Fisk

  A Song of Freedom

  I met the Queen of England. Of course it is obvious that she called me, or perhaps more accurately, her people called my people to say she would like to meet me. The Queen is a horsewoman and she was coming to Richmond, Virginia, to see a horse and they wanted to know if I would mind coming to Richmond to meet her. Since she is the Queen and I’m not the easy answer was “Yes.”

  Richmond is only about a two-hour drive from Blacksburg and it was a pretty day.

  I have to admit I didn’t want to stand in one of those lines where she and Prince Philip walked down one side then another and said things like “How was your trip” and “Thank you for coming” but since I had committed through Virginia Tech, my university, I didn’t want to embarrass them so I decided “Yes” I would stand in one of those lines. But that was not the case. When I arrived at the hotel I was taken to a special room where a reception was being held. Important people like our governor and senators were there. Some of whom I knew. Food and drink were being passed around but since I never drink with strangers I passed on the drink and pretended to enjoy the food.

  Her people were taking her one way and Prince Philip’s people were taking him the other. I was just sort of standing there not knowing what was expected of me when her gentleman brought the Queen over and introduced me. Since I knew who she was I was the one being introduced. She complimented me on my poetry and especially on the poem I had read after the tragedy at Tech.

  I was surprised that she had followed our sadness or even that she might have known some of my poems. I actually still think her people tell her things as they escort her to the next person but it’s still nice to think of the Queen of England piled up in bed, fire glowing, a glass of wonderful red wine on her nightstand, reading to Philip my love poems. I am a couple of inches taller than the Queen and there was something I wanted to say to her. Meeting famous people is difficult because you are nervous and they want to move on but I thought “when” will I ever have this opportunity again so I stepped in front of her. Not blocking her but just enough to keep her from turning away. Because I am a smidgen taller she had to look up. “We have something in common,” I said to her. I wish I could find a way for you to catch her voice because that’s so much of really telling what she was thinking: “Oh?” she said.

  “I am a graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Your great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, invited the Fisk Singers, through the good offices of her cousin Lord Nottingham, through the prayers of Reverend Stowe, the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, to come to England because he wanted Her Majesty to hear the Spirituals. The Fisk Singers were thrilled because they were singing to raise money to keep our college alive.

  “The Nine Singers stayed in the castle with the Queen for over a year. Those young men and women, who had only recently been released from slavery, were required to interact with hereditary royalty. They had to conduct themselves as if they had always been free. In the evening they performed for the Queen and her guests. As you know during those times royalty did not talk to commoners but Her Majesty one evening leaned down from her throne to ask: ‘Where are you from?’ And Ella Shepard answered: ‘Nashville, Your Majesty.’ And the Queen responded: ‘Why that must be a musical city.’ And Nashville has been known as Music City from thenceforth.

  “Queen Victoria had her portrait painter paint their portraits and she awarded them fifty thousand pounds which saved Fisk. I just thought you might like to know.”

  Queen Elizabeth looked up at me and said, “Oh. I did not know. Thank you.”

  And I said, “Thank you.”

  I went on to meet Prince Philip to congratulate him on his work in saving or rather trying to save some of the animals of Kenya, and I stood around until they were taken away.

  I just thought she should know her connection to Fisk. And Fisk should know our connection to Royalty. I hope one day the Prince of Wales will come to visit us. And the Jubilee Singers will share the story of how their names changed to honor Victoria and why Jubilee Hall is called Jubilee Hall. And understand why the sound of the enslaved Americans is now the sound heard around the globe. Why Freedom is a song we created and sang for over two hundred years and why we still sing for all who seek it.

  Nikki Giovanni

  Class of 1965

  Cotton in the Arms of the Mountains

  A gentle wind

  Like a loving granddaughter

  Combing

  Her grandmother’s hair

  Carried her gift

  To the beginning

  We think it’s ice

  But really it’s cotton

  On the top of mountains

  Built on the bones

  Of those who came before

  A gentle wind

  Blew white hair

  Off grandmothers

  Up and up and up

  Settling in the arms

  Of grandfathers

  Who were lynched

  Or whipped

  Or shot but always looking

  At Grandmothers

  To reflect in their eyes

  The love

  A gentle wind

  Carrying the white hair

  To the waiting

  Arms

  We call it glacial

  We call it ice

  We should call it

  Cotton

  resting in the arms

  of our great mountains

  Where Was the Music

  At First I thought

  Of baths

  A warm bath my grandmother

  Would run

  For me

  Then rub my back

  But No

  This was angry

  Running away from smiles

  The water swept off

  My feet

  Pushed madly

  Into the house

  And I grabbed my grandmother’s

  Bible and my little dog

  And climbed to the roof

  To wait

  For relief

  I knew there was a moon

  Up there

  But I just couldn’t hear

  It sing

  Kevin Powell 2020

  I don’t understand why the virus took

  Over two hundred thousand people

  But not trump and that third foreign woman

  I do understand that republicans

  Are cowards and so are those nazis

  Cheering

  And those kkk we now call police killing

  Not to mention father and sons chasing unarmed Black men

  and running their cars into crowds

  Pretending they are brave or something

  They are not only cowards

  And nazis but evil fools

  And who go to bed white

  Wake up American

  And hate themselves for having

  To share this earth

  They will not overcome

  And we will not love them

  I don’t understand why

  Biden doesn’t know everytime

  From Pilate and Lincoln and all the rest try

  To forgive they are murdered

  And I hope this is not the case

  But what does 2020 mean to me

  A chance to learn how to open oysters

  Talk to friends

  Catch up on my reading

  Tell myself I am going to dust the house

  Lie about it

  Enjoy the cold weather coming in

  Improve my hamburger making

  (add a smidgen of nutmeg/fry slowly in butter)

  Enjoy my own company not to mention football

  And remember there will be tomorrow

  Because there will be

  And evil will go and good will come

  I am Black

  We have seen much worse

  Ten Descriptions of Me

  (For Mark Koplik)

  01–I’m excited my latest book Make Me Rain is scheduled for October publication. That makes me happy because I am a jazz fan which is where the title comes from.

  02–I guess the thing that really pleases me is I get to give a shout-out to Marvin Gaye on the cover photo. What’s Going On had Gaye in the rain so I have a raincoat but the sky is blue.

  03–I’m a big fan of Kwame Alexander and anything he is creating is well worth reading. I also love a young writer named Renée Watson. I have been reading and re-reading them.

  04–If there were words of wisdom don’t you think we all would know them by now? Oh, I guess I should say look out for the lies.

  05–I call. The best part of the phone system now is you can call anyone anywhere. Do you know the young people don’t even know what a party line is or that you had to pay for long distance?

  06–I sincerely think you should fry your chicken slowly in butter. There is no rush. And do us all a favor: No Batter.

  07–As the T-shirt says: Be Yourself. All others are taken.

  08–I mostly dream.

  9–I try to do my honest best with my poetry so I never try to choose. It would be like saying who is your favorite child.

  10–I think life is interesting so I think we should enjoy living it. I guess the most important part is not learning to give love but learning to accept love.

  Thanks for inviting me.

  Prose to the People

  We hear stories before we are born. Our mothers and, in fact, our grandmothers sing to us; sometimes Spirituals, sometimes jazz to keep our coming in rhythm with our ancestors. We are born and everyone who loves our family comes around to drink and eat and sing. We are happy. By the time we begin our own dreams we are given books with illustrations that we make up stories about. People give us books or money to buy books or paper to draw on and we make up our stories. Some of these stories are still with us. Some have been boxed away; some burned up; some simply thrown away but that’s all right because there are libraries and bookstores.

  Libraries are the university of the people. I loved going into the wood-floored green-lighted room where Index cards awaited. There was a world in those cards and I could pick any one of them I chose.

  But then I learned how to drive and I could go to the bookstore. I could drive downtown, park, and go in looking grown-up. I always was neat; and I always spoke to the owners. I got to know the bookstore owners across America the same way I got to know my librarians.

  I had an old clunker but gas was less than a dollar a gallon that I could drive from New York City to Detroit to Chicago to Denver to Portland then down the California coast meeting bookstore owners all the way. Coming back home was the southern route—Houston, Dallas, St. Louis, New Orleans, Mississippi, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh.

  There were Black bookstores on almost every corner from Liberation Books to the famous and necessary National Memorial Bookstore to Vaughn’s and my goodness did I leave Washington, DC, out? Every Black community had a Black bookstore. And we had pride. We had poetry. We had song. We had readings. Nothing was more important than the bookstores except perhaps the churches. The buildings have been taken but not forgotten. The songs are still being sung.

  The Prose is still reminding us that “Black is Beautiful,” as Mr. Michaux likes to say, “but knowledge is power.”

  Poems

  (For the Blacksburg Books Community Project)

  Poems like the sunshine

  Warm us

  Like the moon

  Make us fall in love

  Like the stars twinkle

  In our hearts

  Like a creek

  Ripples over fishes which we catch

  Making us fall in love

  Like the moon on a starry night

  Or the sunshine on a spring morning.

  Poems are a good idea.

  We Have Prevailed

  I want to take this minute to thank the Hokie Family for always being there to welcome me wherever I go to share my joy at being a part of our community. Whether on a ship cruising the European rivers or in London at the British Book Festival, in a small library in an Appalachian town or a coffee shop in New York the Hokies have welcomed me. And I always welcome them. As we are one. And we have prevailed.

  Winter Homes

  My goldfish are finding

  winter homes under slabs

  in the pond

  Mother goldfish birthed

  and hid four babies

  this summer

  they were not eaten

  by birds

  or their fathers

  the heater is on

  it’s my contribution

  to mother nature

  I have aired my quilts

  and washed my blankets

  I will cuddle

  with my dog

  a good book and with any luck

  a cup

  of Frontier Soup

  finding

  my winter home

  Fathers

  (For twg)

  They all are handsome

  Soft spoken

  Laughing at your jokes

  Giving a joke back

  They didn’t make

  Any promises

  Or money

  But were pleasant

  Enough

  To be around

  They had dreams

  And hopes

  Read maps

  For places

  They wanted

  To visit

  After walks

  And movies

  But not any

  Promises

  Except

  “It ain’t mine”

  Which was the only

  Definite thing

  They said

  And off they went

  Who knows where

  To whom

  For what

  I and you have

  This in common

  We never saw

  Them again

  Not even in

  Your smile

  Or anger

  Only

  In your Blame

  About the Author

  NIKKI GIOVANNI (1943–2024), poet, activist, mother, grandmother, and educator, grew up in Tennessee and Ohio, and graduated with honors from Fisk University in Nashville. The author of more than thirty books, she was also the recipient of seven NAACP Image Awards, the Robert Frost Medal, the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry, an Emmy Award, and thirty-one honorary degrees. She garnered her most unusual honor in 2007 when a South American bat species—Micronycteris giovanniae—was named in celebration of her. A devoted teacher and honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Giovanni spent thirty-five years as University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Nikki Giovanni

  Poetry

  Black Feeling Black Talk/Black Judgement

  Re: Creation

  My House

  The Women and the Men

  Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day

  Those Who Ride the Night Winds

  The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni

  Love Poems

  Blues: For All the Changes

  Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems

  Acolytes

  The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni

  Bicycles

  Chasing Utopia

  A Good Cry

  Make Me Rain

  Prose

  Gemini: An Extended Autobiographical Statement on My First Twenty-Five Years of Being a Black Poet

  A Dialogue: James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni

  A Poetic Equation: Conversations Between Nikki Giovanni and Margaret Walker

  Sacred Cows . . . and Other Edibles

  Racism 101

  Shimmy Shimmy Shimmy Like My Sister Kate: Looking at the Harlem Renaissance Through Poems

  Edited by Nikki Giovanni

  Night Comes Softly: An Anthology of Black Female Voices

  Appalachian Elders: A Warm Hearth Sampler

  Grand Mothers: Poems, Reminiscences, and Short Stories About the Keepers of Our Traditions

  Grand Fathers: Reminiscences, Poems, Recipes, and Photos of the Keepers of Our Traditions

  100 Best African-American Poems

  For Children

  Spin a Soft Black Song

  Vacation Time: Poetry for Children

  Knoxville, Tennessee

  The Genie in the Jar

  The Sun Is So Quiet

  Ego-Tripping and Other Poems for Young People

  The Grasshopper’s Song: An Aesop’s Fable Revisited

  Rosa

  Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: An American Friendship

  Hip Hop Speaks to Children

  I Am Loved

  Copyright

  Without limiting the exclusive rights of any author, contributor or the publisher of this publication, any unauthorized use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. HarperCollins also exercise their rights under Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790 and expressly reserve this publication from the text and data mining exception.

 

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