The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni

by Nikki Giovanni

  L. 18: “Rap”: H. Rap Brown, now Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (1943–). See note to “Detroit Conference of Unity and Art,”.

  “Love Poem (For Real)”

  Ll. 10–11: “go back/to half”: The poem was written in December 1968, just weeks before Richard M. Nixon (1913–94) was inaugurated the thirty-seventh President of the United States (1969–74). Nineteen sixty-eight was a devastating year in American history—both Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, in April and June, respectively.

  L. 13: “johnson”: Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–73), thirty-sixth President of the United States (1963–69).

  L. 22: “cabinet”: A reference to Nixon’s choices for his cabinet.

  L. 23: “no dick”: A phrase used frequently by Giovanni and oth ers to refer to President Nixon.

  L. 28: “united quakers”: Nixon’s religious background was Quaker.

  L. 28: “crackers”: White people.

  L. 38: “honkies”: White people.

  Ll. 39–41: “riderless horses…eternal flame”: Most likely a reference to the funeral of John F. Kennedy (1917–63), thirty-fifth President of the United States (1961–63), and the eternal flame that marks his grave.

  “For an Intellectual Audience”

  In an interview Giovanni told me that she has always associated the made-up word moile with Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who. In that story, the “whos” live in an elephant’s ear. Because they want the elephant to know they are there, they all agree to shout at the same time—and, except for one little who, they do. Only when that little who also shouts does Horton hear them. The whos live in a little ball, and Giovanni said she thought of the little ball as a moile.

  Black Judgement

  Black Judgement was originally published in 1968, just a few months after Black Feeling Black Talk. Giovanni invested the money she had made from the sales of Black Feeling Black Talk in professional cover art and high-quality printing for her second self-published volume; the cover included photographs of LeRoi Jones, Rap Brown, Ron Karenga, and Charles Kenyatta. She also experimented with the appearance of the poems on the page: they are alternately justified on the left side and the right side. Of the twenty-seven poems originally constituting this volume, twenty-six were written in 1968; many reflect the poet’s responses to the devastating public events of that year: the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in April; the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June; and the election of Richard M. Nixon as the thirty-seventh president in November.

  Within six months of its publication, Black Judgement had sold 6,000 copies, a phenomenal figure. Containing what Margaret Walker called Giovanni’s “signature poem”—“Nikki-Rosa”—the volume signaled to the literary world that a new, serious writer had emerged.

  The original publication of Black Judgement included the following lines on its title page:

  Sometimes we find we have nothing to give

  but love

  which is a poem

  which I give

  For the Black Revolution

  “The Dance Committee (Concerning Jean-Léon Destiné)”

  During her stint at the People’s Settlement House in Wilmington, Giovanni organized a Black Arts Festival to which she invited—and succeeded in bringing—the distinguished Haitian dancer and choreographer Jean-Léon Destiné (1925–).

  L. 2: “Fanon”: Frantz Fanon (1925–61), a West Indian philoso pher and psychoanalyst who argued that the victims of oppression (especially of colonialism and racism) should and would eventually turn to violence and that the violence would be redemptive. His work influenced many groups in the 1960s, including members of the Black Panthers. His most influential works were Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961).

  L. 13: “double V”: A verbal play on the campaign spearheaded by the Black press during World War II; “Double V” meant “victory at home and victory abroad.”

  L. 18: “wouldn’t be in the Black community”: The dance troupe performed in a white high school rather than at the People’s Settlement House, which was in the Black community.

  L. 19: “Black French”: Haiti (home of Destiné) was originally a French colony.

  “Of Liberation”

  L. 12: “3 / 5 of a man”: The U.S. Constitution originally defined a male slave as three fifths of a man.

  Ll. 35–36: “The last bastion…mind”: In her public readings, Giovanni attributes this statement to the historian Lerone Bennett, Jr., author of Before the Mayflower and other works.

  L. 91: “The Red Black and Green”: Especially during the 1960s, Black Nationalists began sporting these colors as a symbol of Blackness and Black solidarity. The origin of these colors, however, dates back to Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which was founded in 1914 and promoted the unification of African peoples throughout the Diaspora. The UNIA’s flag was red, black, and green.

  L. 97: “Professor Neal”: Larry Neal (1937–1981), poet, dramatist, and essayist, was a central figure in the Black Arts movement.

  “Poem for Black Boys (With Special Love to James)”

  This is the only poem in the volume not written during 1968 (its date of composition was April 2, 1967).

  L. 5: “Mau Mau”: The Mau Mau movement in Kenya led a revolt against British rule and eventually helped bring about Kenyan independence in 1963.

  L.7: “Rap Brown”: H. Rap Brown, now Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (1943–). See note to “Detroit Conference of Unity and Art,”.

  L. 31: “any nickel bag”: A reference to a bag of marijuana.

  “Concerning One Responsible Negro with Too Much Power”

  This poem was written on April 3, 1968, just one day before the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The National Guard was moved into Wilmington, where Giovanni was living, on April 3, which led her (in retrospect) to believe that the federal government knew King would be assassinated the next day; Wilmington was key to the flow of traffic up and down the East Coast. Giovanni herself managed to get out of the city just before all traffic was stopped in the wake of King’s assassination.

  The poem seems to be about the individual described in “Wilmington Delaware.” See note to that poem on backmatter.

  “Reflections on April 4, 1968”

  Written just one day after King’s assassination, this poem considers it “an act of war,” the only response to which can be the destruction of white America. The prose form reinforces the devastating impact of this event on the poet.

  Stanza 2: “President johnson”: A reference to Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–73), thirty-sixth President of the United States (1963–69).

  Stanza 2: “distinction between us and negroes”: See note to “The True Import of Present Dialogue”.

  Stanza 4: “the warriors in the streets”: Following King’s assassination, riots broke out in more than one hundred cities across the country.

  Stanza 5: “statements from Dallas”: A reference to the site of the assassination of John F. Kennedy (1917–63), thirty-fifth President of the United States, on November 22, 1963.

  Stanza 6: “Johnson’s footprints”: A reference to the fact that Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–73) succeeded to the presidency because of the assassination of John Kennedy; Johnson was Kennedy’s vice president (1961–63).

  Stanza 7: “Zeus has wrestled the Black Madonna”: In Greek mythology, Zeus was the chief Olympian god. Here he is represented as having been defeated by Black Christianity. The Shrine of the Black Madonna, a Black church originally established in Detroit, has an eighteen-foot sculpture of a Black Madonna.

  Stanza 7: “nadinolia gods”: Nadinolia is a product advertised to lighten skin color.

  Stanza 7: “fire this time”: A reference to James Baldwin’s bestselling The Fire Next Time, published in 1963. Baldwin (1924–87) insisted that if Black Americans did not gain their essential liberties, there would be a revolution of fire, which would destroy the country.

  �
��The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.”

  Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. His funeral in Atlanta, Georgia, was on April 9, 1968.

  “A Litany for Peppe”

  Peppe was a childhood nickname for the poet’s nephew, Christopher Black (1959–).

  Line 8: “Blessed be”: Allusion to Christ’s beatitudes. See Matthew 5:1–11.

  Line 13: See note to “Wilmington Delaware”.

  Ll. 19–20: “Blessed is…earth”: An inversion of Christ’s beatitudes. See Matthew 5:1–11.

  “Nikki-Rosa”

  “Nikki-Rosa” was the nickname given to the poet when she was a child by her sister, Gary. The poem, described by Margaret Walker as Giovanni’s signature poem, was written on April 12, 1968.

  L. 3: “Woodlawn”: A suburb of Cincinnati in which Giovanni and her family lived briefly before they moved to nearby Wyoming.

  Ll. 15–18: “Hollydale…stock”: Hollydale is a subdivision outside Cincinnati that was created for Black people. Giovanni’s father was one of many who pooled their money to buy the land. They intended to use the land as collateral for the loans to build houses. But because they were Black, they could not find banks to lend them the money. Eventually the homes in Hollydale would be built, but the poet’s father, like many others, was unable to keep his money tied up for so long. He sold his stock and used the proceeds as a down payment on a house in Lincoln Heights.

  “The Great Pax Whitie”

  L. 1: See John 1:1–5.

  L. 8: “peace be still”: These are the words spoken by Jesus when he calmed the waters of the Sea of Galilee; see Mark 4:39. The biblical story is also the basis of the gospel song, “Peace, Be Still,” by James Cleveland. On her award-winning album Truth Is on Its Way, Giovanni reads this poem to the accompaniment of the song, performed by the New York Community Choir.

  L. 18: “Lot’s wife…Morton company”: For the account of Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt, see Genesis 19:1–26.

  L. 24: “our Black Madonna”: A reference to the eighteen-foot sculpture in the Shrine of the Black Madonna in Detroit.

  Ll. 28–34: In Mark’s version of the story, when Jesus is brought before the high priests for interrogation, Peter is present. When asked directly about his knowledge of Jesus, Peter denies any association with him. See Mark 14:53–72. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus says to Peter, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,” a statement which in the Greek involves a play on words (petros means “little rock”). The interpretation of this statement has sharply divided Christians; Giovanni makes reference to the interpretation of the Roman Catholic Church.

  L. 37: “Carthaginians”: Carthage was an ancient city of North Africa on the Bay of Tunis. Despite having one of the greatest military leaders of the ancient world—Hannibal—the city was ultimately defeated by Roman forces.

  L. 38: “great appian way”: The most famous of the Roman roads, the Appian Way connected Rome to Greece and the East.

  L. 39: “the Moors”: A nomadic people of North Africa, the Moors, who became Muslims, established kingdoms throughout Spain. During the Middle Ages, Christian rulers attempted to conquer Moorish strongholds. The last Moorish city was Granada, which was conquered by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, and most of the Moors were driven out of Spain.

  L. 53: “great emancipator”: Abraham Lincoln (1809–65), sixteenth President of the United States (1861–65).

  L. 55: “making the world safe for democracy”: From Woodrow Wilson’s April 2, 1917, address to Congress, in which he sought a declaration of war.

  L. 58: “barbecued six million”: A reference to Hitler’s genocidal attack on the Jews.

  L. 60: “38th parallel”: A reference to the division of Korea, at the end of World War II, at the Thirty-eighth Parallel into the Soviet-occupied North and the U.S. occupied South. The Korean War resulted when North Korea crossed this line and invaded South Korea.

  L. 63: “champagne was shipped out of the East”: Giovanni told me in an interview that she intended this as a reference to the defeat of the French in 1954 in the French Indochina War.

  Ll. 64–65: “kosher pork…Africa”: Giovanni stated in an interview with me that this line compares the Zionists in Israel to pigs.

  Ll. 71–72: “great white prince…texas”: John F. Kennedy (1917–63), thirty-fifth President of the United States.

  Ll. 73–74: “Black shining prince…cathedral”: Malcolm X, later Al Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz (1925–65), was assassinated on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. A charismatic Black Nationalist leader, he was suspended from the Black Muslim movement and subsequently founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He was gunned down by three Black Muslims who were eventually convicted, but controversy about his assassination continues. Thomas à Becket (1118–70) was Archbishop of Canterbury. King Henry II of England and Becket were friends when then Archbishop Theobald died; Henry appointed Becket to the post in hopes of strengthening his own position vis-à-vis the Church. But Becket did not automatically support the king; their relationship deteriorated steadily. In a standoff about the power of the state over the Church, King Henry became infuriated with Becket and apparently spoke words to the effect that he wished someone would rid him of the archbishop. Four knights hoping to gain favor with Henry went to Canterbury and killed Becket on the altar of the cathedral, in the midst of a service. Not only did the knights fail in their attempt to court Henry’s favor but the king himself, some four years later, made a penitential walk through Canterbury and spent the night in Becket’s crypt.

  L. 75: “our nigger in memphis”: Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68), who was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.

  “Knoxville, Tennessee”

  Giovanni and her sister usually spent their summers with their maternal grandparents, Louvenia and John Brown Watson, in Knoxville.

  “Records”

  U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1925–68), a presidential candidate, was shot in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, and died on June 6. This poem was written on June 6, the day before Giovanni’s twenty-fifth birthday.

  L. 5: “johnson”: President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–73), thirty-sixth President of the United States (1963–69).

  L. 13: “family”: The Kennedy family.

  L. 17: “bobby”: Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

  “Adulthood (For Claudia)”

  Claudia Anderson was a friend in Cincinnati with whom Giovanni worked at Walgreens.

  Ll. 2–4: “indianapolis…my aunt”: Giovanni often visited one of her aunts, Agnes Chapman, who lived in Indianapolis, a short distance from Cincinnati.

  L. 36: “hammarskjöld”: Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–61), secretary-general of the United Nations (1953–61). He was killed on his way to the Congo when his plane crashed in northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).

  L. 37: “lumumba”: Patrice Lumumba (1925–61) was the first prime minister of the Republic of the Congo (now Zaire). A charismatic leader of the independence movement in the Congo, Lumumba had radical anticolonialist politics that eventually led to a split in the Congo’s first national political party, Mouvement National Congolais, which he founded in 1958. He was killed in January 1961; both his death and unsuccessful attempts to cover up the truth about it outraged activists throughout the world. The possible role played by the Belgian or the U.S. government in his death is still uncertain.

  L. 38: “diem”: Ngo Dinh Diem (1901–63), president (1955–63) of South Vietnam, murdered in a military coup which was covertly backed by the United States on November 1, 1963.

  L. 39: “kennedy”: John F. Kennedy (1917–63), thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.

  L. 40: “malcolm”: Malcolm X, later Al Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz (1925–65), was assassinated on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. A charismatic Black Nationalist lea
der, he was suspended from the Nation of Islam and subsequently founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He was gunned down by three Black Muslims who were eventually convicted, but controversy about his assassination—for example, the possible role in it of the federal government—continues.

  L. 41: “evers”: Medgar Wiley Evers (1925–63), Civil Rights activist and Mississippi field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was murdered in the doorway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 12, 1963, by the white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith. Beckwith stood trial twice, in 1963 and 1964, but not until 1994 was he convicted of the crime.

  L. 42: “schwerner, chaney and goodman”: Michael Schwerner (1940–64), James E. Chaney (1943–64), and Andrew Goodman (1943–64) were three Civil Rights activists who worked in Black voter registration in Mississippi and were murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan, with the complicity of law enforcement officers. After a massive search, including 200 naval personnel, their bodies were found buried not far from Philadelphia, Mississippi. Despite the fact that everyone—including the Federal Bureau of Investigation—knew who the killers were, it was three years before Neshoba County Sheriff Lawrence Rainey, Chief Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, and five others were convicted on federal charges of violating the civil rights of the three. No state charges were ever filed.

  L. 43: “liuzzo”: Viola Gregg Liuzzo (1925–65), a medical lab technician, mother, and activist from Michigan. She was killed in an automobile on the Selma Highway on March 26, 1965, because a car with members of the Ku Klux Klan saw her, a white woman, in the same automobile as a black man. The four KKK members were arrested, and one agreed to testify against the other three, but they were all acquitted of murder. Eventually, through orders from President Johnson, they were convicted on federal charges of conspiring to deprive Liuzzo of her civil rights. Viola Liuzzo is the only white woman honored at the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.

  L. 44: “stokely”: Stokely Carmichael, later Kwame Ture (1941–98), Civil Rights activist, chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (1966–67), and “prime minister” of the Black Panthers. Carmichael is credited with creating the slogan “Black Power.” He moved to Guinea in 1968, and in 1973 he became a citizen of Uganda.