Nikki Giovanni

"Poetry is the culture of a people. We are poets even when we don’t write poems; just look at our life, our rhythms, our tenderness, our signifying, our sermons and our songs."

"Poets shouldn't commit suicide. That would leave the world to those without imaginations or hearts. That would bequeath to the world a mangled syntax and no love of champagne. Poets must live in misery and ecstasy, to sing a song with the katydids. Poets should be ashamed to die before they kiss the sun."

"You have to read the poem and say, “My god, that’s a good poem,” and kind of smile at yourself. If you’re not willing to do that, then you’re wasting your time, and you’re hurting yourself in another way because you’re trying to please somebody who doesn’t like you. You don’t want to get in that position."

"it is not unusual that the old bury the young though it is an abomination ...those who make war call themselves diplomats ...the unfaithful pray loudest ...we judge a man by his dreams not alone his deeds ...by his intent not alone his shortcomings ...it is not unusual to know him through those who love him"

"...i sit waiting for a fresh thought to stir the atmosphere"

"i hope my shoulder finds a head that needs nestling ...i hope i die warmed by the life that i tried to live"

"they say you should fight the cold with the cold but since i never do anything right i called you"

"...how else to spend a rainy day other than with you seeking sun and stars and heavenly bodies"

"...i believe the most beautiful poem ...is your heart racing"

"how do you write a poem about someone so close ...don't you already know what i feel and if you don't maybe i should check my feelings"

"may i spin a poem around you come let's step into my web and dream of freedom together"

"if nature is true we shall all lose our eyes since we cannot even now distinguish the good from the evil ...i've a mind to build a new world want to play"

"...do you ever stop to think what it looked like before it was an avenue ...ever look south ...and see gazelles running playfully after the lions ...did you ever, sit down and wonder about what freedom's freedom would bring ...the , Alonquin and ... could caress the earthever think what Harlem would be like if our herbs and roots and elephant ears grew... the parrot parroting ...ever think it's possible for us to be happy"

"if trees could talk wonder what they'd say met an old man ...told me "girl! my hands seen more than all them books... at tuskeegee" ...met an old woman ..."sista" she called to me "...my feet seen more than yo eyes ever gonna read" ...if trees would talk wonder what they'd tell me"

"if it does not sing discard the ear for poetry is song if it does not delight discard the heart for poetry is joy if it does not inform then close off the brain for it is dead if it cannot heed the insistent message that life is preciouswhich is all we poets wrapped in our loneliness are trying to say"

"We need food for the Soul We need poetry ... We deserve poetry"

"Paint me Hopeful Paint Me Futuristic Paint Me Nikki I'm a Poet"

"History is wonderful. We have so much we can learn if we would quit making ideology out of history, and just deal with what happened…"

"Politics is personal. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s ideological. It means that one cares about what she or he is doing, what he or she is writing…"

"As a writer, one has to be willing to be wrong, willing to make mistakes. I’ve put everything on the table and accepted the fact that I may come up short. And, if (or when) I do, that’s okay."

"There is a game I must tell you of It's called Catch the Leader Lying (and knowing your sense of the absurd you will enjoy this) ... You must invent your own games and teach us old ones how to play"

"Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy"

"let's build what we become when we dream"

"then I awoke and dug that if i dreamed natural dreams of being a natural woman doing what a woman does... i would have a revolution"

"...as i grew and matured i became more sensible and decided i would settle down and just become a sweet inspiration"

"if science has the most perfect language just think of me as Mc2 ...one day i'm gonna grab your loveand you'll be satisfied"

"If I were advising someone on a writing career, the deal is this: write. If you get it published, good. If somebody pays you, better, because you have to eat, but the deal is you have to write."

"The authority of the writer always overcomes the skepticism of the reader."

"I'm a big fan of the black woman and so I'm always looking at aspects of the black woman--what she's doing and how she does it."

"At the library I would go the shelves alphabetically. I was drawn to anyone with a female name, with a Latino or Spanish name. There were very, very few. But as a teenager I discovered African American poetry. Gwendolyn Brooks was the first. Then Phillis Wheatley. I really identified with this slave woman writing poetry to assert and affirm her humanity. Suddenly my eyes were open to history. There was a whole explosion of African-American women poets-Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, June Jordan. I have a poem in my head that's going to take me years to write down. Its working title is "On Thanking Black Muses." I owe them, because poetry really changed my life, saved it."

"(At National Black Theater performance) I was in awe of the words I witnessed that day. It was the first time that I heard the works of writers like Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka. I heard poetry that was about me, that was very immediate. I connected to it in a visceral way. That experience moved me so profoundly that I went home and that night I wrote my first batch of poems. It was like the floodgates opened. That reading empowered me with a voice and gave me permission to express everything that had been festering in me for years. So I just started experimenting with language and writing all kinds of things."