Publisher’s Note

  Rendering poetry in a digital format presents several challenges, just as its many forms continue to challenge the conventions of print. In print, however, a poem takes place within the static confines of a page, hewing as close as possible to the poet’s intent, whether it’s Walt Whitman’s lines stretching to the margin like Route 66, or Robert Creeley’s lines descending the page like a string tie. The printed poem has a physical shape, one defined by the negative space that surrounds it—a space that is crafted by the broken lines of the poem. The line, as vital a formal and critical component of the form of a poem as metaphor, creates rhythm, timing, proportion, drama, meaning, tension, and so on.

  Reading poetry on a small device will not always deliver line breaks as the poet intended—with the pressure the horizontal line brings to a poem, rather than the completion of the grammatical unit. The line, intended as a formal and critical component of the form of the poem, has been corrupted by breaking it where it was not meant to break, interrupting a number of important elements of the poetic structure—rhythm, timing, proportion, drama, meaning, and so on. It’s a little like a tightrope walker running out of rope before reaching the other side.

  There are limits to what can be done with long lines on digital screens. At some point, a line must break. If it has to break more than once or twice, it is no longer a poetic line, with the integrity that lineation demands. On smaller devices with enlarged type, a line break may not appear where its author intended, interrupting the unit of the line and its importance in the poem’s structure.

  We attempt to accommodate long lines with a hanging indent—similar in fashion to the way Whitman’s lines were treated in books whose margins could not honor his discursive length. On your screen, a long line will break according to the space available, with the remainder of the line wrapping at an indent. This allows readers to retain control over the appearance of text on any device, while also indicating where the author intended the line to break.

  This may not be a perfect solution, as some readers initially may be confused. We have to accept, however, that we are creating poetry e-books in a world that is imperfect for them—and we understand that to some degree the line may be compromised. Despite this, we’ve attempted to protect the integrity of the line, thus allowing readers of poetry to travel fully stocked with the poetry that needs to be with them.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Publisher’s Note

  All I Really Have

  Why I’m Thankful

  Yes

  Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

  Fear

  Toni Morrison

  Waiting for Jason

  For Scott

  The Longest Way Round

  The Sterling Silver Mirror

  The Coal Cellar

  The Bus Didn’t Stop

  Reading Other People’s Poems

  Vote

  Raise Your Hand

  Private Secrets

  March on Washington 10th Anniversary

  Look

  A Praise Song for Roots by Alex Haley

  My Contract with America

  Re: MoveOn’s Love Letter to Essential Workers

  Vote 2024

  Vines

  Some Christmas Questions and One Answer

  The Nature Conservancy

  A Keynote Address

  Serena

  Girl Talk

  Floating

  The Three Riders

  The Train Ride

  My First Visit with Ashley

  Little Brother/Big Brother

  Mating Time

  Some Complain

  When Water Could Not Encourage You

  For the 2023 Graduates of Roanoke College

  Answers

  Introducing Knoxville

  A Blues for Mother

  A Friendship

  Tomorrow

  Her Dreams

  Altars

  Home

  Letter to the Editor

  Graduation Poem

  A Dedication

  Fall in Love

  1038 Burns

  400 Mulvaney Street

  Bay Leaves

  Edna Lewis

  Detroit

  An Angel Like Ashley

  January 26, 2020

  Announcing Spring

  Avec Vous

  Betty Wills Jacoby Skinner

  A Toast to Poems

  Commencement During Covid

  Craft

  A Recipe for the New York Times

  The Christmas Letter

  21 May 2020

  Fisk

  Cotton in the Arms of the Mountains

  Where Was the Music

  Kevin Powell 2020

  Ten Descriptions of Me

  Prose to the People

  Poems

  We Have Prevailed

  Winter Homes

  Fathers

  About the Author

  Also by Nikki Giovanni

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  All I Really Have

  I am a poet

  All I really have

  Are words

  I do have a dog

  Who has all her shots

  I have a home

  In a neighborhood

  I actually have about

  Two dozen quilts

  One of which the mother

  Of a friend made

  When she heard

  I had cancer

  I have a fishpond

  Just gold fish

  Though mother gold

  Fish is very smart

  She had four babies

  Last summer

  And made sure father

  Gold fish nor birds

  Ate them

  A community of frogs

  Lives there too

  At first father frog

  Would jump into the pond

  When I came in the evening

  To sit

  Now he just looks

  At me

  And I tip

  My glass of wine

  To him

  Both of us seeking rest

  My home has a living

  Room and a dining

  Room

  Though there are so many

  Books we don’t eat

  Or sit there

  We smile at our books

  And I occasionally

  Dust them

  My windows are

  Mostly stained glass

  Two of which I

  Found on auction

  That once belonged

  To a church built

  By Slaves

  I was lucky no

  One else wanted

  Them

  One says

  60

  A birthday present

  From a dear

  Thoughtful friend

  The deck has been turned

  Into a playpen

  For the dog

  Who always wants me

  To grill

  My den is friendly

  Without a telephone

  Though it has two

  Desks and two

  Chairs

  My garden didn’t

  Do well last year

  My green peppers came

  But no okra

  And the beautiful rosemary

  Bush from Novella Nelson

  Finally succumbed to winter

  As did she

  My car is 12 years old

  And I want no other

  I’m looking for a photo

  Face shot

  And this is not

  A poem

  Only some words

  That define who I am

  I am happy

  And I love and embrace

  What I love

  Why I’m Thankful

  I’m thankful

  Grandmother took me

  to Sunday School

  Now when I’m lonely

  I have songs to sing

  I’m grateful I can borrow

  books from the library

  Now when I sit in the hospital

  I have another world to go to

  I’m thankful I learned to cry

  though I miss Mommy

  She is no longer

  in pain

  I’m thankful She is in Heaven

  with Grandmother

  laughing and drinking a beer

  I’m thankful

  I understand Life

  is not just fun

  but also Duty

  I go to school

  Clean my room

  Be nice to people

  I’m thankful

  I make them

  Proud

  Yes

  Sometimes everybody’s coffee

  Gets cold

  And it’s good to remember

  All clocks tick

  At a different time

  No matter how close they are

  To each other

  Dogs snift

  Each other

  In community talk we call gossip

  That cats

  Run away from when they are unsure of you

  We eat bullfrogs

  And ride horses

  Sometimes we pray

  For rain

  Sometimes

  For sun

  We are born

  We will die

  Sometimes

  That’s a good

  Idea

&nbs
p; To understand

  Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

  While the sky was that sort of gray . . . not quite light . . . you could hear the birds . . . begin to sing

  Since the puppy needs to go out . . . at that hour . . . I am up . . . watching the little birds . . . go off to hunt . . . for food

  There is a copper sculpture on the railing . . . which I hadn’t realized holds . . . Mother Wren’s eggs . . . the puppy ballet dances at it . . . since she knows . . . something alive is in there

  The puppy only wants to play with the babies . . . like the Cincinnati Gorilla only wanted to play with the little boy though the humans didn’t understand that . . . and shot him . . . soon the puppy will have to go to the kennel . . . until the baby Wrens learn to fly . . . maybe only a week or two . . . since she . . . too . . . doesn’t want to hurt anything . . . only to get to know them better

  I go inside and make my breakfast . . . It is spring . . . and the blue is brighter . . . the big birds are waking up

  And I have to hurry . . . to take ten pills . . . because my neurologist two years ago sent a letter to the DMV saying I should not drive . . . but has “forgotten” to send the notice that now I can . . . Luckily I have friends to help out . . . though every time I have to ask for a ride . . . I am angry all over again . . . Oh my doctor says I’m sorry I forgot . . . Maybe I am close to hating him

  But the sky is bright blue . . . and the birds are singing . . . and I am ready for my ride . . . to work

  We drive down the hill and wait for the traffic to make room to embrace us . . . I hope we turn right even though we will pass our neighbor who flies the confederate flag . . . you would think the fascist would learn by now . . . They Will Never Win . . . they lost the Civil War . . . WWI . . . WWII . . . and all the others no matter how vicious fascist are . . . One day I will picket him . . . with a banner that says LOSER . . . just in case . . . he and they forgot they . . . LOST

  My day would start with anger . . . except we reach the ramp where Roanoke Street turns to 460 . . . where a pigeon family lives . . . How they like the rhythm of cars over their head . . . I don’t know . . . but I always hope to get a red light . . . so that father pigeon can wave . . . at me . . . and I can smile . . . back

  Up we go to the first turn . . . Starbucks . . . on both sides of the corner . . . nests in the “b” . . . which customers complain about but most of us love them . . . the other corner is FedEx where the “d” makes room for a home . . . again I smile . . . because of the coffee . . . and my friends in their nests

  Luckily I don’t have a job . . . I have a career . . . the third floor has the best people and we can gossip a bit . . . my students make me smile . . . I hate the telephone . . . and don’t know how to email . . . but I lunch and watch the green trees from both my windows . . . and the birds who swoop by . . . to say hello

  My ride home is ready . . . and so am i

  Dinner is early . . . I grill . . . Ginney makes veggies . . . she does dishes . . . I clean the grill

  Then the best part of the day . . . a glass of champagne on the deck . . . to watch the birds come home

  Little birds first . . . while we talk . . . bigger birds with the second glass . . . the sky is turning dark blue . . . the moon is a crescent smiling

  Then the dark

  I don’t know what the birds’ names are . . . I know the robin because of the blue eggs . . . I know the hawk because we met when the puppy came to live with us . . . she thought about a meal for her babies and I had a strong talk with her . . . I don’t bother her babies . . . she doesn’t bother mine . . . we are both happy now . . . the tree limbs bend over the fishpond so the bigger birds don’t see the goldfish . . . I don’t know the names of the bigger birds either but they wave on their way to bed

  It is night now . . . we sit quietly . . . we soon will hear the bats take off

  It’s not that late but the news is on . . . and the mosquitoes . . . moths . . . and other flying insects are out

  We go in . . . humming a tune . . . Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

  Fear

  Eat In or Take Out?

  I think fear should be a spice. Something we sprinkle on our steaks just before we put them on the grill; something we mix in with our corn muffins and bake at 350 degrees for twenty minutes or until golden brown. Maybe we take fear leaves to decorate our apple pie right out of the oven . . . hot before or the leaves will burn and not look nearly so pretty. I’m thinking if we can learn to distill fear we have two wonderful preparations: perfume for smells and alcohol for ingestion.

  Perfume carries its own scent of danger and excitement but when we throw a little Fear in there things really heat up. Ask John Edwards or Herman Cain and see if I’m not right. Fear: The Scent He Can’t Resist. We’d have to find an exclusive outlet for it. We wouldn’t want everybody to be able to get their hands on it. I’ll have to form a committee to find that solution. Maybe the White House has some ideas. Or . . . oh yes . . . The Tiger Woods Emporium! Get Your Fear Right Here. You can practice your swing, whatever that might mean, while your bottle is bagged.

  And if we made it drinkable we’d probably have a light green liquid with its own two-ounce top. You can take your fear on the rocks . . . or slip a bit of Coke in there to make it mighty smooth. We could get the Culinary Chanel to feature fear at one of the drink offs and we’d reward the best new barrister with his/her very own gold bottle of fear to be used anytime they’d like.

  I need to explain right here, it’s not fear that causes problems, it’s when hatred is combined with it. Fear on its own tells you not to lend your cousin money; don’t go down that dark street, girl; take yourself home from this party now. Fear is a warning signal. Healthy. Good idea. That fish smells funny. My dog does not like this man. Fear is a good thing. It’s why I want to keep it exclusive. If everyone can have fear then we have to cut it. Like drugs. It’s not the cocaine that kills you it’s the stuff they cut it with to make the drugs go further. You don’t want pure fear but you don’t want it cut with hatred either. Hatred is a bad idea. Which is why it’s cheap and available anywhere you look.

  Maybe what will really work is we all need to have a fear tree in our backyard or a small fear plant growing on our apartment windowsill. When we are feeling uneasy we pluck a few leaves and find the right place to put them. Champagne would be the number one choice but spaghetti works, too. Have a little fear at least once a week and you will build up your resistance. Like a vaccination. Then when wars and hatreds come along you’ll be able to recognize that’s just another expression of fear. No thanks, I’ve had my quota.

  That’s what I’m thinking we really need: An Antidote for Fear.

  Toni Morrison

  I wish I owned a restaurant then I could run Specials: Today Toni Morrison stew. An exotic mix of tears and sympathy. Nothing grows except The Bluest eyes and a special shot of Pecola which flies over very quickly because no one can really embrace the fear and hatred. The best thing about The Bluest Eye special is the Marigolds. They didn’t flower but the seeds are there. Drop a few in the bowl and see what grows. Or doesn’t.

  I also really recommend the Sula. The mixture of two girlfriends who lose each other. It does not come with dessert but it can have hot bread. When the Nel is ready to be taken out of the oven that’s the best time to put the Sula in the refrigerator. Timing is everything with this dish. It has to balance the desire with the impossible. Sometimes the chef will put a bit of college in to mix with that wonderful hat. The hat is a lot of fun because whomever catches it gets a free Song of Solomon and a fresh glass of milk.

  Of course we’d mix Jazz Belovedly with a movie and a talk or two. Let’s call it The Morrison Café. Vodka, though my preference is cheap champagne. And only bottled water.

  If Toni’s home had been open to gourmets there would always be porgies frying. Yeah sure everyone thinks fried food is bad for your heart or something but how did the Black Americans get through slavery and segregation without catfish and chittlins? Porgies were a treat. There was a restaurant in The Village that sometimes had porgies and knowing Toni loved them I would go to New York and pick her up. It was more than a poet could actually afford but she was, after all, Toni Morrison. I had my car take me up to her home and take us to the café. I still don’t know what we talked about but when dinner was over I would ride back to her house. She always said she could call her own car but I knew my grandmother would have a heavenly fit if I let Toni go home alone. So I rode up said Good Night and came back to Manhattan. She must have known poets are poorer than novelists but she also knew we both were southerners and there were rules.