Look, I am tired, and I am scared, and I am hopeful. I am confused, and I am anxious, and I am hopeful. I am quiet, and I am uncertain, and I am hopeful. No collection to trumpet about today except the collected works of one Nikki Giovanni, a woman who has inspired and energized me for many years, and whose birthday is today. And here, in her poem "Nikki-Rosa," she proves once more that she's always known what's up:
childhood remembrances are always a drag
if you're Black
you always remember things like living in Woodlawn
with no inside toilet
and if you become famous or something
they never talk about how happy you were to have
your mother
all to yourself and
how good the water felt when you got your bath
from one of those
big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in
and somehow when you talk about home
it never gets across how much you
understood their feelings
as the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale
and even though you remember
your biographers never understand
your father's pain as he sells his stock
and another dream goes
And though you're poor it isn't poverty that
concerns you
and though they fought a lot
it isn't your father's drinking that makes any difference
but only that everybody is together and you
and your sister have happy birthdays and very good
Christmasses
and I really hope no white person ever has cause
to write about me
because they never understand
Black love is Black wealth and they'll
probably talk about my hard childhood
and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy
I have this poem in a collection she edited called Shimmy Shimmy Shimmy Like My Sister Kate: Looking at the Harlem Renaissance through Poems. I was fortunate to sit in an audience to hear her for the first time in 1996. She signed this book for me then, and though my dog literally chewed a significant portion of the binding away, I will always consider it a treasured addition to my library.
Want a bit more of her brilliance? Here she is in conversation with Clint Smith talking about James Baldwin, so there's no chance it will not amaze.
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