by Bill Moyers
and she would learn ...
how god was neither north
nor south east or west
with no color but all
she remembered was that
Sheba was Black and comely
and she would think
i want to be
like that
All these years later, the “Princess” has ripened into a strong, handsome woman of hard-won, sturdy experience, the University Distinguished Professor of English at the school that now turned to her, desperately in need of solace and courage. And she did not let them down. The words she gave them that day are now the closing pages in a collection of her poems that she calls, simply, Bicycles.
—Bill Moyers
You came through with the right words in that memorial service for the victims at Virginia Tech. Your words truly met the moment. How do you explain to yourself the power of words at such a time?
They let us know we’re not alone. I think what words do is acknowledge that we’re human and we hurt. So you don’t have to pretend you’re not hurting. You can admit you have a hole in your heart. Go back to 9/11. People were posting poems all over the Internet, because they were trying to find a way to connect, to say, “This hurts, but we’re not alone. Someone else is sharing this pain.” And this thing that happened at Virginia Tech, it was an incredibly sad time for us. The only thing I could do to make sense out of it was to connect these dots. And the only thing to connect the dots was love. Because no matter what else is wrong with you, good wine and good sex will make you feel better. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that on this show.
You are granted permission.
Well, good, because, you know, sixty-five-year-old women are not finished.
I hope not. Why did you turn to the metaphor of bicycles? What do they have to do with tragedy, drama, loss, death?
Well, tragedy and trauma are wheels. And they’re always with us, aren’t they? They’re always spinning around, on the perimeters of life, like tragedies. They just spin around and spin around. And so what you’re trying to do is bring them together. And when you bring them together you’ve got the bar, right? So you have a vehicle. Now, when I grew up, you learned to ride a bicycle by getting on a bicycle. Which means you’re going to fall off. And love and life and bicycles are about trust and balance. It’s about riding it and believing that this thing that doesn’t make sense for you to be on, can move. And we see it here. This is such a great city—I love Manhattan. And I miss it in my dreams sometimes. But when we see the messengers on their bikes, in a frenzy of traffic, that’s just trust and balance. It’s beautiful watching them on their bicycles. But that’s what we do in our relationships. It’s the same bike. Our relationships need trust and balance.
So have you learned to ride a bicycle?
I did. An emotional bicycle. I saw the spinning wheels because I was spinning. I was being hurt by things that had nothing to do with me. I was being hurt because my sister had a lung tumor that had metastasized. And I will go to my grave believing my mother died because she didn’t want to bury my sister, because there was nothing wrong with my mother until it was evident that my sister was not going to make it. And I say it all the time: the only reason I want to go to heaven is to tell those two women, “You did it to me again.” Because they were always leaving me, Bill. I was a baby. Remember Robert Louis Stevenson:
BED IN SUMMER
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candlelight.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree ...
And I had to go to bed at nine o’clock. Mommy would bathe us at seven. And then we’d sing or tell stories. Then she would come and get my sister, about nine-thirty, and I would hear her: “Is she asleep?” And my sister would say, “I think so.” And then they would sneak out. So when they up and died, I said, “They did it again. They left me again.” I had to write my way out of it.
Let’s hear “Bicycles.”
BICYCLES
Midnight poems are bicycles
Taking us on safer journeys
Than jets
Quicker journeys
Than walking
But never as beautiful
A journey
As my back
Touching you under the quilt
Midnight poems
Sing a sweet song
Saying everything
Is all right
Everything
Is
Here for us
I reach out
To catch the laughter
The dog thinks
I need a kiss
Bicycles move
With the flow
Of the earth
Like a cloud
So quiet
In the October sky
Like licking ice cream
From a cone
Like knowing you
Will always
Be there
All day long I wait
For the sunset
The first star
The moon rise
I move
To a midnight
Poem
Called
You
Propping
Against
The dangers
I love that one.
My favorite of your poems is “Choices.” Would you read it?
Oh, certainly.
CHOICES
if i can’t do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don’t want
to do
it’s not the same thing
but it’s the best i can
do
if i can’t have
what i want then
my job is to want
what i’ve got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more
to want
since i can’t go
where i need
to go then i must go
where the signs point
though always understanding
parallel movement
isn’t lateral
when i can’t express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal
i know
but that’s why mankind
alone among the mammals
learns to cry
Where did that one come from?
From the book I wrote while my father was dying, Cotton Candy On a Rainy Day. Burying my dad was a sad affair because I wasn’t that close to him. But my mother liked him, and I liked my mother. So I figure, maybe she knows something I don’t know. But when I buried Mommy, I knew that I was going into a place where there was no one that I could talk to. When your mommy’s gone, there’s no one who’s going to enter that boat that you row by yourself back to that place where your deepest fears reside.
There are many somber books born of grief. Here’s one of love born of grief. Yours is a book of love poems.
Well, what else is going to make you smile at a time like that? The writing of it makes me smile. What else will get you through? And you start to dress better, start to take care of yourself again. Now, let me digress to say I’m a freak for how food looks. I will not eat ugly food. I’m an American and will not starve to death, so I do not have to eat ugly food. I refuse to do drivethrough. I am not a grazer, I am not a cow. You eat. You sit down. You put a napkin there. And it has to have the colors. If you’re having a steak, then you’ll want a few little carrots because they are yellow and look good. And maybe a little broccoli. When my uncle died, my aunt Ag was very sad. And I called her and said, “Ag, what’d you have for dinner?” She said, “Oh, I just had a bowl of cereal.” I said, “You can’t do that. You have to plat
e your food.” So in bad times I want good-looking food. Have massages. It feels great, somebody rubbing oil in your back. Bill, you have to do things to remind yourself that it’s a really good idea to be alive.
Okay, I hear you. But do you think a lot about death? The campus where you teach was stalked by death. You lost your mother and your sister in the same approximate time. You’ve lost a lung, right?
Yes. Yes.
To cancer?
I was glad to give that up. It was a bad lung. Nasty. Mean lung. It was my left lung. I didn’t need it. I have another one.
Does all of this cause you at sixty-five to think about death?
No, Bill, I think I fell in love.
You fell in love?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It is wonderful. And when you’re in love you just keep thinking of things that are wonderful to do. Life is a good idea.
All right. So tell me what it takes to write a love poem.
A generous spirit and a willingness to make a fool of yourself.
It takes those to love, too.
That’s love.
You’ve written that love is about you and not the beloved. And you said that’s very important to remember as you’re writing a poem. Why?
Because it’s your trip. I’ve always been amazed that you can break up with somebody, and that somebody will say to you, “If you leave me, I’m going to kill you.” Now, logic says, if I’m dead, you still didn’t get me. Right? See what I’m saying? I learned a long time ago, because I just fell madly in love, and I don’t mind saying this, his wife knows it, with Billy Dee Williams. Billy is so good-looking. If I was forty years younger I’d be in love with Barack Obama. But I realized that it had nothing to do with Billy Dee. Being in love has nothing to do with how the person feels about you. It has to do with how you feel about yourself.
Okay, but loving someone who doesn’t love you can be a source of pain.
No, that’s just because you’re expecting something that you can’t have. That kind of love is crazy. And it’s going to go away. It’s like a cold. So the important thing to ask yourself is not what can that person do for me, but what can I do? I’ve got the light, what do I do with it?
I must say, some of your poems reek with desire.
Oh, desire is there. You fall in love, there’s always desire. But, also, there’s a lot of longing. And I realize that a lot of this book still has a lot to do with my mother. I miss the safety. And I think one is never so unsafe as when one’s mother is not there to put her arms around you. Your mom just makes you safe, you know? Your mother just says, “It’s going to be all right.” No matter what it is, you say, “Yeah.” So I really had to stop myself, on April 16, from picking up the phone because after that tragedy on the campus, I wanted to hear my mother’s voice. But I stopped. She wasn’t there.
When the killings occurred you wanted to talk to your mom?
Yeah. I did. Because I knew she’d make sense out of it for me.
How about reading “Everything Good Is Simple”?
EVERYTHING GOOD IS SIMPLE
Everything good is simple: a soft boiled egg ... toast fresh from the oven with a pat of butter swimming in the center ... steam off a cup of black coffee ... John Coltrane bringing me “Violets for My Furs”
Most simple things are good: Lines on a yellow legal pad ... dimples defining a smile ... a square of gray cashmere that can be a scarf ... Miles Davis Kind of Blue
Some things clear are complicated: believing in a religion ... trying to be a good person ... getting rid of folk who depress you ... Horace Silver Blowing the Blues Away
Complicated things can be clear: Dvořák’s New World Symphony ... Alvin Ailey’s Revelations ... Mae Jemison’s ride in space ... Mingus Live at Carnegie Hall
All things good are good: poetry ... patience ... a ripe tomato on the vine ... a bat in flight ... the new moon ... me in your arms ... things like that
I like that.
It’s a nice poem.
And then there’s “Give It a Go?”
“Give It a Go?” is just an old lusty poem. I love it.
GIVE IT A GO
I like to polish
Silver
Rub the paste in
Let it set
Then shine shine shine
Even as a little girl
I loved to wash
Grandmother’s crystal
Watch the light bounce
Off of the edges
Of the glasses
We were taught
Never to use clear
Fingernail polish
But trim our nails
To a respectable length
And buff them
With lamb’s wool
I wipe my bathroom
Mirror after each shower
And always shine my faucet
In order to properly care for things
They must be loved
And touched
Want to give it
Ago?
I’m game.
That’s a shout-out to Prince Charles and Camilla.
Oh?
Yes. Because there’s a story that Camilla said to Charles: “You know, my grandmother was the mistress of your grandfather. Want to give it a go?” So I did this poem as a shout-out to Charles. I’m a big fan of Charles. I think he’s a great kid. And had a lot on him to be, what, is he fifty-five years old? To spend your life waiting for your mother to die so that you can do what you were born to do. That’s a burden. So I did a shout-out to Charles.
I like the whimsy. But I have to say, these poems are a long way from your days as a young revolutionary.
Indeed.
Did you know love then? Or was it the love of the cause? The passion of the commitment?
Young people do things differently. And I did what I thought I should do. I’m proud of what I did then. But look at what the hip-hop generation has done—elected a president. Barack Obama’s president of the United States. This is something that we would only dream of. One of the poems here in Bicycles is a poem I did for Huey Newton, who was a wonderful young man. Here’s Huey registering voters, sponsoring school programs. Huey was about the politics. Martin Luther King Jr. was about justice for the world. Martin would be happy, I’m sure, that the United States has elected this fine young man. But he would still weep for the children dying of malaria and hunger around the world. He wanted a just earth. And his job went beyond the bus boycott. His job was to change the earth. He’s way bigger. He’s way bigger.
What do you think about all the talk that Obama’s election means we’ve moved into a postracial world?
Well, I think as much as people don’t like it, yes.
Is that feasible—desirable—that we don’t think of race anymore?
Oh no, no, we think of race. But we now don’t think that race means an automatic exclusion, as it once did. There’s going to be lots of racist things that are going to happen. I mean, we’ve already seen a young man get shot in the back in Oakland, California. The young baseball player gets shot in his own driveway. We still have a way to go before this is really a postracial time. We’ll always see race. When we look at a Barack Obama, we are looking at a man of color. If we just go back even ten years, when we looked at Tiger Woods, maybe fifteen years ago, I remember Tiger saying, “I’m not really black.” Well, it was fine with me, because if you don’t want to be black, you don’t have to be. But it made me want to call up and say, “Tiger, baby, have you looked in the mirror lately?”
So it’s not that we don’t see race but that race is now an enhancement. Right now somebody is saying, “My daughter can be president of the United States.” Maybe the first Chinese American president of the United States will be a woman. We’ve opened up the world.
What opened up your world?
Largely my grandmother. She was a great old girl. I adored her. When Grandmother walked, I’d be right behind her. If she stopped, I would bump into her. I wrote the poem “K
noxville, Tennessee” for Grandmother—it’s a love poem, too. I never feel safe, Bill. I’m always looking for safe places. And I always felt safe with Grandmother. Also, she wanted to change the world. She wasn’t ambitious for money and stuff. But she wanted to make an impact. And she fought very hard in Knoxville, Tennessee, to make changes for black folks. Her drive made me want to make a difference.
Where did your adoration of words come from?
Oh, probably Grandpapa. He was a Latin teacher. He graduated from Fisk University and taught at Austin High School. Grandpapa was twenty years older than Grandmother when they met—talk about a crazy love. He fell in love with her. Unfortunately, he was married, and Grandmother wouldn’t have any truck with him. She wouldn’t let him make love to her because—well, I used to hear them talk, later, when I lived with them, and she told him, “John Brown Watson, if I had let you kiss me”—that was the metaphor for making love, but it meant something more, you know—“you would never have married me.” And Grandmother was right. So he divorced his wife and married her. But he’s twenty years older, and by the time we came along, Grandpapa was an old man and not one to suffer fools gladly. I never knew why Grandpapa spent time with me. But he would say, “Nikki, let’s go look at the stars.” We’d go out and he would say, “That’s Orion’s Belt. That’s the Big Dipper.” And then he would explain the heavens. He read all of the myths to me.
He saw something.
Yes. I mean, I don’t know. But that’s where I got whatever I got. My father’s a big talker, so if you put together my grandfather’s intellectual interests with my father’s bullshitting, I think you end up with a Nikki.
You wrote a poem once to specifically empower girls.
Because girls are always sitting around listening to stupid things that boys say. And half the games girls play: “Little Sally Walker, what is she doing? She’s rising to the east, looking for the one she loves the best. What’s her name? Snow White. And she’s going to go to sleep until ‘one day my prince will come.’” You get sick of that. You get a girl who can spin flax into gold, and her father then takes her up to the prince to say, “You should marry my daughter. She can spin flax into gold.” Now I ask you, Bill, what does she need with him? If she can spin flax into gold, she didn’t need the prince. So I wrote “ego-tripping” as a shout-out to how wonderful it is to be a girl, to be complete within yourself.