bitterness
Bitterness Black Brothers
Bitter Black Get
Blacker Get Bitter
Get Black Bitterness
NOW
The True Import of Present Dialogue,
Black vs. Negro
(For Peppe, Who Will Ultimately Judge Our Efforts)
Nigger
Can you kill
Can you kill
Can a nigger kill a honkie
Can a nigger kill the Man
Can you kill nigger
Huh? nigger can you
kill
Do you know how to draw blood
Can you poison
Can you stab-a-Jew
Can you kill huh? nigger
Can you kill
Can you run a protestant down with your
’68 El Dorado
(that’s all they’re good for anyway)
Can you kill
Can you piss on a blond head
Can you cut it off
Can you kill
A nigger can die
We ain’t got to prove we can die
We got to prove we can kill
They sent us to kill
Japan and Africa
We policed europe
Can you kill
Can you kill a white man
Can you kill the nigger
in you
Can you make your nigger mind
die
Can you kill your nigger mind
And free your black hands to
strangle
Can you kill
Can a nigger kill
Can you shoot straight and
Fire for good measure
Can you splatter their brains in the street
Can you kill them
Can you lure them to bed to kill them
We kill in Viet Nam
for them
We kill for UN & NATO & SEATO & US
And everywhere for all alphabet but
BLACK
Can we learn to kill WHITE for BLACK
Learn to kill niggers
Learn to be Black men
A Short Essay of Affirmation
Explaining Why
(With Apologies to the Federal Bureau of Investigation)
Honkies always talking ’bout
Black Folks
Walking down the streets
Talking to themselves (They say we’re high—
or crazy)
But recent events have shown
We know who we’re talking
to
That little microphone
In our teeth
Between our thighs
Or anyplace
That may have needed
Medical attention
Recently
My mail has been stopped
And every morning
When I awake
I speak to
Lessy-in-the-wall
Who bangs behind
My whole Rap
This is a crazy country
They use terms like
Psychosis and paranoid
With us
But we can’t be Black
And not be crazy
How the hell would anyone feel
With a mechanical dick
in his ass
lightening the way
for whitey
And we’re supposed to jack off
behind it
Well I’m pissed
off
They ain’t getting
Inside
My bang
or
My brain
I’m into my Black Thing
And it’s filling all
My empty spots
Sorry ’bout that,
Miss Hoover
Poem
(No Name No. 3)
The Black Revolution is passing you bye
negroes
Anne Frank didn’t put cheese and bread away for you
Because she knew it would be different this time
The naziboots don’t march this year
Won’t march next year
Won’t come to pick you up in a
honka honka VW bus
So don’t wait for that
negroes
They already got Malcolm
They already got LeRoi
They already strapped a harness on Rap
They already pulled Stokely’s teeth
They already here if you can hear properly
negroes
Didn’t you hear them when 40 thousand Indians died
from exposure to
honkies
Didn’t you hear them when Viet children died from
exposure to napalm
Can’t you hear them when Arab women die from exposure to isrealijews
You hear them while you die from exposure to wine
an
d poverty programs
If you hear properly
negroes
Tomorrow was too late to properly arm yourself
See can you do an improper job now
See can you do now something, anything, but move now
negro
If the Black Revolution passes you bye it’s for damned
sure
the whi-te reaction to it won’t
Wilmington Delaware
Wilmington is a funni Negro
He’s a cute little gingerbread man who stuffs his pipe
with
Smog and gas fumes and maybe (if you promise
not to tale)
Just a little bit of…pot
Because he has to meet his maker each and everyday
LORD KNOWS HE’S A GOOD BOY
AND TRIES HARD
While most of us have to go to church only once a week
They tell me he’s up for the coloredman-of-the-year