Nikki Giovanni: A Living Legend of Poetry

This week the Poetry Foundation awarded Nikki Giovanni the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize to recognize her lifetime achievements. Giovanni burst on the literary scene in 1968 with her first book of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk. Since then, she’s published in every genre, collecting countless honors along the way. We revisit this 2021 conversation with the writer who is still teaching and inspiring others today.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
I lived my teenage years with my grandparents. They're the
people who taught me what love is. And living with
them and watching them sit on the front porch and
not say anything. That was what was amazing. They would
say and practically not say anything particular. It was just
that comfort that they seemed to give each other. And

(00:27):
I just think that you learned so much from listening
and watching and being a part of other people's love
and of loving them, that that's what you're trying to do,
and you're trying to give and receive that love. That
was one of America's most famous poets, Nikki Giovanni talking

(00:48):
about some of the influences on her work, and her
work is legendary, having been honored with prizes ranging from
the Carl Sandberg Literary Award, to the American Book Award
to seven n Double A CP Image Awards, just to
name a few. I'm a land Vervier and this is

(01:09):
Seneca's one Women to Hear. We are bringing you one
hundred of the world's most inspiring and history making women
you need to hear. Oprah has called Nikki Giovanni a
living legend. She first burst onto the scene in n
with her self published book of poetry, Black Feeling, Black Talk.

(01:34):
That was the start of a career that spanned numerous
children's books, nonfiction, essays, recordings, film, and of course poetry.
Fifty three years after her first book, she's still writing,
teaching at Virginia Tech, and engaging in activism. Listen and

(01:56):
learn why Nikki Giovanni is one of Seneca's One Women
to Hear. I'm here today with Nikki Giovanni, one of
America's foremost poets, and I'm so thrilled to be able
to engage her in conversation for this podcast. Welcome Nikki,

(02:18):
Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here. You
are one of the most famous living poets. You've produced
almost twenty books of poetry. You've won countless awards, including
the American Book Award. Oprah has named you a living legend. Somehow,
You've also found time to write numerous books for children

(02:41):
as well as nonfiction, and your teaching creative writing at
Virginia Tech. What an extraordinary contribution you have made with
your creative genius. How do you see your legacy given
all of this? Well, thank you that that sounds really great.

(03:01):
I just try to do my job every day, and
I'm not I'm not trying to be humble, but I grow,
and as I grow, my work grows with me. So
I have a child. I have a son. He's grown now,
and of course I'm going to write children's books because
I have a son. But as we grow a little
bit older, he and I. He has a daughter, and

(03:24):
so I ended up writing children's books because I wanted
there were Her name is Kai. She's a sweetheart. There
were things I wanted Kai to to learn, and there
were things I wanted her to to see and to
and to hear. I enjoy every day. Well, I'm glad
every day that I wake up. I think people forget
that that it's a it's an honor and a pleasure
and a privilege to wake up every day, and I do.

(03:47):
And I try to capture if I'm writing, or if
something occurs to me, I try to capture whatever it
is that that I'm thinking through. And I don't want
to sound as I sat on, want to sound humble,
and I don't want to sound as if I'm somehow
you know, you wake up and run to the computer
and type out something. But I think that poetry is

(04:10):
a story to be shared. I think that the idea
of poetry is a story to be shared and then
sharing that story. Uh, it was shared my my grandmother.
I live with. My grandmother shared stories with me, and
I'm carrying that tradition on to share stories not only
with my granddaughter but with with any other kid that

(04:31):
I can run into it and I enjoy that. I
enjoyed the writing. So I don't. I don't know what
the legacy. You know, Like most people, I'm bound to
be forgotten. Actually, I say to my students, you know,
one of the probably disadvantages of being a writer is
that most writers aren't aren't known for being um worth
anything until a hundred years later. Most of most of

(04:55):
the writers don't even get published until they're dead and gone.
So I don't. I don't try to think about that.
I try to think about what am I sharing today
and how can I share it and make it make
it work. Sometimes it's happy, sometimes it's said a lot
of time it's funny, and uh, you just I just
wanted to share where I am at that moment. You

(05:16):
can almost throw my my work up in the air
and realize how old I was when I wrote that
whatever that is. That's so beautifully said, and you know
there's a lot of gems of wisdom packed into your response,
and and clearly you're not going to have to wait
a hundred years for people to discover the worth of
your extraordinary work. So it goes on every day in

(05:38):
that realm as well. But you know, it really is
a gift to be able to connect with all levels
in one's writing, and you seem to manage to do that,
whether it is a child or whether it is someone
you know with more years under her belt and looking
for other insights that you bring. Well, you know, I've

(06:02):
always well, you don't know, and I don't mean it
like that. I hate people to start off, you know,
but um, I've always had an affection for older people.
And I lived, uh, my teenage years with my grandparents
and my grandparents, and I mentioned it in my new
my latest book, it's called Making Me Ring. I mentioned
that it was and I dedicated it to them though

(06:24):
they were gone, that they're the people who taught me
what love is. And living with them and watching them
sit on the front porch and not say anything that
was what was amazing. That grandmother would smoke Grandpapa never
did smoke, but grandmother would at at the end of dinner.
I had to wash the dishes because I was the
youngest person there. But she and Grandpapa would go and

(06:46):
sit on the porch and you learn, you know, you
learn what you what you watch, and what you listened to.
And it would just be quiet. They would sit and
practically not say anything particular, but it was it was
just that it was just that comfort that they seemed
to give each other. But I also, if I may share,

(07:08):
grandmother liked pineapple, which to this day I'm seventy seven
years old, I disliked pineapple, but grandmother liked pineapple. And
Grandpapa did all of the shopping. He never would let
her go. We lived in Knoxville, Tennessee, so it's a market.
There were no grocery stores like that, and so he
would go to the he would go to the market,

(07:30):
and as he would come home, he would have the
two bags that he was garying. And we lived up.
He had become a several steps to get to us,
and when he got to that first step, her name
is Louvinion, he would say, lou Vina, lou Vinion. They
had pineapple, and she would being and it was something
just watching his pleasure and bringing her pineapple and her pleasure,

(07:57):
and not just the pineapple, but that he thought of her.
As I said, I just like pineapple. So I knew
what was going to happen for Sunday ice cream because
he made the ice cream on Sunday. We were going
to have pineapple ice cream, which I hate. But I thought, Oh,
that's what love is. That that little bit. He was
just so pleased loving you. They had pineapple. And I
just think that you learned so much from listening and

(08:21):
watching and being a part of other people's love and
of loving them. That's what you're trying to do, and
you're trying to give and receive that love. What a
terrific story, you know. I can just conceptualize them as
you describe them. A lot of that has to do
with your gift as a writer as well. You were

(08:42):
just recounting some of your years with your grandparents, h
and I wonder if we can also go back a
little bit to your years then at university. Yeah, you
went to Fisk, the historically black university, received your undergrad three.
Did that have a tremendous influence on you. Oh, I'm

(09:04):
sure it did. Grandpapa was a fifth graduate. He graduated
in nineteen o five and he was the first person
in his family and the Watsons who did graduate from college.
So when I was accepted in Fish and when I
was an early entrance, so I took a test in
the eleventh grade and passion and went on to I
didn't graduate from high school, and I went on to Fisk.

(09:27):
I have to say, in an all fairness to Fisk,
Obviously I was immature, and immature people do immature things.
So ultimately I um, I got kicked out. But while
I was being kicked out and trying to pull myself
to getting it wasn't like me or anything, just foolish. Um.
I finally realized, no, I need my education. I have

(09:48):
to go back to Fisk. And grand Grandpapa passed, but
I new grandmother would be pleased what she was. She
came to my graduation with my mother, Mommy and grand
and grandmother came and uh, Fisker is a great school.
Of course, fis created, w b DO boys created sociology,
and the Fifth Jubilee Singers of course sang for Queen

(10:11):
Um Queen Victoria excuse me, and became the Jubilee Singers
because of Queen Victoria. When I met Queen Elizabeth, who asked,
as you can imagine, I asked to see me, because
one doesn't ask to meet the queen. She asked to
meet me because she had said, or they said, she said,
I don't believe it. Oh, she really enjoys your poetry.

(10:32):
She'd love to meet you. She's going to be in
the United States. Would you would you come? Would you
would you like to meet it? And yeah, I don't.
I just don't believe things like that, So I have
a problem. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't, but I
wanted her to know that we had a connection. And
one of the things that I'll never forget to my
dying day is, you know, meeting somebody like Queen Elizabeth,

(10:53):
you have to take time because she meets so many people.
So I just kind of stood and didn't do any thing.
And she looked back up. You know, they meet you
and you say, ma'am, it's such a pleasure, things like that,
And she looked back up, like, what are you still
doing here? And I said, man, we have something in common,
and I will never forget and she said, you know,

(11:14):
British talked so funny, and I said, yes, ma'am. I
attended Fisk University and your great grandmother Victoria invited the
Jubilee singers to come to England. They spent a year
with her and talked and saying with her for the
spirit saying for her, saying the spirituals. And she was like,

(11:35):
you know, and she doesn't know much about the spirituals,
but I just thought you should know that we have something.
She and I had something in common. And you're just
trying to, you know, go through all the Fiskers and
important and Fisk actually uh as does everybody could probably
use a little more money and some things like that.

(11:56):
But in in its beginning we had great and we
have good people now, but we had great people w
B two Voyce. As I mentioned, we had Aaron Douglas
when I was there, and you could see Mr Douglas
the painter. You could see Mr Douglas walking across campus,
and you know, you just look at his flower and say, oh,
you know, and Mr Douglas and you go on about

(12:16):
your business. Robert Hayden that would talk taught us English,
taught us uh He was the English teacher, and of
course Bib Haydon is one of the great writers in
in America. And one of my mother's favorite poems was
Those Winter Sundays And when Mommy was buried, that was
the poem that you wanted one of the poems you
wanted read. And on A Bonta was our librarian. So

(12:41):
we had a lot of great people we were around,
and as we the students. When I came back the
second time, I wanted to be a little more reasonable
and put some things together. But we were able to
say the FIST, we think we need a writing teacher,
and we we were actually able to hire John Oliver Killings.
And when John came down, which was really wonderful. He

(13:03):
came with his daughter, he bought his daughter Barbara, and
he said, oh, we need a festival, and we ended
up having a poetry festival and now everybody does. So
it was kind of FISK is wonderful, and it's still
it's got to make some changes, and I think a
lot of schools, a lot of people don't want to
make changes, but changes have to be made, and FIST

(13:25):
were gonna have to make some in order to uh
maintain its quality. So you graduated from Fisk. Uh. Then,
having gone back, you mentioned your grandmother was at your graduation,
at your commencement, and she died shortly thereafter. As I understand,
yes she did. That must have been so difficult for you,

(13:48):
given how close you were to her. Death is difficult,
you know, Uh, I don't. I don't even know how
to say that. I'm not indifferent to death. I was
sorry that. I was sorry to lose grandmother. And when
I think about home, even now you and I are talking,
when I say home, I think of and I speak
of grandmother and Grandpapa in Knoxville, Tendessee. I don't speak

(14:09):
of my mother and father in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm not
mad or anything. I just that's not who I think
of when I think of home. So missing grandmother is
is a normal to me. You're gonna miss people, and
I've always uh and I still do. I dislike people
when you lose somebody, you lose your mom, or you
lose your grandmother, and somebody will come up and I

(14:31):
guess they think they're being nice and they say, oh,
you'll get over it. Well, I don't want to get
over it. I'm gonna always I'm seventy seven years old.
I'm going to miss my grandmother until the day that
I died. And I like to think of grandmother because
I'm I'm I'm a Baptist. I grew up in in
the Her church was Baptist, and I mommy's church was
a and African Methodist Episcopal. But I like to think

(14:54):
your grandmother sitting in heaven with Grandpapa sitting on that porch.
And I think, you know, heaven is a good idea
to me. I know people say, well, you know, how
do you know that? And what about spirits? But I'm
I'm into spirits. I think that that you hear things.
I think that things come to you, that that there
are times when something says don't go there or do

(15:15):
this or whatever. And if you listen to your in
her heart, you will have a lot of things. So, yes,
I missed grandmother. But if you're born, you're going to die,
and so that is something we don't accept. Your something
that has to happen. But I don't have a right
to keep her from being with Grandpapa sitting in heaven
and she's smoking, and I'm sure that that she's smoking

(15:39):
and he's sitting there and saying, you know, Louvinia, if
you don't stop that, but you you're always going to
miss the people you love. That's that's why you love them.
But her passing was very pivotal to your poetry, was
it not. Grand mother was and remains the person that
I want to please. So I'm doing things and I
want my grandmother to be proud of it. When the

(16:01):
African American Museum opened in Washington, d c uh, I,
like many people during the Black Guardsmith movement, I was
a part of it. And I went to not to
the legacy opening because that was gonna be uh the
President of the United States. I was going to be
Barack Obama was going to be there, and then had
the Secret Service, so we went the the day before

(16:22):
when when you just didn't have all of that. And
I was walking and walking and walking and you turn
and turning, and unless you've seen the museum, uh, it's
difficult to explain. But it's a circle. You just go
up and up and up. And I got to one
point on the second level and I went I turned right,

(16:42):
and in turning right, you see a lot of a
lot of photographs and left are the ladies, the old ladies,
wonderful old ladies who are stopping, stopping to tell their story.
But I turned right and there was a photographer. There
is um a photograph of me. And without without even thinking,

(17:04):
I turned left to say grandmother, and I realized I
had said it. I had actually said grandmother because I
wanted her to see see I did my job and
it's most I mean, tears came to my eyes when
I realized what I had done. I was wanting my
grandmother to be there to see it. And um, you know,
there's just people you do care about that people you

(17:26):
not that I don't care about other people, but there
are people that you want to please, and there are
the people that you just want to do a good job.
Seneca has one hundred women to hear. Will be back
after the short break. So your first collection was Black Feelings,

(17:54):
Black Talk, Um, and you published that at a young age.
You weren't long out of college and you self published it. Now,
why was that? Because at that point nobody was interested
in what ultimately became black arts. And I had this
little book. I had some poetry, and that's that's what

(18:14):
I could do. I can't play tennis, I i can't sing,
I can't dance. You know, I'm not going to be
a movie star. All I can do is right, and
I have stories to tell. And so I had it.
I had some stories, and I thought, well, rather than
try to do that which cannot be done because at

(18:35):
that point, nobody's going to publish the Black poets writing,
I mean that, I wuld have been a fool to think.
So so I found a publisher. I found a printer
who was a very nice guy, and I was living
in New York, and my my question was how much
would it cost for me to get a hundred books?

(18:55):
And so he left. He said, well, I can get
you a hundred books for a hundred dollars and I said, well,
that great, because then I can sell a hundred books
at a dollar apiece and I will break even. But
the good part, and this is the best part, is
that when I if I sell those hundreds, when I
come back, I can sell I can get a hundred

(19:15):
more at fifty dollars because the print thing of the
Juggie's had already been made. The print was the publishing anymore.
We just had to print it. And so that would
make me get a hundred books for fifty dollars, and
that was really great because I did that the second
time and when we sold that, which was really wonderful,

(19:36):
I have fifty dollars as it would be to the good. Now,
anybody who writes foretry knows you're not gonna get rich
being a poet, and so no, none of us are.
I'm not either, But that fifty dollars is going to
allow me to bring another book. And so that's what
we that's what I did. I published them and then
they have the Detroit Festival of Fine Arts, and I

(19:59):
met Dudley Ran and I said to Dudley, well, I
am going to publish my books. Because he was publishing Broadside,
which was a broadside, it was one single. He was
very close to Gwyn Brooks, and so he's going to
publish that. And I said, well, why don't why don't
we come together and I will simply have my next book,

(20:20):
say a Broadside publication, but I will take care of everything,
and if there's any money, which there is not going
to be very much, I'll have it. And if there's
any if we lose, you won't lose anything. So Dudley
and I got together to decide we should we should
take that second step, and that's how we did it.
And then um uh, William Morrow came to me. I

(20:43):
had lunch with philth a young man, wonderful young man
named Philip Petrie. Phil Petrie came to me and he said,
you know, we've been watching what you're doing. It we'd
like to publish you. I said, I would like to
be published because running of businesses is difficult and I
did ever want to be a business person. And I said,
that's that's super, that's great, you know, do it, and

(21:05):
so I ended up. And I've been with him every since. Uh.
I was I think twenties six years old or twenty
seven years old, and I've been with William Morrow, who
is a part as you know, of Harper Collins. I've
been with them every since. I um, I won't change.
I'm gonna get another publisher. I would always be with them,

(21:26):
and it's good because I'm not I didn't want to
jump around. I wasn't looking for anything special. As I said,
you know, if you're a poet, you're not gonna make
a lot of money. So the first thing you have
to do is let yourself go. I'm not going to
deal with trying to make a lot of money. And
once you do that, then you can you can go
on and do your work, which is writing. My work

(21:47):
is writing. Well. Breaking into William or Morrow was a
huge accomplishment and at a very young age, very reputable publisher.
Um so that was that has to have been just
a terrific opportunity for you. Now, one of the most
famous poems that you've written is Nicky Rosa, and it

(22:10):
starts childhood remembrances are always a drag if you're black.
Tell us what that poem means to you and what
prompted it. Well, what prompted that poem, of course, was
that everybody wants to tell black people how terrible it
is that your life. And I'm still quite tired of him.
And people say, oh, you know, it was really hard.

(22:32):
We were poor. At everybody's pool. You know, you've got
to relate in the world. You probably have a half
a dozen rich people. So I got tired of hearing
that that that that sobs story. And I really like
Nicki Rose. Did they that that's that's what they called me?
Was Nicky Rose at that point just called me Nikki
and uh, I just thought all the while, whatever else

(22:53):
it is, I didn't mention my grandparents at that point.
In that point, but the last line is so important
that and all the while I was quite happy, and
I just wanted to say that that you can't let
other people make a decision about your life and about
how your life is and how you should look at it,
because of everybody's life is not the life we live,

(23:14):
but the life we imagine we're living, and so you
have to be careful, you know. But I'm not very good.
I'm talking to you, uh now through a podcast on
uh really these things that computer, but I'm not very
good at any of the electronic things. And I think
that my generation is very lucky not to have had

(23:36):
Facebook and and and Twitter and and all of that stuff,
because you've got so many lies and all of those
lives start to make people feel, oh, something is wrong
with me. I got a note yet last night from
so and so and they had a good time at
the party and I wasn't invited to the party. And
the next thing you know, they're upset about that, and
you're thinking, no, wait a minute, you need to get

(23:58):
off off of the computer and and get down to
something that makes a little more sense. You need to
find your own your own happiness, because happiness is an
inner it's something inside of you, it's not something outside
of you. And I think that it's very I think
it's very important that that do not allow, for lack
of a better word, lies to keep coming at you.

(24:22):
And you're thinking, I'm the only one who's not happy.
I'm the only one who's not rich. I'm the only
one who's not getting good grades. And I feel sorry
for the kids because I think they have a lot
of pressure on them that my generation didn't have. Yeah,
and that's that's also a lesson, I think in terms
of what you've just imparted now, you've been associated with

(24:44):
the black arts movement, certainly in the sixties and on.
You're an activist as well as a poet. How do
you see the connection between politics and poetry. I've often
thought that artists can see society, see politics through a
very special lens. What's the artist's role in the social

(25:06):
movements of our time? I think that are that poets
particularly have always been a part of the leadership of
changing the world. And uh, I think that we and
I'm saying we, we who are writers. Now we're lucky that,
you know, nobody is crucifying us or nobody is burning
us at the cross or something. And the poets have

(25:28):
been that kind of fight. We we have been We've
been considered witches, we have been considered just terrible things.
And as we go through the last couple of thousand years,
you can see that poets have always been in the leadership.
And I think that as a poet, you just want
to do your job and you would like not to

(25:49):
be killed. And so right now we're getting a lot
of people who are being killed, but they're not being poets.
So obviously somebody is doing something either right or wrong.
I have a great affection, of course, for Black lives matter,
because I think they're doing and and and and enormously
important and good and good job. But for the most part,

(26:11):
we who are poets are just trying to trying to
say this is what we see and this is how
we see it, and we are we have now gotten
to the point that we seldom I'm not gonna say never,
because when we look at at Russia, and we look
at at eastern uh Europe, we look and at at
at parts of Africa, we look at people who are
still being killed because they're trying to tell the truth.

(26:34):
And we're looking at people like our former president, who
has these great lives and has everybody afraid of him
because they're trying to tell the truth. And so poets
are going to continue to tell the truth and hopefully, um,
we won't get we won't get shot of Bahamadr. You know,
the plane won't fall out of the sky. You know,

(26:54):
hopefully we'll We'll live to to do our job. That's
all we can do. Yeah, And it is a vital
role that so many poets and artists have played in
that respect. What do you think of today's young poets.
I understand you were very moved when Amanda Gorman got
up and recited her poem at the inauguration. I was

(27:14):
very happy for I am very happy for Ms Gorman
and for the publicity and the she's building a career.
And I hope that it I hope that it does well.
I would. I am the little lady who's fond of
seeing some of the younger kids come up. And I
think though everybody, especially writers, have to be careful, and

(27:39):
a part of what you have to be careful about
is that you do your work and that you don't
get so tied up in who you are or what
magazine cover you on. But I think that Ms Gorman
is in an intelligent obviously, she's an intelligent young woman,
and I think that she will find a way to
make sure that she's doing her uh. My favorite celebrity,

(28:05):
I was trying to think of what the word is,
but my favorite celebrity is Venus Williams because Venus has
handled celebrity better than any of her generation, and she
has she's done, she has been so cool. It was
just the word. She has really handled herself. And you
have to admire watching the pressure that Venus Williams was

(28:28):
under and how she handled that pressure. And of course
Serena is very lucky to have had a big sister
to look out for. And that's that's what you're hoping
that that that we go, that we go forward. So
i'm uh. I was. I was, of course, who wasn't
pleased with Ms Gorman's um uh poem. And I wish

(28:49):
her the best, as I'm sure we all do. But
I think that again, and as someone who has been
through a lot of that, I wish that I really
wish she could talk to as a tailor. I wish
that Elizabeth Taylor were alive and could talk to her
about the kind of pressure you can be under. And
I say, let's tell her because I always think of

(29:10):
the people who got under so much pressure and still
had to kind of find a way to handle it.
You have to be careful with all of that uh
so called celebrity. You have to be careful because all
of the people smiling that you don't like you. You know, Nikki,
you seem to have such a wonderful outlook of life.
You talked to a little bit ago about being grateful

(29:34):
for each day, uh and observing all of those small
things that are yet packed with so much meaning. Um,
what makes you optimistic these days? And how do you
keep writing? What keeps you writing? Well? I write because
words are all I know. And if it's all you know,

(29:54):
then that's what you that's what you do. I at
one point in my life I wish that I could
ain't And I've painted a couple of things that if
you're at my home, you'd see a couple of my
paintings and then you would see why I couldn't be
a painter. But it's it's really I like to write,
and I like to share my ideas, and I like
to explore my ideas. I am a space freak, which

(30:16):
most people know, and I'm really excited about what Earth is,
how Earth is going to respond to life in the
in the galaxy. We do know that there must be
life in the galaxy because we know that there's water
on Mars, and wherever there is water, there is life.
So these are the kind of things we need to

(30:36):
be teaching our children. If I could be president of
the United States or the head of the United Nations
or something really important, I would try to make all
of the nations teach their children. And there are people
that we are Earthlings, that we have lived long enough

(30:58):
trying to be black and white and and Christian and
Jewish and Muslim and whatever. Whatever. It's finished. Third planet
from yellow Sun is Earth. And as we are going
around and around, and we have problems here because the
water is it's having problems, and air is having problems.
But we are spending some time in the galaxy, and

(31:21):
as we are, we have to be prepared. Somebody's going
to ask us in some kind of language, whether we
know it or not. Who are you? And the answer
to that has to be I'm an earthly because nothing
else will make sense. And I think that it's time
for us to take those steps. So if you say,
what what makes me excited? Uh? But what I'm excited about?

(31:43):
And I don't know my my uh, my father, my
grandfather's family lives a long time. My grandmother, um, they
don't live so long. But I'm really hoping that I
can live long enough to see a real what we
are calling alien. But I live with aliens every day.

(32:06):
So the alien was elected president of the United States
in two so it doesn't get more alien than that
to me. So I'm I'm looking for what what the
life form is that's coming. And I hope I'm around.
I hope that I'm I'm around, and I don't smoke,
but I do have a glass of champagne most evenings.

(32:26):
And I'm just hoping I would be sitting and my
I have a little fish pond, and I'm hoping that
I'd be sending my fish pond and the fish would
all of a sudden start talking or whatever it is
fisher do, and I will realize that something living is
sitting next to me and I can turn around and say,
how are you. I'm an earthly and I want them

(32:46):
to say I'm a Martian, or I'm a jube to
Ryan or whatever. I just I would love to find
out what other life form there is, because it's illogical
in this galaxy that we on Earth are the only
life forms. It's that's just a logical. So it's time
that we begin to prepare ourselves for the logic of

(33:08):
what else is living with us. Well. To all of
the earth wings who are listening to this wonderful conversation,
thank you so much, Nikki Giovanni for spending time with us.
I hope that our listeners who are not acquainted with
your work will become acquainted. It is a wonderful feast

(33:29):
to be able to engage with you by reading uh
your great work, and that they will certainly pick up
your latest collection called Make Me Rain, Speaking of water,
Make Me Rain. Thank you so much, Nikki Giovanni. Oh,
thank you. There was so much wisdom and what Nikki

(33:52):
Giovanni had to say. There are three things I took
from that fascinating conversation. First, Nikki reminds us of the
beauty of everyday life as She says, people forget that
it's an honor and a pleasure and a privilege to
wake up every day. Second, Nikki shows us the power

(34:15):
of observation. She so movingly described what she learned when
living with her grandparents, the joy of listening and watching,
and what she calls being a part of other people's love. Finally,
Nikki's enduring curiosity is invigorating. She calls herself a space

(34:38):
free enthusiastic to find out how our world will respond
when we come in contact with life from other planets.
She reminds us how much we all have to look
forward to tune in next time to hear about our
next featured woman and discover why she's one of Seneca's

(34:59):
one Women to Hear. Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear
is a collaboration between the Seneca Women Podcast Network and
I Heart Radio, with support from founding partner PNG Have
a Great Day.