Remembering Poet Nikki Giovanni

For the past 50 years, Nikki Giovanni has been one of our preeminent poets. Rest in Power to the legendary writer and activist, who passed this week at the age of 81. Today we return to our conversation from 2021, reflecting on how her childhood led to a life of writing (6:21), the enduring impact of a televised conversation with James Baldwin (13:40), the story behind her famous poem, “I Married My Mother” (18:30), and why she doesn't believe in role models (28:15). On the back-half, we work our way to the present, as Nikki shares her experience of visiting the African American Museum (30:14), the evolution of her poetry (36:40), and how she grappled with two cancer diagnoses (40:20). To close, Nikki reads from her inventive about the author page (45:49). See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  Pushkin.

• 0:30Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Forgo, so welcome to the show.

• 0:48Sam Fragoso?

  Today, we return to my conversation with poet Nikki Giovanni. She passed away earlier this week at the age of 81. Giovanni emerged from the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. She was alongside writers like Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Sonia Sanchez. She became a leading voice in the era, publishing over 20 poetry collections, including Black Feeling, Black Talk, Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day, and Make Me Rain, which is now available on paperback through Harper Collins. Her honors include a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Langston Hughes

• 1:29Sam Fragoso?

  Award for distinguished contributions, and so much more. We spoke a few years ago over Zoom from her home in Virginia. As we aired that episode, I remember saying that it's just impossible to capture 78 years of life in 60 minutes. And then I said, we'll do a part two of this interview down the line. Hopefully, it would be in person, and it would be after the pandemic. And it's true, we did talk about having a part two of this conversation. And knowing that we're not going to have that.

• 2:10Sam Fragoso?

  Breaks my heart, but I have to say that the time we did share on this episode that you're about to hear, it was like the thrill of a lifetime to talk to Nikki Giovanni. She was one of the first people I wanted to have on the show when I created it back in 2016. And we spent a whole lot of time in this episode discussing her childhood, split between Cincinnati and Knoxville, the enduring influence of her grandmother, televised conversation with James Baldwin from 1971, and a whole lot more. I also just want to offer the same warning I did back when we aired this episode the first

• 2:52Sam Fragoso?

  time, that around the 17-minute mark or so, Giovanni and I discuss her late friend, Donny Hathaway. He took his life back in 1979. And so, just to be transparent, there is some talk of suicide, but it wrapped in a much larger conversation around freedom and choice that I think is worth holding in this moment. The nature of Giovanni, both the woman and the poet and the person that was on the Zoom, was unpredictable. Her thought and words could go from one idea to the next. And to keep up with her was

• 3:30Sam Fragoso?

  a challenge, but also an exciting challenge. Like her work in conversation, you never exactly knew where she was going. She was unpredictable. But only to the reader and listener, she herself seemed to know where she was going. She always seemed to know where she wanted to go. And so with that, I really hope you enjoy this episode with her. Whether you've heard it before, or you're hearing it for the first time, she was one of the great writers that this country has ever produced. And her absence, it's going

• 4:10Sam Fragoso?

  to be felt. And my only regret is that we never, we never did that part two. But I'm grateful to even have a part one. And so with that, here is the late, great Nikki Giovanni.

• 4:38Sam Fragoso?

  Nikki Giovanni, how are you doing?

• 4:41Speaker 02

  I'm doing good, Sam. How are you?

• 4:42Sam Fragoso?

  I'm so grateful to have you here.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  I'm delighted and I'm glad you're not burning up being out there in California. Everything is on fire, so I'm glad you're safe.

• 4:52Sam Fragoso?

  There are so many places to start, but perhaps we begin at the beginning. Because when it comes to writers, people love an origin story, but I'm not entirely sure one chooses writing, or if writing chooses you. And yet, I wonder, because being born in Knoxville, Tennessee, then being raised in a predominantly black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, you said, "As a kid, I think I was lucky because I was always sniffling, colds, allergies, something or another, which meant I got to stay home from school a lot, which meant I could read the books that I wanted to read."

• 5:36Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think this is where it all began for you?

• 5:40Speaker 02

  I stayed home a lot from school, just because my mother used to not have a job, but my mother had a job, and my sister went to another school. I went to an Episcopal school, just a small, private school. And so I was left at home because I could walk to school, which was very lucky, because then I wouldn't go. My chore at home was to dust, so I would dust, and then I would pick up books that I wanted to read. And about 2:30, I would get dressed and go to school. And it finally dawned on Sister Althea that she never saw me until about 2:30 or 3 o'clock. And she would say, "Nikki, you know, where have you been?" And I'd say, "Oh, I was here." And then she finally said, "No, you were not here. You never come to class."

• 6:21Speaker 02

  And I said, "Well, actually," and it's true, I said, "Actually, there was no reason to be here." It's not that nobody had anything to teach me, it's just that I could read my own books and... I enjoyed my time alone. And even with the COVID, and a lot of people have complained about COVID and about being home by themselves or being stuck by themselves. I couldn't think of anything happier. I've been incredibly pleased to be alone. I have friends that do come by, very seldom, and I go by. But I think it's nice to be at home.

• 6:55Sam Fragoso?

  So even at a young age, you could stand your own company?

• 6:58Speaker 02

  You might could say could stand, but I've always admitted I preferred it. I really did. And I'm the baby sister. Baby sisters always get left out of everything anyway. My, my big sister had a lot of friends. My big sister is friendly. I'm not really a friendly person. So I never missed not being a part of whatever it is they were doing. You know, you finally learned, oh, what I'm gonna do here is not care about any of these things. I don't care about a lot of things, so I'm, I'm very comfortable with not caring.

• 7:31Sam Fragoso?

  I think what you're describing is a childhood of listening. And listening to your sister. In fact, you wrote a poem about this, which I'd love for you to read if you're open to it.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Big sisters have dimples, can sing, play the piano, tap dance, read books, talk on the phone, paint their toenails overnight with friends, while little sisters look on and love. And I think that's what little sisters do. In my class, I have 15 students right now. At last Tuesday, because we were discussing, I said, oh, how many of us are baby sisters? And there were five of us who are baby sisters and one baby brother. And it was so funny because we all agreed that what we did was we adored our big sisters and big brothers, and that's who we really wanted to be.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  But again, just to finish that sentence, the composers that I know all spend time alone. They sing to themselves. And it's wonderful because they would never have done that. They would never have heard these sounds if they had, in fact, been going around. That's why the actors are all crazy. I'm not picking on actors, but actors are so used to being around so many people that they lose track of who they are because they're always trying to be somebody else. But we who write, we're just trying to capture what it is that we see.

• 9:01Sam Fragoso?

  One thing you did see growing up is your mother and father and a fairly explosive relationship. You said, "If you wanted to know what I was doing on a Saturday night, I was listening to my father beat my mother." How did bearing witness to that impact the woman you were becoming at that age?

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Golly, I would, I would have no idea. I've never been in therapy and I probably should be, but I just knew that my job was to listen to, to not forget what I was hearing and to not let it be put aside or to not let somebody say it doesn't matter. So I'm very proud as a woman of the Me Too movement, that women are finally beginning to speak out, to say what they've heard or what they've seen. I think it's good. My father had a stroke and my mother, I realized, she loved him, but my father had a stroke and my mother called me. I was living in New York and my mother called me and she said, "Your father's in the, in the hospital. He had a stroke." And I knew immediately that she wasn't going to tell me because I couldn't have cared less.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  So I knew that she was calling to say, "I need a daughter." And I do think, and I say it all the time, but daughters are precious. And I knew that mommy needed a daughter. And my big sister was living in Seattle. She was never gonna come back. She wouldn't say it like that because we never had that discussion. But I had a little Volkswagen and I had a son and I had a dog. So what more do you need? I threw us all in the car and drove home and we stayed. So I ended up writing a poem that said, "I married my mother." But when he came home from the hospital, of course, I realized, oh, now the problem here is that we're living in his house and what we're gonna do is we're gonna live in my house. So I bought, I bought my mother a house and I said to my father, "We're gonna move." And he said, "I don't wanna move." And I said, "I don't, I really didn't ask you.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  I'm telling you, we are moving. I don't care if you go or come. It means nothing to me. I'd be delighted to put you in an old folks home or, you know, doesn't mean anything." And you have to remember, I'm a Giovanni. So anything that's gonna be mean, I can do it because you know that I'm kin to you." So it kind of straightened our relationship out. And when we moved, because he did wanna move, I said to him, "Now, this is what you're gonna do." Every morning when she fixes breakfast, you're gonna tell her how much you enjoyed it. And you're gonna tell her how nice she looks, and you're gonna thank her. I either want you to be nice, or I'm gonna put you away. So it was amazing. Next morning, he got up. "Oh, honey, that was the best breakfast." Because he understood, I am a Giovanni, and I would have put him away.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  The Giovanni's are mean people.

• 11:41Sam Fragoso?

  I don't think you're too mean, by the way.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Thank you. Now, sometimes you just have to tell people. Maybe they don't know. And so you just have to tell them, "This is the way it's gonna go. It's my house, and I'm gonna have to take responsibility here." Because there was nobody else to take responsibility. I had a son and a dog. And clearly, a mother who was gonna need some help to get through a few things. You have to do what you have to do.

• 12:06Sam Fragoso?

  The way you've described that relationship between your mother and father, and then you and your father, reminds me of one passage from a conversation you had with James Baldwin back in 1971. I have the clip right here, if you're open to watching it with me.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 12:27Speaker 00

  It takes two people to have a relationship.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, but the relationship...

• 12:30Speaker 00

  If you don't have a dream, fake it.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  But the relationship, you can't fake a dream.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  You've got to fake it. Because we don't have dreams these days. How the hell can you have a dream? For what?

• 12:40Speaker 03

  Well, it isn't...

• 12:41Speaker 00

  So everybody's jiving. But let's jive on that level.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  If I love you, I can't lie to you.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Of course you can lie to me. And you will, if you love me and you're going off with Maddie someplace, you're lying to me. Because what the hell do I care about the truth? I care if you're there. What Billie Holiday say? "Hush now, don't explain."

• 13:00Speaker 03

  All right, I accept that.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  Of course. Of course you lie to me. Because I don't even wanna care. What does the truth matter? And why you gonna be truthful with me when you lie to everybody else?

• 13:09Speaker 00

  You lied when you smiled at that cracker down the job, right? Lie to me, smile. Treat me the same way you would treat him.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  I can't treat you the way I treat him.

• 13:17Speaker 00

  You must. Because I've caught the, I've caught the frowns and the anger. He's happy with you. Of course he doesn't know you're unhappy. You grin at him all day long. You come home and I catch hell because I love you. I get least of you. I get, I get the very minimum. And I'm saying, you know, fake it with me. Is that too much of the black woman to ask of the black man? For ten years so that we can get a child on his feet? That says, yeah, father smiled at mother. He talked to me about school today. Who cares that you can read or can't read? Most Americans can't read. Most people can't read. They look at the pictures.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  Baby. Baby, I know what you're saying. I know exactly what you're saying and I, I don't disagree, but no, I'm gonna be honest and think about it really.

• 14:09Speaker 03

  I'm not so sure that that is a human possibility.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  I do, I remember that and we were just talking about my father. Everybody lies about something. I mean, life is ninety percent, I think, a lie. And Baldwin was saying to me, you don't understand, he's tired and he's been through a lot of effort. A lot of things have gone wrong. And I said, no, you don't understand that he has put positive energy out into people who he doesn't like, who don't like him. When he needs to let his negative energy go out. That's not the term we use, but that's what it amounted to. So that when he comes home, he has the love for his wife and his children. That he needs to recognize those other people don't matter. That you're not gonna please them. You never are and you never will. But we're the ones who, who stay home, who love you.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  We're the ones who want you to have a good dinner or the best dinner we can make. We're the ones who are glad to see you and you have to be careful about who you decide you're gonna please. At one point, you're gonna see his face because he hadn't thought about it. Said, you know, you lie. One does lie. We lie to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. How are you feeling today? You just asked me, well, are you upset about the problems that we have? Well, the answer, that's a lie. The answer was, no, no, I'm not upset. The answer, that's a lie. And if you didn't know that was a lie, you're either a fool or you can't hear. Of course, it was upsetting. But the reality of what we're going through is why, if I had a negative feeling, which I don't, why would I hit the dog?

• 15:44Speaker 02

  And that dog only wants to love me. I have a Yorkie. She's crazy. But dogs only want to love you. And I think the same thing is true about wives. I think the same thing is true about your children. We want to love you. And it's up to you to make a decision whether you want to keep that love or whether you're willing to give that love up so that you can show off for somebody who doesn't care about you at all.

• 16:04Sam Fragoso?

  And yet, there's so much pushback on the side of Baldwin. And he slowly, over time, concedes to your point.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  It took Jimmy a minute to finally realize, oh, she's right. Because Jimmy also cared about a lot of people, many of whom did not care about him. And he had to also learn, in his own way, to let some people go. Some people were never going to be pleased with Baldwin, with his writing, with his life, his teeth, whatever. And I knew his brother David, who was wonderful, and I knew his sister and his mother. I finally got to know all of the family. And I think that what Jimmy knew was that those who love me will, and those who don't, won't. And it finally went click, click, click. Everybody's not going to love you. And so you have to make a decision. For those who do, what am I giving back?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  And you owe them love back. That's too simple.

• 17:03Sam Fragoso?

  Why don't we take a moment for you to read that poem you just mentioned, "I Married My Mother."

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. "I know crying is a skill. I automatically wipe my eyes, even though I know crying is a skill. Maybe I will learn. My mother did when she thought I was asleep. I think my sister did, sleep. But sleep is as difficult to me as crying. I laugh easily, and I smile, and withhold any true feelings, except once I fell in love with my eighth grade teacher and spent most of my life trying to feel safe again. Though maybe I'm safe now, after almost 30 years, which is as long as I lived with my mother. Maybe that's not a poem. Maybe that's something else.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Maybe I just wanted to show my father that he needn't be cruel. Maybe I just enjoyed buying the house he had to live in, showing her she should have married me instead of him." Or maybe, since we will all soon be gone, I should be happy I've found my mother in someone else who loves me. When I moved here to Virginia, I had said to mommy, you know, would you, you want to move to Virginia? You know, and she was like, well, I'm going to move with you. Because we had been together now for several years. And I used to say that to her every now and then. I'd say, mommy, you know, you should have married me. And she would say, well, if I had married you, I couldn't have had what I have gotten you. And I said, well, you know, there's science out there. We're learning a lot in science. And we're going to find a way to end up having babies that we want

• 18:41Speaker 02

  without having to go through any effort. And she said, oh, I don't know about that. We used to laugh about that. Because, as I say, she loved us. To me, that was her right to do so. She had a right to choose her life. And the reason that mommy and I got along, and my sister and I, as we got older, did not get along as well. Because my sister made judgments. And mommy knew, never to judge. Mommy didn't judge me, and I didn't judge her. So we got along all of the years until, till the day she died. Because we both left that room for each other. And I think that's important. I'm a big fan of abortion. I'm a real big fan of divorce. I'm a big fan of your life. I'm a big fan of suicide. I don't know why suicide, of all things, is some kind of a crime.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  I think we who love you would like for you to continue. Because we love you. And life is a continuation. But if you're saying, I don't wish to continue. I've done all I want to do with this life. Then we're going to miss you. And we have a right to miss you. But you also have a right to not continue. You know, it's all balancing out. We're all balancing it out. I just get so sick of people always trying to tell you what to do with your life.

• 19:51Sam Fragoso?

  I've never heard anyone have that position on suicide before.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  I've known quite a few. My friend Donny Hathaway, that was a loss. And it was sad. I mean, Donny Hathaway was a great writer. And his music is wonderful. Every year, this Christmas, it's played all over the world every year. And Donny was a great guy, but he had other issues. And he did not wish to continue. And he would be, among other people, that we would know. I mention Donny because everybody knows Donny and knows that he jumped out of a window. I'm sure it was sad for his daughter. It was sad for those of us who were his friends. I was a friend. But it was his life. It was not mine, it was his. And he can choose how he wants to continue or what he wants to do with it. And we have to respect that, don't you think?

• 20:39Sam Fragoso?

  I think we have to respect it, absolutely. It's hard. It's hard on the family. It's hard on the people left behind. And the burden goes on to them. And I think that's where it gets messy.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you can't continue anything because somebody else wants you to do that. And I've been looking at, of course, because I love it so much, Downton Abbey. And I think it's so wonderful. And one of the characters is, his name is Tom. And Tommy is gay. And that's one of his problems is that he doesn't know how to deal with being gay because the British don't allow you, as he put it, to be gay. And yet, it's his life, and why shouldn't he be? And so I'm really glad to see that the gay movement, people say, I have a right to be, I have a right to my life. And I guess the other thing that I really hate is people say, oh, why are you wasting your time with that?

• 21:38Speaker 02

  As if they know how much time you have and what you should do with it. And I'm always amazed, people will tell you that, oh, I wouldn't waste any time going out with him, or I wouldn't waste any time doing that. Well, who the hell are you? And how do you know how much time I have? It may not be wasted. It may be that tomorrow I won't be here. So I should do with my time that which pleases me. I don't have to be bothered with you and hearing your judgments. People say, well, if you want to know what I think, because I never do. If I wanted to know what you think, I would have asked you. So I would have, do not volunteer. If you want to know what I think, no, I don't. And I will say that, no, I do not want to know what you think. Go get a life of your own.

• 22:28Sam Fragoso?

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• 23:10Sam Fragoso?

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• 23:56Sam Fragoso?

  You said once, "I don't believe in role models and inspiration. I just don't believe in it. I never did." But I had a terrific grandmother who was always very interested in what I was doing. I know my grandmother was a great influence in that degree, but I reject the notion that someone winds you up and starts you on your way.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Grandmother was wonderful, and I was very fortunate to have a wonderful grandmother. I just finished a book that probably won't be out until '22 sometime. It's called A Library. And I was living with grandmother, and what she had, which nobody that's listening to this will understand, is a washing machine. But the washing machine was the old hand- Wash, you would put the clothes in and you'd have to turn it yourself. And it was a long time before grandmother got, my Aunt Agnes purchased her a real washing machine, but what we did was had breakfast and then grandmother washed while I did the dishes and did some dusting. And we would then take the sheets out and sheets have never smelled as good.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  We would take the sheets out and put them on the clothesline and the wind would blow it and there's just nothing as wonderful if you've ever had fresh sheets coming off that. But then grandmother smoked, grandpapa didn't by the way. And so after we did the laundry, grandmother would say, well, I'm gonna take my sit down, which was her way of saying, you know, go someplace. She would say, aren't you gonna return those books? And I would go up to the library and that's the book that's called library, because libraries were so important. And I would take my books and go up to the library and that's been the rest of the day in the library, trying to understand something or trying to learn something or trying to do something. I don't think grandmother was trying to inspire me or anything like that.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  I think she wanted to have her cigarette and be left alone, but I tried to be useful. It's just really funny, the little things that you learn. And it was fun. I still miss grandmother.

• 25:55Sam Fragoso?

  I know your grandmother didn't inspire you to do what you did because like you said, no one starts you up and pushes you on your way. But when you did start to write in the late sixties, you talked about usefulness and you said it was the sixties and so the first thing you had to do was figure out, what am I trying to get done? How do I contribute? What can I do? Take me back to what you were thinking as a young Young twenty something, starting to write and feel their place in the world.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Grandmother was gone when I published my first book, but she was alive when I graduated from college. And that was important because graduating from college was important to her. And I say that, I gave a graduation speech recently, and I was pointing out to the students, you know, you're not in college for your sake, because anything that anybody wants you to learn, they're going to teach you. Amazon is going to teach you what they want to learn. You're going to be taught what you want to learn, what you need to learn by the people who are hiring you. You are in college, because those people sitting in heaven for 200 years who were not allowed to read and write, those people are the ones that you're in college for. And those people are the people we graduate from college for. I'm very pleased about

• 27:14Speaker 02

  that. The one thing that I probably most regret, I don't have a bunch of regrets, but I do have this one, is that grandmother played the piano, and she wanted to teach me. So she'd call you in, you know, and you were supposed to sit down and take your piano lessons, you know, and I hit the wrong note one time. And grandmother used to have that little yellow pencil, and she hit my knuckles. And I just stopped. And I said, grandmother, if you're going to be abusive, I'm not going to sit here. She said, abusive? It was one of those like, well, I'll be dogged. And I got up and walked out. So I left. I never did. I'm sorry, I didn't learn to play the piano. I didn't have any of those abilities,

• 27:58Speaker 02

  any of those skills. So if you don't do that, then all you can do is watch. And if you watch, then you have to write. You have to write down what you've seen. So I became a poet.

• 28:07Sam Fragoso?

  I brought up that usefulness, because when you started writing, you said, no one is going to kill me for my words. And I think the reason you said that is because if you look at where you came from, your great grandfather was a slave, your grandfather attended Fisk University, he was a Latin scholar, but your mother, she was also a dreamer. And I wondered, as you did write, and you continued writing, do you think about your place in that long arc that is your family?

• 28:44Speaker 02

  I think of all of the people in my family that I knew. We don't know much about Gus' family, but having another mouth to feed.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  Had to be serious business in those days, simply because grandpapa, he taught Latin. And when he retired, all he's gonna have is social security or retirement. Grandmother would every now and then go and cook. She was a great cook in some white person's kitchen. She always made it sound like, oh, boy. It took me the longest to realize this. This couldn't have been fun. And one of the reasons she needed the extra money is gonna have to be me. And so you start to put things together and you say, you know, what is it? When Dr. Bunch, Lonny Bunch, finally got the African American Museum put together and they opened it. I went to what is called the Legacy opening because the night after that, the president's gonna be there, the president being Barack Obama.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  So I went to the Legacy. And as we were going around, I wasn't thinking about me. I was just, wow, because I was a history major in Fisk. And you reach a point on that second round and you could go there and see it. And you can go right and you'll see some photographs or you could go left. And if you go left, the little old ladies, and they're wonderful, were there who had been in the civil rights movement. They looked like they were going to church and they were lined up because there's a room there that you sit down and tell your story. And that line was long and I thought, that's wonderful. They, they need to tell their story. And I turned right and I looked up and that was me. A picture of me. Without thinking, I just turned left to say,

• 30:24Speaker 02

  see, grandmother, I did my job. And I just stood there for a moment. Tears just fell, fell down my eyes. And I mean, I knew she was gone, but I hadn't expected to see me in the museum. I remain so sorry that grandmother isn't here to see. I am there. I did my job and I know that she would be proud. I'm not like a church-going person, but I'm a big fan of spirituals. So I don't have a problem with believing that, you know, you feel somebody. You have to let yourself be open. I just knew grandmother was there and I thought, she's sitting up in heaven saying, see, my baby, my baby graduated.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  We look at the enslaved who were not allowed to read and write. And we look at mistreatment that some people had. And then we looked at, they finally could go to school. I mean, just the little things. And then you think, well, who cares about these things? And you realize, well, who cares? They're the people sitting in heaven. They've been there 200 years waiting to see something like the African American Museum go up. They've been waiting. And that's why we get these things done. That's what the monuments are for. That's what the plaques are for. It's not for us because, oh, we'd be dead and forgotten about it. We'd be drunk or whatever. It's for those people who all those years kept believing, every day will be better. We have to believe in tomorrow.

• 31:48Sam Fragoso?

  How are you feeling?

• 31:51Speaker 02

  It's just one of the things that brings tears to my eyes because I'll always, I'll always just remember. So you go, you don't expect to see yourself in a museum. I mean, that's, you just don't. I should have known because I guess I'm significant enough to be in a museum, but you don't think about that. And to look up and see your face, because that's who I wanted to know. Yeah, grandmother, I did my job.

• 32:16Sam Fragoso?

  I wonder, has the definition of that job to write, has it changed over the years?

• 32:23Speaker 02

  I started out writing conventional poetry and doing conventional sonnet and stuff. And then more and more, I realized there are stories to be told. And so the poems got longer and longer. And more and more, I was fortunate enough to meet some incredible people. Not just my grandmother, but Mrs. Parks and grandmother were at the settlement house and learning how to, how to work together to go nonviolent, to do nonviolent things, to be a part of that. And you learn that you have something to say. And it all comes back to the same one thing. All I have are words. And so I need to use the words that I have to tell the story that I want.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  So I don't like anybody, as you could probably see, shutting me off. All I have are words. And so I have to use my words that makes sense to me, that I can be proud of. And one of the things that I don't do, you talked about, we were looking at Jimmy Baldwin and me, but I haven't looked at that, nor have I reread it. That became a book. Lippincott put the book out. I think that it's going to become another book. It's going to be the, what is called the last interview. And I gave permission for that. They asked, maybe someone will enjoy reading it, maybe. I don't know, but of course you have permission. Some things you do get paid for, but most things just, you let them go. And so I don't go back to reread.

• 33:51Speaker 02

  I'm working on a book called The New Book. And I've been laughing at myself because I, some people had requested for a variety of reasons. You know, we'd like a poem about this, that, or the other. And I realized I had these poems floating on my desktop. So I thought, I gotta put them in a folder. And as you know, because you've been working with me, I'm not good at all of this stuff. And then putting them in a folder, they needed a name. And so I thought, oh, it's The New Book. Who knows? You do not know how much time you have. So if right now, I fell out, right now, I'm talking to you and I'm gone. All of a sudden, you don't hear from me and the dog is barking and everybody realized, well, she's transitioned.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  One of the things that you'll know because you'll look up there and say, I wonder what The New Book is. And I've got a little bit more than 20 poems in The New Book. So I'm enjoying, as I am writing, putting things into The New Book. And one, I think that's what it's going to be called. And one day, I'll be 90 years old or so and hopefully publish that book and there'll be another book. And you know, life is a good idea and so I'm going to recommend life. We were talking about suicide earlier. And I'm going to hope that you find the things in life that make you want to be a part of it. It's good. But I also want to go into space. So I'd love to take, you know, take Cleopatra. And what I've been trying to figure out is how to get champagne.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  I've been laughing with Dr. Bolden when he was the head of NASA. I said, well, the problem is how do you get champagne? Because it bubbles. And once you get out of, you know, out of the gravity, the champagne is going to suffer. And so if you can get your dog and champagne in space, you don't need anything more. Life is good. You'll be, you'll be able to look at that little blue ball and say, look at those fools. Because they'll be in some kind of war. They'll be doing something dumb. And so it'd be nice for you and your dog and your champagne to be sitting up there going round and round.

• 35:56Sam Fragoso?

  I so love that. You said that when you turn 90, you're gonna publish another book. And I think one of the great joys of your writing is that you've reinvented yourself along the way. And I wondered, when you were diagnosed with lung cancer and breast cancer with Dr. Gregory, how did that change the person you were?

• 36:20Speaker 02

  The one thing you definitely know, and I'm not, I'm not being brave or courageous or anything, but you know, if you were born, you're gonna die, really against homicide. I think, you know, nobody has to kill you because you're gonna die. Things are gonna happen. But I always say it, and I get teased about that. An airplane only does two things. It should take off and it should land. And I'm the person sitting in first class. I don't want to drink. I don't want to eat. I don't want to talk to anybody. I just want to hope that that plane takes off and lands because that's what it's supposed to do. And when I was diagnosed with cancer, the next thing is, well, because they're always asking you, what do you think we should do? And I said, no, I'm the PhD. You're the MD.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  What do you think? And he said, well, you know, you got two lungs. So taking one away, you know, you won't miss it. I said, Gregory, you're right. Take it. And so Dr. Creighton Wright was my surgeon, and he took my left lung away and it was gone. And it was just no reason. My mother, it worried my mother more than it worried me. It was out of my control, but I had a great, a great surgeon. But only, it's only been now two years that I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And I have to laugh because I'm sorry mommy's not here because we would get a laugh out of that. But it was my right breast. And so we have the same thing. I have two breasts. He said, well, you got two. And I said, what do you think? He says, well, you know, at your age, what are you gonna do with them anyway? You know, he said, if you were 20 or so, maybe it'd be a different. I said,

• 37:50Speaker 02

  you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Gregory. But, you know, I'm not gonna, you know, that's not my big worries to be in bed. But I'm very lucky that God or however we look at these things to have missed a left lung and a right breast. Means that I'm balanced. And so I think, well, you know, good for us. Good for me. I have my issues, but I'm balanced. And one doesn't want to be in pain. You know, you're not going to live forever if that's what you're asking. And so you just try to take, make sure you've taken care, which I, I have, of my responsibilities. And that's it, you know, you, one day it'll be, it'll be over.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  But I don't think I'll be sad, but I don't think I'll be, I don't think it'd be like, oh, goodie, I'm dying. And I don't, I don't, I don't think that. I think it'd be like, well, you know, these things happen and you go on. I laughed about, there's a poem in there. And I say that the way that you'll know that I'm dead is not if you bring me some champagne and I don't drink it because maybe that'll happen. But my attorney is Gloria and her husband is Mike. And we know if Gloria and Mike bring me Kumamoto's, which are my favorite oysters, and I don't sit up in the bed to eat, then they're going to say she's gone. That's definite. She's gone. We're sorry about that. I'd have to be really dead not to want Kumamoto's.

• 39:17Sam Fragoso?

  You said you don't have many regrets. And I'm thinking about a line from your poem Werewolf Avoidance. You write, "Poets should be strong in our emotions and our words that might make us difficult to live with, but I do believe easier to love. Poet is garlic, not for everyone, but those who take it never get caught by werewolves." And I wondered, at your age, do you think you've loved well?

• 39:51Speaker 02

  I think I've done the best that I can do. That's all I'm going to do. So I don't, I don't ever blame myself for my shortcomings. And because I teach writing for a young audience, I've continued to have my students, speaking of werewolves and things, but we start to look at, and we're looking at it now, Little Red Riding Hood, who actually we get that folk tale doing the scarlet fever. And we know that had to be one of the most difficult things in the world. For her mother to put that red riding hood on her, which is going to say, beware, she may be poisoned. She's got the disease, which actually she didn't. And she must have given her everything they had to eat in the house, whatever they had. And she told her, now go to your grandmother.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  And I'm a big fan of grandmothers. So I know that in going from her home in the city through the forest to her grandmother, her mother knew I've done the best I can for my little girl. And I hope that they make it. I hope that both of them make it. And I hate the way that some people have taken away. The hunter comes along and, you know, the wolf eats them. I hate all of that because we know that the mother did the best she could to save her baby. And I want my kids, whom I'm trying to teach, I want them to begin to understand where do we get the folk tales from? Who is trying to make what statement? That's what's important.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  I've done the best I could and I'm, you know, pretty happy. There've probably been some mistakes, but you know, hell, if you don't make a mistake, you haven't lived.

• 41:29Sam Fragoso?

  A publisher once asked you, Nikki, can you please write an about the author for the back of the book? And you protested a little bit. You didn't exactly want to write it, but then you wrote your version of it. And I thought perhaps you would like to read it here as we leave.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  I love that. A long time ago, a little girl sat in the window of her bedroom she shared with her older sister and read by a finger flashlight. She looked at the stars when the battery gave way. And when she got older, she snuggled under her grandmother's quilt to listen to jazz on the radio all night, or at least until she fell asleep. She first fell in love with words. Then they somehow seemed to fall in love with her. She learned history, met people, traveled everywhere. And since this is a good fairy tale, she lives happily ever after.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  There may be other things along the way, but the words and the stars and the music are all that matters. And I really did. I liked that. I had fun writing that because everybody, you know, well, what did you do and how did you and what? And you think, well, you know, I've heard that before. I've heard where I graduated from high school. I've heard it before. So let's do something that makes a little more sense. And it's all there. You do the best you can with what you have.

• 43:02Sam Fragoso?

  Nikki Giovanni, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.

• 43:07Speaker 02

  Thank you, Sam.

• 43:35Sam Fragoso?

  And that's our show. Special thanks this week to Camille Collins, Virginia Fowler, and of course, the one and only Nikki Giovanni. Her latest poetry collection, Make Me Rain, is now available on paperback. To order your copy, visit www.harpercollins.com, or follow the link on our website, talkeasypod.com. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd recommend past conversations with poets and writers, including Claudia Rankine, Ocean Vuong, Morgan Parker, Gloria Steinem, Elizabeth Gilbert, Dr. Cornell West, Roxane

• 44:16Sam Fragoso?

  Gay, and George Saunders. You can find all of those and more on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, at Talk Easy Pod. If you'd like to purchase one of our mugs or our vinyl record with Fran Lebowitz, you can do so at talkeasypod.com/shop. That's talkeasypod.com/shop.

• 44:44Sam Fragoso?

  As always, our show would not be possible without our incredible team. Our executive producer is Janik Sabravu. Our associate producers are Caitlin Dryden and Nikki Spina. Our lead editor is Andre Lin. Our editor for today's episode is Clarice Givara. Our assistant editor is Caitlin Dryden. Illustrations by Chris Shennoy. Video and graphics by Ian Chang, Derek Gaberzak, Orion Wong, Ian Jones, Isabel Primavera, and Ethan Sinica. Special thanks to Patrice Lee, Kalen Ung, Shiloh Fagan, and Callie Saringas. And the show is produced by Caroline Reebok. I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. Stay safe and so long.

• 45:42Speaker 04

  History gets written, then rewritten, sometimes by scholars correcting the record, sometimes by committees deciding what a generation of kids will and won't learn. The version that makes it into the textbook isn't always the only story. It's the one that won out. That's the kind of thing Ground News was built for. It shows you how outlets across the spectrum tell the same story, side by side, so you can spot the shading for yourself. Ground News gives each outlet a factuality rating, so you know how much weight to give the source, and shows you who owns it, so you know what's behind it. The Nobel Peace Center called it "an excellent way to stay informed,

• 46:24Speaker 04

  avoid echo chambers, and expand your worldview." So go to groundnews.com/rz. That's G-R-O-U-N-D-N-E-W-S dot com slash R-C for 40% off unlimited access vantage plan. Get it yourself or gift it to someone who'd rather know than not. Use my link, groundnews.com/rz, so you get the discount and they know I sent you. If you're a fan of learning all sides of history, then Ground News is for you. One more time, groundnews.com/rz.

• 47:03Speaker 05

  I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together.

• 47:11Speaker 06

  We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.

• 47:14Speaker 05

  I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there?

• 47:16Speaker 06

  There were 32,000 pounds of them.

• 47:19Speaker 05

  32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

• 47:25Speaker 05

  Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast What It's Like to Be.