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Nikki Giovanni on people starting a new life in America.
 

Tavis: Nikki Giovanni is an award-winning poet and author who’s written nearly 30 works of poetry, essays and children’s books. When she was just 27 years old, “Ebony” magazine named her their woman of the year. In 2002, she was the first-ever recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage award. In addition to her latest book “Acolytes,” which I absolutely love, you can also pick up in paperback “The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968 to 1998.” It is an honor, Nikki Giovanni, certainly Black History Month or any time, to have you on this program.

Nikki Giovanni: Oh, thank you. It’s good to see you, Tavis.

Tavis: You doing all right?

Giovanni: I'm doing okay.

Tavis: It’s nice to see you. Sheila, my makeup artist - actually, our makeup artist.

Giovanni: Our makeup (laugh).

Tavis: She does everybody. Sheila brought this in to me to see, and I said when she handed this to me - do you remember doing this, first of all?

Giovanni: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Tavis: I was saying, “This is how long Nikki Giovanni’s been around. She’s been around for so long they were doing LPs back in the day.” Tell me about this particular project.

Giovanni: That was my second - it was an LP. My first was “Truth Is on Its Way.” I did it with “Soul.” Ellis Haizlip. And Ellis asked me one day “If you could do…” - 'cause I had been working with him. I had been volunteering. And so he kind of owed me. And he said, “If you could do anything you wanna to, what would you wanna do?”

And I said, “I’d like to do something with a gospel choir.” And of course, Ellis knew everybody. He said, “Well, I know a gospel choir.” And he knew Benny. And so Benny’s actually Holiness, right? So we went up to meet the choir, and to see if they would like to work with me, because I grew up in a Baptist church, my mother.

My grandmother’s Baptist, my mom is AME. So I'm used to having these musical traditions. And the choir, New York Community, is Holiness. So we went up to meet, and of course I was a radical at that point. I was a revolutionary, big afro and everything. And I met Benny, and we were talking and met the choir members, and we were talking.

And he said, “Would you...” - I said, “Would you like to hear what I do?” Because I was a poet. And he said yes, so I read some poetry. And he said, “Would you like to hear what we do?” And I said, “Yes, I would.” Now, you know the Holiness church, so you know…

Tavis: I grew up in it.

Giovanni: I’m not their cup of tea, in many respects. (Laugh) And so Benny - well, you know.

Tavis: You are a truth-teller, but keep going, yeah.

Giovanni: So Benny said, “Anything special?” And I said, “Oh, whatever you'd like.” And he said, “How about ‘Must Jesus Bear the Cross?’” No, he said, “How about ‘Should Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?’” And somebody in the back said, “Yeah, let Jesus.” (Laugh) But I knew it was the choir for me, because even though they were Holiness, they had a sense of humor.

So we did the show, and then we did the album. It was an album then. It was a, a bestseller. It was a N.A.T.R.A. Winner. And we did it - Grammys still owe me, but of course there was no Grammy category for spoken word with music.

Tavis: Back then, wow.

Giovanni: Right? And this was the second one, “Ripple,” and when we petitioned the Grammy on that one - Atlantic is my distributor here - they said to Atlantic the same thing. “There is no spoken word. Why don't you all understand, why doesn’t Ms. Giovanni understand? There’s no such thing as spoken word with music the way she’s doing it.” And of course, 10 years later…

Tavis: There’s a whole category now.

Giovanni: Yeah.

Tavis: Yeah. The Grammys owe you.

Giovanni: (unintelligible)

Tavis: I might have to start a campaign around here.

Giovanni: Definitely.

Tavis: A Grammy for Giovanni. (Laugh) A Grammy for Giovanni.

Giovanni: Well actually, I'm gonna solicit your help. What we need is a Grammy for the Fifth Jubilee Singers, because there would be no music in America without the Jubilees. And it’s the same thing. Well, we don't have an honorary - I wrote Neil Portnow. “Dear Neil.” And he writes me back, “Dear Nikki, there’s no category for a special Grammy.”

Well, how could you have the Fifth Jubilee - how could the basis of your business rest with these nine youngsters who took this sound to Europe, and you can’t give them a Grammy? Strike up the Grammy. Yeah.

Tavis: I'm thinking as you were talking here about that song that the choir recommended. The lyrics on that song - I grew up in a gospel church, a Holiness church, as you mention. The line, the lyrics on that song, “Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?” are some of the best lyrics I've ever seen. You know the line. Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the world go free? Know there’s a cross for everyone, and there’s a cross for me. Isn't that powerful?

Giovanni: We all have our crosses to bear.

Tavis: Talk to me about that.

Giovanni: Yeah, no, that’s true. I have a book that we don't have right here right now because it’s just coming. It’s called “On My Journey Now.” And what has been fascinating to me is the story of slavery. I did a (sounds like) quilt in the Black-Eyed Pea, I'm doing it in “Acolytes,” and I've done it in “On My Journey Now.” It’s that everybody says we don't know how the slaves felt.

We don't know how the enslaved people felt about their condition. Well, we do. We have it all in these songs. And they told the story. And one of my favorite, Tavis, is sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

Tavis: Like a motherless child.

Giovanni: But the operative word, as I keep saying to everybody, there is sometimes.

Tavis: Sometimes.

Giovanni: Because then sometimes, I don't. Sometimes I got a crown up in the heaven, (unintelligible) that good news. So you got these enslaved people finding not only sanity but pride and comfort and dignity through these songs. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Tavis: I know this is a set-up if ever there was one, and we could spend the whole conversation just on this question. But since you teach this every day, you know, of course, that this year is the four-hundredth anniversary, four-hundredth commemoration, I should say - not a whole lot to celebrate for us. But the four-hundredth commemoration of the Jamestown Settlement, where our ancestors first arrived. What does it mean for you, to the point you started to make a moment ago, that 400 year later, Black folk are still here?

Giovanni: To me, and the deeper I get into the subject the more crazy I think it is that I sound, but obviously there was a calling. Because you have these Africans who lost the war, who were now captured and force-marched to the west coast of Africa, put down in the Cape coast castles, the Gory Islands of this world, rowed out to a ship and come west, right?

Six weeks on a vicious sea - the Atlantic is a vicious sea - with crazy people. And yet, they were sane. When they got here, they were sane. This is a calling. This is a calling. 'Cause I could put anybody, for a week under those conditions, make them crazy. They got here, they were sane. They stood on an auction block and they - you were naked.

You were oiled up. Men came and put their fingers in your mouth or any other orifice that they felt like. And yet, you maintained your dignity. You were sent out on a plantation to be worked by some fool with a whip over you all day long. Living with some men and women that you didn’t have a language in common with.

That you had no rituals, no foods in common with. And yet, you recreated yourself. I think America has to answer for the fact that we say we are a nation where you can come and recreate yourself, where you can come and start a new life, but the only people that started a new life were us. The Europeans came with their same prejudices, their same gods, their same notions of what should be, their same idea of how cities should look, how buildings should look. We were the ones who had to change our name. I told Jesus it would be all right if you changed my name.

Tavis: If you changed my name.

Giovanni: We changed our name, we found a new religion, we found a god, we found a way to love, despite it all. And knowing that the children that we birthed were gonna be snatched from us, we found a way to say to those children, if anybody ask you who you are, tell them you a child of God.

Tavis: Child of God, yeah.

Giovanni: This is a great people.

Tavis: See, for those - I don't want people to be left out of this conversation (laugh). What Nikki and I keep saying to each other are the lyrics of all kinds of gospel songs, I'm sure you figured out by now. But her point is, of course, that we know how they felt because they told us in song.

Giovanni: These were great people.

Tavis: You got me going now, because when you say that this was a calling, I think I know what you meant to suggest by that, but so that I'm not wondering about this, when you say that our journey has been a calling, what do you mean by that?

Giovanni: There has to be - I'm not the scientist that has problems with religion (laugh). There had to be a higher purpose that we accepted. There’s a cross for everyone, and this is - America has been our cross. We have not been America’s cross. America has been our cross. And we have shouldered it with dignity, with forbearance, and with love.

And just as that guy stood on the cross and said, “Forgive them, they know not what they do,” we have been a forgiving force in this nation. And I just think it’s time, on the four-hundredth anniversary, and I know, Tavis, it was two women, 'cause it’s such a thing that women do, that two women stood there and held hands.

And I'm sure if they were speaking English, one of them said to the other, “Girl, those fools just sold us for some food and water.” (Laugh) And I know she said that.

Tavis: You know she did.

Giovanni: She (unintelligible) looking at her girlfriend. Said, “You see what them fools just did?” (Laugh) And I know her girlfriend said, “Well, are you gonna go?” And she said, “Quo vadis. I’ll go if you'll go.”

Tavis: If you go.

Giovanni: And as they took that step, I know they stopped and said, “Now, come on, Kwame, you got to come, too.” That was a calling. And I dealt with that. I am not an envious person, Tavis. But if I have come as close to envying anything in life, I have come close to envying my mother. Her friends. My mother had great friends. She had friends just like that.

And in “Acolyte” - my mom died on June twenty-fourth in 2005. But in “Acolytes,” as much as anything else, I'm accessing, of course, Mama’s death. But I'm also dealing with the friendships that she had. She had great friendships. I think I have good friends, but my mother had great friends. And (unintelligible)…

Tavis: I hope your friends ain’t watching.

Giovanni: No, no.

Tavis: (Laugh) Okay.

Giovanni: But you have to admit that. I don't think that any of us have friends like our mothers had.

Tavis: And what’s the distinction? Generational?

Giovanni: I think the distinction is nonjudgmental. My mother’s friends - my father was not always the nicest guy. But my mother’s friends, they’d never say to her, “How come he hits you?” My mother’s friends said, “You come on, girl, let’s have a beer.” And my friends, if I had that situation, they’d have something to say about it. You understand what I'm saying?

Tavis: Is that progress or regress?

Giovanni: I think it’s progress, because I think love is progressive. And love has to be unconditional. It has to be unconditional. Because otherwise, you can’t count on it.

Tavis: Some, though, to your point now, since you went there, some wouldn’t call that love on your Mama’s part. They'd call that something else.

Giovanni: Yeah, but then, they're not in my mother’s position, and so we don't know. There’s a woman, her name is Edwidge Danticat.

Tavis: Great author.

Giovanni: And she wrote a book called “The Dew Breaker.” And in “The Dew Breaker,” she marries a torturer. And the daughter finally realizes that’s what her dad did. And so, the daughter says to her mother, “Did you know what he did?” And her mother says, “Well, yes.” She said, “How could you live with it?” She said, “But maybe I saved someone else.” It’s a fabulous book. Edwidge is a brilliant, brilliant young woman.

Tavis: Now, that’s a calling right there.

Giovanni: It is a calling. So we’re all struggling with how do we make the world better? The world is better. Four hundred years, the world is better. So it’s easy to separate and say, “I wouldn’t allow, I wouldn’t do it.” But it takes the strength to do it.

Tavis: How did you, and moreover how does one become a poet? There are so few of us who get to be called a poet. That’s a rare - a lot of people write poems, but there are few of us who get that title “poet.” You are a poet.

Giovanni: Oh, thank you.

Tavis: How did Nikki become a poet?

Giovanni: There’s stories to be told. And I wanted to tell the stories. And the people that I have admired and loved have always been - I’d always rather be with a guy hanging in the tree than the people looking up at him. I’d always rather be with the person running than the people chasing. I’d always rather be with the wife being hit than the husband hitting.

And if you put yourself in that position, then you have a story to tell. Because there’s not just a dosey-do. Not just a roses are red, violets are blue. There is - the poem is deeper, because the poem is about how do we understand the unfathomable? Nine-one, 9-11-01, what did people do? They posted poems. We had buildings coming down, they posted poems.

And that was the right thing to do. That was the right thing to share. They posted them on the Internet, and they posted them in New York City. We went to poetry. And this war in Iraq, people are writing poetry. We’re finding a way to make sense, and it’s the poem that makes sense out of it.

Tavis: After all these years, do you know yet - you may be very clear about this. Do you know yet who you're writing for? Who’s your audience?

Giovanni: My grandmother. And I don't cry that often, but when Mommy died, I realized I’d definitely lost my live audience. Because I wrote for Mommy. I wanted my mother to be proud. And I've never felt so close to someone I don't know as I felt to Tiger Woods when his dad died, and I watched him struggle. Those first couple, I watched him struggle with that ball.

And I'm not a golf person. And I watched that struggle. I watched Serena Williams struggle after the death of her sister. Losing someone you love, it’s very hard. But I think that what I know that we all share is that we had a muse. And in my case, my mom. And in Tiger’s case, I think definitely his father was his muse. Serena’s case, I think that the sisters are their own muse.

And you have to decide now that your muse is gone, who are you presenting this work for? Who’s going to actually - but who you're writing, who it’s all about is these people that love you.

Tavis: Has your answer to the question I asked changed since your mother passed, about who your audience is now?

Giovanni: I think it’s important for me to tell the truth, and I think that somehow, it’s important that if my mother were here, she would like it. But it’s gonna be a hole in my heart. It can't help it. And I'm 63, Tavis, so I won't live long enough for it not to be. It’s gonna be a hole in my heart.

Tavis: Nikki Giovanni is one of my favorites. She is an icon in her own time, and we are all the better for her as Americans for having her around here. When you go to the bookstore, which you ought to do right away, you can pick up her new book, her latest book, “Nikki Giovanni: Acolytes.” A wonderful piece. I had her on the radio show, and insisted that she come see me on television.

And while you're there at the bookstore, pick up a copy of “The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968 to 1998.” And the good news is that she’s still here and that she’s still writing, so there’ll be another one of these coming out (laugh) sometime over the next 30 years.

Giovanni: Oh, lord.

Tavis: Nikki Giovanni, I love you, and ain’t nothing you can do about it.

Giovanni: Oh, I love it, thank you.

Tavis: Nice to have you here.

Giovanni: You do such good, wonderful work. Thank you.

Tavis: I appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Giovanni: Thank you.