Authors: Nikki Giovanni

Chasing Utopia (10 page)

The Journey:
The journey begins with the idea. It begins with a story. The journey is the step any writer takes to declare: I have something to say. I have a voice. I need to Use it. Since poetry is my vehicle on this journey, I chose to form my own publishing company and publish myself. I learned to set type, to bind, to cut. These skills are not necessary in the computer age, but they were then. Skills give us freedom. Freedom gives us wings.

The Inspiration:
I am a lover of history. It was Malcolm X who said: “Of all our endeavors, history is the most qualified to reward all research.” That may not be a totally accurate quote, but I remember being enchanted with heroes, with quests, with the search for the difficult and the unknown. Human beings are worthy of our interest. I continue to be fascinated by who we are and of which greatness we are capable.

The Back Story:
My latest book,
Bicycles,
evolved out of personal and professional sadness. A murder in the city in which I live and a massacre at the university at which I work formed the anchors of the book. But anchors are stationary and these two events kept spinning. It occurred to me that they were wheels. If that was the case then how could I connect them? Tragedy can only be calmed by love and laughter; I challenged myself to write love poems to connect the vents to the energy that was spinning. Once that journey was started, I realized if I put a handle on it I would have a Bicycle; hence my title. Love requires trust and balance. A perfect description of a bike.

The Buzz:
It is a pleasure to report
Bicycles
was well received.

The State of the Industry:
My very latest book is an anthology:
The 100* Best African American Poems (*but I cheated)
. I cheated because I wanted to put more than just the 100 historical poems. That would take me from Phillis Wheatley to the Black Arts movement and maybe, if I pushed it, to Tupac, but I felt my obligation was to do more. So we numbered the book 1 to 100 but we stuffed poems into duets, and suites, communities, even. The book has 221 poems in all and I am very proud of that. I believe our job as both writers and editors is to keep pushing the envelope.

INTERIOR VISION

There has never been a time when human beings did not create art. We tend to say the Caveman painted the walls but that would be illogical: He was out either hunting or protecting the front of the cave. Cave woman drew on those walls to leave a recordâsome . . . one . . . was here. We began with the Egyptians to see representations of humans and to see drawings that could easily be explained as prayers for a benign God.

People have also always sung . . . made noises that were either warning of danger or offering courtship. There will always be a need for song.

But there will also always be a need for physical representation. For paintings, now photographs, soon only digital and maybe something else yet unknown but not so far away.

Football is art. Almost a ballet. Reaching for the ball twirling down. Sprinting for the goal. Basketball is an art. Taking off midcourt and flying for a dunk. Black men made an art of walking. That thrust of hips, that
gangsta
lean. Folk saw that and wanted to throw their cars away.

Black people
are
a work of art. In the deepest throes of slavery we found a tone to build upon that became The Negro Spiritual. They laughed. Nobody, they said, wanted to hear it. But we sang on. Sang to Gospel to make it jazz to make it rhythm and blues to have it stolen as
rock
to make it Rap. The only sound, besides jazz, that is heard all over this planet. Black Americans are wonderful. They laughed at Duke Ellington: called it Jungle Music. They said Marian Anderson couldn't sing in the DAR building so she sang to the Heavens. They laughed at our poetry: said it was angry. They laughed at Rap: said it was dangerous.

They don't know what to make of the representational art today. It can be called Graffiti which in some eyes diminishes that art. No matter what they call it today, tomorrow they will call it
Genius
. Tomorrow they will teach classes about it; write books about it; give lectures on it. Folk will be awarded tenure for explaining why this line goes that way though of course only you and I know why. The artist felt it. The artist was true to herself; true to himself.

There would be those who say you cannot do what you do; you need to please the masses. But for those of us outside The Magic Circle, the masses we serve, our ancestors, our communities, our prayers for a fairer future . . . we are pleasing. Good for us. Good for everybody who has stayed true to ourselves.

Hip Hop Lives. And this art will live on as a testament to the beginning of the 21st Century. Alain Locke was correct when he said The Harlem Renaissance would define a great people because no people are great without great art. We are a great people.

I GIVE EASILY

I give

easily

because I have

easily

taken It's incredibly

difficult

to let people

give you what you need maybe

as difficult as

giving you what you want

interactions

with and between

humans can certainly be

complicated

PEOPLE WHO LIVE ALONE

People who live alone

Fart in cars

Pick their noses

Sleep naked

And never flush

In the middle of the night

Most people who live alone

Are compulsive

Things have to stay where

Things were put

People too

Like there is no room

In my heart for change

Or hamburger that I don't grind

Or coffee that drips

Or tears because

People who live alone

Soon learn

It is all

right

BEFORE YOU JUMP OFF A BRIDGE OR HANG YOURSELF OR BE UNHAPPY PLEASE CONSIDER: LIVE FOR YOURSELF; THOSE WHO HATE YOU HAVE NO PURCHASE

I don't think

There is

aÂ Â Â Â Â Â definition

Â Â Â Â or

bÂ Â Â Â Â Â definition

Â Â Â Â but only

theÂ Â definition

when it comes to who you R

but then I don't

FacebookÂ Â Â Â or

TwitterÂ Â Â Â or

YouTubeÂ Â Â Â or

Ask anyone's permission

To fuck or not to fuck

That is not the question

To love or to be

Lonely:

No-brainer

Who you are

Is you

And no one can

Should

Will

Touch

that

YOU GAVE HER SOMETHING

(for Big Nikky)

You said: My aunt owned

A building where she rented

Apartments

Like Macon Dead's tenants sometimes

They couldn't pay

Twice over the years the man

Upstairs gave paintings

Instead of money

He said: Will you take this

Will you take that

For my staying in

Your place here on earth

And she said: Yes

You said: I visited and loved

Them both

My aunt told me the story of the paintings

They are extraordinary, I said to her

She said: Take them. I want you to have them

You carried these paintings

From coast to coast South to less South

To the walls of a warm and comforting home

You said to me: Do you know the painter

Do you know what they are now worth

If I had known their worth I would have

Should have given her something

For them

I said: You Did

You love her You love the paintings

If that's not something

Then I know nothing

THIRST

At 2:30 or maybe 3:00
A.M.
I have tossed

And turned all I can:

I'm thirsty

But if I get up to drink I'll have to

Get up again

To go to the bathroom

Thirst wins

Stumbling into my house

Shoes

I go to the kitchen

To find the lemonade

My mother

Were she still here

Would complain:

You don't drink enough water.

Adam's Ale is the best thing

But I don't like water

I, like most Americans,

Take my water

With sugar or fruit juices

Or any disguise I can find

Leaning over the sink

With a bit of real lemonade dripping down

My chin

I feel the coolness

Float into my lungs

And that blessed relief

That says Thirst

Has been satisfied

Feeling myself once again in bloom

I smile

Return to my bed

And await my next

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Adventure.

THE SCARED AND THE VULNERABLE

On a foggy night

With that sort of misty rain

That is wonderful for sleeping

But nothing at all for driving

I traveled home

From a great dinner party

We were all so jolly

Driving my ninety-year-old aunt

Who was visiting from out of town

We were catching up on family

And arguing politics

I turned up our mountain

Just as I admonished her:

But The President hasn't done anything

About jobs

When something said:

You are going too fast

It may have been the wine that evening

But I have to confess:

I speed a lot

So I heeded the voice

My eyes always sweep the Trail

Leading to my home

From Side to Side

There is always a cat

Or raccoon seldom a coyote and at this hour of

night the turtles

And snakes are in bed

My aunt asked:
Why

Are you hitting your brakes

When a beautiful white strip

Surrounded by shiny black fur

With fear in her eyes

Got caught in my headlights

And stopped

I stopped too

And waited.

She continued her journey across the trail

And I hope

Home to her babies

We need to watch

For the scared and the vulnerable

One day it may be

Author's Note

The author gratefully acknowledges the following publications in which poems in
Chasing Utopia
first appeared, sometimes in slightly different form:

“Chasing Utopia”:
Poetry Magazine

“Spices,” “The International Open,” and “It's Just Love”:
Appalachian Heritage

“Icarus”:
Icarus
:
The Wyoming High School Magazine

“When God Made Mountains”:
The Knoxville Journal

“These Women”:
Tiferet Journal

“Poets”:
Cultural Weekly

“In Defense of Flowers”:
The Roanoke Times

“Exercise”:
Cerise Press

“I Wish I Could Live (in a Book)”:
What You Wish For: A Book for Darfur

“Don Pullen”:
The Jefferson Center Tribute to Don Pullen

“When My Phone Trembles” and “The Scared and the Vulnerable”:
Prairie Schooner

“Note to the South: You Lost,” previously published as “The Lost Cause Lost”:
Lines in a Long Array
:
A Civil War Commemoration: Poems and Photographs, Past and Present

“Our Job Safety Is Your Priority with Coffee”:
The Atlantic

About the Author

NIKKI GIOVANNI, poet, activist, mother, and professor, is a seven-time NAACP Image Award winner and the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award, and holds the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry, among many other honors. The author of twenty-eight books and a Grammy nominee for
The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection,
she is the University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

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Also by Nikki Giovanni

POETRY

Black Feeling Black Talk / Black Judgement

Re: Creation

My House

The Women and the Men

Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day

Those Who Ride the Night Winds

The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni

Love Poems

Blues: For All the Changes