D31-DES22
Nikki Giovanni: The Sister From Another Planet!
Copyright Ó
by Dan Schneider, 2/12/04
On Sunday, 2/8/04, I tuned in to C-Span’s Booknotes program. The
guest author was poetaster Nikki Giovanni. I’d seen NG read her
poems before but never had I seen her in an extended interview. After viewing
that show I won’t ever need to see another NG interview. The woman came across
as someone who lives on another planet. I grew up in Queens, New York, near a
methadone clinic & many of the addicts, after their daily dosage, made more
sense than anything NG uttered.
1st off, this was the 1st time I’d ever watched
the show from beginning to end. Host Brian Lamb was atrocious- letting NG ramble
on & on with no governance. As the host of my own interview show, Omniversica, I know quite a bit about interviewing. The fact is that BL did
not even get around to the supposed subject of the show- NG’s Collected Poems-
until 35 minutes into the hour long show. As for NG, she seemingly had no
understanding that the only reason anyone would have a reason to talk to her is
that she has this book to shill. But on NG rambled of her past, her politics
& other assorted nonsense. She played the stereotypical poet activist
who’s clueless about the real world.
BL started the show by asking NG of her plethora of honorary degrees,
& what they meant to her. NG answered, ‘They all did because degrees are credentials. I’m a black American,
and credentializing is very, very important. And it always takes you back to
your mother and your grandmother and your dad because they’re always so, like,
pleased. And the first honorary degree I received was at Wilberforce University,
and my father was still alive then....And my father, who was never really sure
what exactly I did for a living -- so he was very pleased to see me get a piece
of paper that made sense.’ Apparently NG does not recognize that an honorary degree means
nothing. For example, when idiots call Maya Angelou a Doctor they are misusing
the term because that does not apply to honorary degrees. Not to mention that
this supposed fiery black activist seems so willing to cede her own self-worth
over to ‘credentials’ gifted by others- odd to say the least. It makes 1
feel that she’s been nothing but a poseur all these years- & knows it
herself! Still on the 1st query, NG then rambled on about making
money as a kid- as if that had any connection to the query. Her logorrhea would
only get worse.
After briefly answering a query about her 1st money made in
writing NG then gizzed on incessantly: ‘So within the parameters of living within that car and within myself --
because you can’t afford debt when you’re an artist -- I did all right. But
I did enough to publish a book called "Black Judgment." And of course,
"Black Judgment" -- all of this is going to be part of the collected.
But my mother, speaking of Mommy, is a jazz fan. And so when "Black
Judgment" came out, I wanted to do something special, something for my
mother. And so I thought, Well, Birdland. I’m going to go to Birdland. I’ll
have my book party at Birdland. Birdland was being run by....And he said, I tell
you what Giovanni. You bring me 100 people, you can have the club, 99 people,
you owe me $500. And so I was, like, OK. And Birdland, you know, was down. It
was when it was on Broadway then. And it’s down. So I walked up, and I
walked....And Sunday, I had Morgan Freeman, who was my neighbor -- who cheats at
cards, but that’s another discussion....’ & on & on she spewed. BL proved his utter incompetence by
failing to reign NG in & make any sense of the interview. My wife, Jessica,
thought NG was a nice, funny lady (albeit talentless), but I sensed something
more disturbing afoot.
A bit later it came out
that Nikki Giovanni was up for a Grammy Award the same night this pretaped show
was airing (she was nominated for Spoken Word & lost to comedian Al Franken).
Her answer droned on like someone with ADD: ‘I’ve got a 4-in-5 chance of
losing and a 1-in-5 chance of winning, right? And I’m just not as well known
and stuff as the people I’m running against. But I’m excited to go and I’m
just, like – I’m bouncy. And people now -- because Blacksburg is a small
town. Blacksburg is Virginia Tech. And the first time it was announced, I
didn’t know it. I didn’t realize that it had been on morning television. So
I went into the Post Office, right, and Catherine is there -- well, my
postmistress. And Catherine says, Oh, congratulations. And I’m, like, On what?
And she said, You’re up for a Grammy. And I said, Oh, how did you know? She
said, It was on television this morning. And now I’m in Kroger`s, you know,
and people are, like, Hey, bring that Grammy home to Blacksburg….My mom is
having a Grammy party. And so she’s got, like, 20 people coming over. Of
course, what I keep telling her is that, You’re never going to see me because,
one, I’m not going to win, but two, even if I would, the spoken word is like
an earlier today.’ Have you noticed the plethora of I’s in her answers?
I did. This is a familiar marker for some 1 who is living in their own world-
detached from reality.
Then a query about her
Emmett Till was twisted by NG into a tirade about Rosa Parks & the Brown vs.
Board Of Education decision. Not only did NG get the year wrong, but her linking
of 1 of the countless lynchings in American history with a famous Supreme Court
decision is 1 of those leaps of faith that Left Wingers hope that saner heads
won’t pick up on. Sorry, Nikki! Here’s some of her burble: ‘In 1955. It
was August. The trial was in September. And as the defense of Bryant and Milam,
who did indeed murder the young man, said, I’m sure that -- to the jury, which
was an all-white, all-male jury at that time, as you know – I’m sure that
every drop of Anglo-Saxon blood in your bodies will let you free these men,
which they did. They then they sold their story to William Bradford Hughey at
"Look" or "Life" -- I forget which one -- for, like, $4,000.
But they did it. Rosa Parks, as did the rest of the country -- because I
remember seeing the pictures of Emmett. His mother opened the casket, and it was
one of the really important things that happened. She just died last
January....And you have to remember, Ms. Parks was sitting on the aisle, that
there was someone else on the window. She got up and let him out, and I have no
quarrel with him. I have no quarrel. But she got up and let him out and sat back
down. That was December the 1st. People want to say, Oh, Rosa Parks’s feet
were tired. Her feet were tired on November, you know, 30, too. And I’m sure
her feet continued to be tired. But it wasn’t about tired feet. It was about
her soul.’ In the real world, when someone spouts like that you tend to
back away slowly- y’know? What any of this- Parks or Till’s murder for
supposedly whistling at a white woman- has to do with her poems or books is-
well, I don’t know either. She then blathers on about President Eisenhower
signing Till’s father’s death warrant for treason in Germany. Again- what
the f---?
Then she attacked Supreme
Court judge Clarence Thomas as a lawn jockey. Ok- I can’t disagree- but repeat
after me: WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH POETRY? Oh, wait- all poetry is
political. I keep forgetting that.
Then another foray about
her having cancer. Then a sillier 1 about the racist implications to the word
‘alien’ as applied to illegal immigrants. Finally- at the 35 minute mark BL
mentions poetry- well, what NG calls ‘poetry’. Now, read this exchange, 1 so
insipid that it should have ‘Copyright © by Bill Moyers’ after it:
BL: I mean some poetry -- what I`m getting at -- some poetry rhymes and others
don`t.
NG: Yeah.
BL: Explain the difference. What do you call it?
NG: I’m not a very good rhymer. And every now and then I will end up doing
something like, a poem like "What It Is," you know, ultimately you get
to -- if it’s gum, we can chew it, I hope it’s love so we can do it. And I
had a -- I love that -- just I like little silly poems, you know. But for the
most part, I’m a lyricist, but I’m a storyteller. And I think as I’ve gone
into my career, I mean -- this is like a 30-year career, a little bit more, as
we’ve gone into it, I think I’ve relaxed more with the storytelling….I’m
a storyteller and I use poetry, but I’ve felt free to use everything that
poetry offers. I mean, Gwendolyn Brooks was a great sonnet, right? And I knew -
I love Ms. Brooks’ work. And I had -- you know, we were both born on June 7.
And so, once I became a writer, you know, and I got to know Gwen, it was very,
very nice. But I’m not going to write sonnets because – I’m not going
ever, and I know that. I mean, I’m not humble, but I’m never going to be as
good as Gwendolyn Brooks was. On the other hand, she is not going to write as
good a blank verse as I do. So I’m very, you know, comfortable with that.
& no- you did not read
wrong. NG called Gwendolyn Brooks a sonnet- a poetry form- not a sonneteer. She
then claimed she was on a par with GB, which is silly enough. But then she shows
her utter ignorance of poetry when she confuses ‘free verse’- her style-
with ‘blank verse’ or the iambic pentameter made famous by Shakespeare. Oy!
Then more insanity as she
riffs on Charles Darwin: ‘I’m able now to take a research leave in six,
because I want to – I’m following the footsteps of Darwin, because no poet
has ever looked at Darwin. We, I think, erroneously turned Charles Darwin over
to the sociologists and to the politicians, and the economy -- You know, a lot
of people who didn’t, I think, treat him right, because survival of the
fittest, it was translated, but it’s not what Darwin, I think, meant, not the
way I studied it. And a lot of things are luck. And what I wanted to do, what
I’m involved in doing is I want to go around the world by water. I didn’t
want to fly, because he went by water. And I want to -- I want to see some
things for myself. What I know. I know that we have not made proper use on
Earth. This is an Earth thing, this is not an American thing or not an African
thing or not an – it’s an Earth thing. We haven’t made proper use of what
the captured Africans learned and decisions that they made in coming through
that period called middle passage. What they did from being captured in Africa
and being brought to the United States and the Caribbean, what I know. As we get
prepared to go to Mars, and we’re going to Mars, and we have to go to Mars
because Mars is our neighbor and Mars cannot come here, because Earth is crazy.
And if Martians came here, we’d kill them. So we’re going to have to go.
That same loneliness of being in an unknown spot with no known landmarks is what
-- is what we’re going to encounter.’ Darwin, Middle Passage, Mars- I
tell you this sort of logorrhea is the same nonsense you find being muttered by
men who sleep on subway grates. I mean- really re-read the just above nonsense.
I did not edit it.
Later, she shows off her
‘Thug Life’ tattoo in honor of murdered rapper & criminal Tupac Shakur-
whom she speaks of as if an acquainted. When asked if so NG rambles some more:
‘No, no. I didn’t know Tupac and I didn’t -- and do not know his
mother, Afeni. I have met his aunt now, because I was down in Atlanta, but I
support and did support the -- I do support, not that they needed it, the whole
hip-hop experience, because it`s a true voice, and as a lover of the spirituals,
and I grew up in the Baptist church with my grandmother, I’ve always loved the
spirituals and that’s what I’m teaching now.
Yes,
NG’s poetry is horrible & I resent the way that she & countless other
poets have bastardized the highest of the arts, but the reason for this article
is to voice my concern that this woman may have some severe medical problems,
& it amazes me that she is a tenured professor at Virginia Tech. Even worse,
though, was the utterly unprofessional manner the interview was conducted. This
is what passes for actual intellectual discourse nowadays. On the Left you have
head cases like a Nikki Giovanni or wackos like a Susan Faludi or Elizabeth
Wurtzel, while the Right offers up hypocrites like William ‘The Gambler’
Bennett, or fools like a Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter. Go to C-Span’s website
& read the whole transcript. I’ve only given you a 10 minute
or so taste. It’s really shocking to think that this is the level at which
public discourse now resides. I just hope that NG really does seek treatment for
whatever ills her, but shame on C-Span for allowing this nonsense to spill into
the airwaves. I mean there wasn’t a repeat of a conversation with some 1 of
intellectual stature available? Like, maybe, John Grisham? Repeat after me- Oy!
Return to S&D