A Word on Words; 4240; Nikki Giovanni

from nashville public television's stood in the way of celebrating offers literature and ideas for more than three decades but this is a word on workers' jobs are low and on civil war welcome once again to award own words today it's my great pleasure to welcome back my old friend nikki giovanni well most widely read poets and has authored some thirty books for both adults and children you graduate of fisk of distinguished professor of english at virginia tech her books include black feeling black folk blues for all changes rosa and bicycles love poems you hear the day with her latest poetry collection chasing until now entered the game brings remembrances of childhood the pleasures of food and a tribute to robert champion thanks for coming along that a heavier message legacy again and that he would do with

multiple would make it in this world you've published all these books of poetry and people say it no we support in this day and age and done that you think of where we are in this world politically financially psychologically that integrated name for poets absolutely i do what i said i play as the other day at the city's that there's death and one of my students is a really sweet kid said you know you know you can't make a living or you know you can live in newfoundland poetry and i said you know there and there are two hundred and fifteen million americans just like if you can get to imprisonment under fifteen million votes fifty cents a dozen it could be nevada senate intelligence and unfortunately exactly right that's exactly what i notice in the in the in this fall

there were some border is presented as though you would think as drones talk about it you know what i want or what i've always wondered is my own face and now mind and therefore my own voice and it's something i'm seventy years old says something that you fight through an avid editors ever greater generate job and when this book came out that it comes at the chase and utopia is sort of like my mom died and it's sort of like a memory of my mother for those adult no utopias a beer and mommy jake of beer every day of her life that i knew her so the day but among the family said she didn't want a beer she fell and we put it we took her to the hospital and i said you really just bring you a light bud light with it when gerry jacobs and she said no emma wanting me in at the palm my mother's that because you've got to be every day when mommy died i'm a mama's girl i was very sad and an avid fan of morning and i'm at the american that rubio be strong and go on i did what i had to do cause i'm

responsible i had to solve certainly go brown i did what i had to do but when i finished i set on my deck and i drank bridges not a bad idea but after wow the dog is like unnaturally like all know let a good size and less of looking at uv intensity on the decorah to three weeks now get up and be bigger about this you decided to change sabo i'll have a beer for monday night just it's a sentimental thing and i don't like the asian and so i thought well if i'm going to be heard but now i'm a snob about the best be kept silent too but you know my local bookseller and looked of bina got to be a book that this wasn't a one been well when is utopia and so ok is great at i call my beard that's how keith and as a kid that made about love utopia or will get that you know i call them their own wall i called bob dylan in california they have everything and it's like no you know but also because it's a very intimate and so one thing led to another

americanism gone down this february only given to toe inside and saw mass can agree that you know but leon says you know look deep within yourself that somebody else writes it kept going and i'm going up the east coast bitching about not being able to find utopia when as we see in the black community guy was good because one of the people that hurt me was a brew master of utopia so the cows and the system particularly we will send a utopia and he did recently utopian recently out four bottles so i am now waiting to drink it because i mean i work in africa with mice and kwame alexander and he works with clean one liter and she i actually love she is the most wonderful woman she takes these jams and stuff you know so we're a country doing now what he called literacy with the volatile so

she's coming and saw decided that i'm gonna drink utopia with verses come into my mom said well i will quote we share with our own television audience you know not just chasing utopia both some others do you want to read casey utopian four of noah's long but you know you read so well sure that we've got an audience that loves writers love novelist the viruses than fiction and nonfiction about poetry and so this is this is poetry written his prose so here's actual story i was bored well not bored because i had the privilege of interviewing mae jemison the first black woman in space who said she pursued a degree in physics and lots of became a medical doctor to

keep your mind occupied ways it was the managing fifty five or thereabouts i ask how do you keep from being bored and she replied a friend of my father's once told me if you're bored you're not paying attention so i said to myself beer where foodies my family and i my grandmother was an extraordinary cook her miniature parker house rosa been known to field the roof of a flooded houses in hurricane season papa may panic buys cream so rich and creamy with those surprising chung subversive citrusy flavor my sister made spring rolls so perfectly the chinese complain to the state department in the head about fries chicken just short of murder and that has been known to make the crowding out his own kfc money is the best being cooker in them in this world or the next and under pretty slow pot roast we are in other words dangerous when it comes to food but i'm a wine drinker my sister was a wine drinker also red of course one of american ministers so they ate their wine better than drinking

that that love mommy mr miller and as a beer drinker mummy also like pig feet below not pickled i was there when money back then six months later gary back them up on a man i've got a family to bring them back to be a genuine and that mileage ain't no genuine draft and drink bud lite not for me if it was gonna be beer and it'll and something going through books i can grow as utopian sam adams the number one beer in the world haven't always been a fan of start at the top i called my local beer store i'd like to order a utopia please begin this would be easy no way pete said we never get that ok i call a bounty hunter they have everything i want my justice series blind justice frontier justice poetic justice great red wines the land we don't sell beer in canada of their sullen utopia as a special brew because alcohol content is so high but it's still a beer but here is the happy part i'm a poet i occasionally get invited to

speak and important government agencies i was still sure someone will say why were you a poet a rabble you're right the tsa and think where would she make a big comeback you who think the modern war is a stupid an unworthy why would you speak for an important government agents well for one thing i'm an american so government whether i like that are not army for another i know that they have the world's best computers i was jamming i was funny i was very nice and a good citizen i wanted an illegal favorite flavor police arrested can you find utopia of course little lady said the director it's in your heart language he's about a lively smile and patted me on my shoulder not wanting to appear to correct and i smiled the smile of the defeated and waited for him to leave i asked his assistant i think he pontificating it's in your soul searching deep and you will find a new and it is a lot of color finally an older man gray hair cut sharp and bad excuse me please

i'm trying to find you talk you can you help me right here he said as soon as i can find a safe computer we moved into another room and he made me stand away from him so that i could not see the computer screen he pulled up a website you go you say it and he was right i can buy it as it's against the rules but get someone else to go to the site it's a great beer at the end of fifty dollars a pound to be and now that i found a utopia and the peace jirga in the jazz series from darkest europe brewer brother polonius bitches brew held out on my you know i have a utopia and file rejection i would be buried with that i would use it to start conversations and make friends it's not for models are americans utopia is for poets one eleven novel is about we have to talk about before we

get into that drakes it still breaks my bed i am the mother of a son but i don't think you have to be the mother of a son and the idea that somehow your band mates something you want to join something you want to lead in order to accept you as a part of them beat you and ultimately in the case of opera champion at the debt but what an essence does that mean and it's not like you know that there are lot of spare men of color around that we can just kill a few every now and then you know years ago the biggest killer few in their capsule below a big deal until a few and a couple of other people that they had that wanted you know drink iced tea or something cause you have on a ridiculous heat sensors that make young people and makes nine and end the idea when you look at what happened this was doing cagney felt an end the dolphins and <unk> in our house it was a bad idea when it was a new idea and as a worse idea to stop while i'm

in this argument that does it with it is one of the things that that i'm i'd recognize you know that this topic that weekend which can be girls' because they want to join us when we have and the plans we haven't issued an epic anonymous are lovers but we have in the pants ms treated women who didn't know the great history of delta sigma theta but they know that they had to have benefits that they had to go around the oval on their knees and they would end up getting cut some things on the book since what is that gap to do with sisters when we had great women we had met with cabinet macau but that though which a noble we had lillian them well we head out dorothy height what what really enabled these women are why we drinking hot sauce with people and an insect change then a space a mid level we can guess of the nicer something on larson plays announces his beard well let's read to want to

read that robert champion what that is a government it's on furlough so on and very briefly illinois who died at the hands of robert champion who died at the hands of his band mates they ever wrestlers ocean beating again see and sky brian snow gently rubs the bones of robert champion into the salt of his ancestors driven into the blue through middle passage one of the torture of slavery and apartheid you know the terror of jim crow who would imagine the band would kill probably having too many black man trying to sing appraisal too many black man trying to show a better self so many black men that we can spare them i don't think so there can be no excuse for this murder they can be you know i didn't realize he was the man how could you not know when you act like nazis jesus was crucified how could you not understand this child should have lived how could that men do this to each

other that's wonderful most powerful well this was one of their own you know the junkie on the page in allowable ways it's a total change of pace but it's true and i looked up to control their fear and a terrible fears spiders i can a spider his adult who is called allow as a love was a canvas by not a murderous brown recluse that even a black widow and the trooper told this was only a small subtle papery spider who should've run when i picked up the book but she didn't and she scared me and i smashed her i don't think i'm allowed to kill something because i am frightened and i have learned i live in the country and so we do have new clues fighters and they will because an incredible than they

were by julius hugh wolff well i will and i'm allergic to enough things to but i have learned that the spiders' inside have to live with them and i'm workin on it then you know a lot of us approach and never get credit at speed allowed it alleges that that leverage and then run over credit and i'm learning to live with the spiders and i'm learning that you have to tolerate things that that just because you're afraid doesn't mean you can you can communicate and it's being in the country is really interesting because i was sitting and so learning to live with all of the things i have to live it and when i'm on my deathbed the nine his there's a possible and that felt like and it wasn't a hell are you playing bass mr e davis and about what the dog and i need to do doesn't always go like i'll wake up lately and i picked up alex and to prevent employers are going to play that same issues and what issues data shows that since it was gone but do you have to learn to live with things

and we'll work on that for those you're just joining us i'm talking when my friend nikki giovanni about her book chasing utopian to book holmes wonderful book of poems army and i realized my grandmother's know i live here have data is held the right way because i know that the right way my grandmother's grits are so much better than mine nineteen to be lumpy and a bit disoriented though probably and that's my thought i always wanted that one cup grapes into four cups cold water with one teaspoon stopped salt and stop them altogether grandmother did it the right way she started with cold water that she brought to a boil sifted the grid slowly into the bubbles then head of assault she also home while she stared with a wooden spoon i wonder if i should learn to sing a couple of to really

get into all the geek talk about how it uses to be poet do you have a writing regimen i mean do ideas come to you in a little a night and you wake up and have a fair by even his jot down you know if you if you're if it's a novelist of our four historians there were two hours or they don't they were in the afternoon or maybe late at night to stay at that two hours for our song all those tell me you know every day i write for four hours when i get tired and stop i didn't go go for a walk out go back to my hero and will be clear and i sit down and i go and sing to me though that a part of that is keeping up with the theme of the story whether it's something that happened to the person

about who arrive are afraid or is it a john grisham novel and gresham is taking his character's invading and creating and making the move from here to the air with a poem is strikes me it must be different so how is it with with poets how they can rely for other poets because and i'm actually out what is common discipline was nineteen and nobody else writes poetry is broad that quote chasing utopia because i was then and that had done only that i had done some other tended to capture that and because i had such a run of loss that i had suppressed because my mother died six years later my sister died two weeks later in that my aunt that i my friend rosa parks died of those system built that no end i was said that i was still do allow to suppressing and so our family and this was in two thousand for and so our

family have come to be able to share what i wanted to share and whose grandmothers been gone for thirty years and so there are just things that that i remembered that i just saw it i was sure that this is what i want to talk about and if i'm out at this stage in my career when i can but you say how do i do that on a good day if i get things my way i'm on the first awakened at about five o'clock in the morning because nobody cause you and an ad that's important my friend don larson get supper like seven or eight and the same analyst all caught on here in the morning that i liked to write from like six and make coffee and hundreds of like utopia i'll do it but i wrote a poem for my sister because my father and i'm still believe the gentleman and read about this we can invest and when i read about that he could be abusive but i don't think that that's what you meant to be and so what i did is a put my sister and me on the run because we were always you never had asked what we were doing on saturday because on saturday evening saturday night we were

both in our own way nine mentally demanding most as written at home when i didn't do is but not pass with an idea and at some point he was going to hit her and at that point neither my sister nora wanted to be there so we stay home when all of our lives because we never were able to solve what does this mean if it's why should get your wife it is that that your wife doesn't understand business where i think your wife understand but your daughter doesn't know if i hadn't found a sense that as a victim of that abuse i was go put it down to those who make it being cool in poetry oh and that's one thing i've got a sense of that is there ever a term for you as a poet when the movie uses not there on a shoulder whispering in your ear and vivienne

wohl direction of the world where there's just a block was writer's block and it won't come i'm not i'm not from a writer's block some stories you just not ready to tell and i knew that i couldn't write about my father even a fifteen twenty years down the pike and there and i'm just beginning to access something of the complications of his life that as a younger woman i simply could not have now and again that doesn't excuse anything that i don't think that this needs to be excused animals graze is i think he wasn't really love my mother and so the question is anton a license a big band on the bill was going to make that the new love love is no better than the lover so if you crazy ruin your love is crazy and so again i am and as a as a poet and looking at it from another point of view but i hadn't won a look at it in condemning i once looked at illinois state and understanding is any of that you've written for children as well for adults and you recognize there's a line

their own talk about how intelligently talk about how you're a real shift gears that their children are intelligent and i am i think people are taught them tickets so i was invited to a lot of the children's books are controlled do that in a lot of what that is that it has controlled seven sisters control it and i was invited to do rosa lama right rosa as as the rosa parks and i knew when i was privileged to call her friend and of course again i wanted the kids to see this was an ordinary day but something presented itself to her and what presented itself to it was history she'd somebody said rosa you can make a difference today and so mrs clark said no i'm not given out my seat and i wanted the kids to be able to see that this is not rosa parks and that because now there's several books on mrs clark set out any any battle it would

enjoy road hip hop speaks to children which and i'm very very proud of the cows it's not because they do children but it was children's parents who needed to know that impact what's in their enemy hip hop was with was expressing something that isn't trying to say and so if i write a book join in the pans of the ones who are buying it that they get an insight into what hip hop actually isn't some very proud of that work because i think it helped parents understand that if i wasn't just you know some lame guys with some curse words talking about some limits a bit and had something to say that it says something to who we are it's a significant significant aborted that supply local news on very long what is meaningful poetry is as necessary to life as saudis

just do his garlic is the pastor as perfume is the summer nights as shaving ocean is two mornings as yours heil is to my happiness poetry is as significant to life and he uses to grant as butter is to toast as great art or wine as sugar is the lemons how else will we get lemonade poetry is to me your voice your touch your laughter that feeling at the end of the day that i am not alone that hole is no longer you know we heard that amazing how headquarters was following a couple of minutes left you out or is there one former manager favorite among them lingo favored that they really liked the book i love the book this is i fell in love and i just wanted some recommend that you fall eleven seventy kids it's just a great feeling a little better and this is called still life with a pretty i would like to see huge cooking i would like you to

cook for me i would like to see you decide upon a menu go to the market and pick the fruit vegetables the fish i would like to see you smell the fish tested less for freshness and firmness i would like to watch you in the bakery and the bakery that the dinner rolls deciding rolls or crusty bread i would like to watch you run back to get the goat butter i'd like to be sitting in a corner and you intent upon email not noticing me when you go to the wine store i would like to watch you wrestle with red or white right of course because as fish but really seductive whoever fell in love over a glass of white wine i was uncharacteristically and i would like you to greet me in a butcher's apron i would like to watch you greet me only in an apron you ask me to undress to undress for you before i sit down at the beautiful table before you hand and that lets you asked me to and yes i would like to watch you watching the undressing for you i would like to watch the movement inside the apron as i address for you i would like to watch you walk know stroll to your closet where you bring out your old

buffalo play a dressing gown you're purely much why stress again that smells like you after you brush your teeth after you shower after you comb your hair i would like to embrace your odor you're older your essence as we sit down to eat i would like for you to cook for me i would like that very much less beautiful it's so nice to come and iggy back whenever you have a book a love love to be with you all weekend so many times in the past to be together and i was like all of you for watching and johnson go forward own words and to keep reading these