The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (36 page)

L. 44: “betty shabazz”: Hajj Bahiyah Betty Shabazz (1936–97), educator and widow of Macolm X, later Al Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz (1925–65).

L. 50: “no more forget that staccato”: Betty Shabazz witnessed
her husband's assassination, which happened in view of a large audience at New York's Audubon Ballroom.

L. 52: “jonathan's face…george's letters”: Jonathan and George Jackson.

Ll. 54–55: “Beverly/axelrod”: Beverly Axelrod (1924–2002) was an activist and lawyer whose most famous clients were the Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver and Jerry Rubin, cofounder of the Youth International Party.

L. 57: “water and sky and paris”: Possibly a reference to the fact that Davis had spent her junior year (as a student at Brandeis University) abroad, studying at the Sorbonne.

L. 59: “a german?”: Possibly a reference to Davis's graduate study (1965–67) at the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.

L. 97: “i went communist”: Davis joined the Communist Party on June 22, 1968.

L. 99: “why howard johnson's”: During her two months of hiding, Davis stayed at a Howard Johnson's motel in New York City.

L. 120: “harriet tubman”: Harriet Tubman (c. 1820–1913) was the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad. Her numerous forays into the slave states to help slaves escape made her indeed “the first/WANTED Black woman.”

L. 124: “but my helpers trapped me”: Davis's companion while she was hiding proved to be a police officer.

“A Poem for langston hughes”

This poem was originally written for
USA Today,
in which it was published August 29, 1991.

“But Since You Finally Asked (A Poem Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Slave Memorial at Mount Vernon)”

This poem was written in 1993.

Stanza 1: “Jamestown…in 1619”: The first African settlers—numbering twenty—in North America arrived on August 20, 1619, in Jamestown, Virginia, where they were exchanged by the Dutch ship's captain for food.

“Stardate Number 18628.190”

This poem was originally published as “Light the Candles” in
Essence
magazine's twenty-fifth anniversary issue, May 1995.

Stanza 3: “Precious Lord…take my hand”: Classic gospel song written in 1938 by Thomas A. Dorsey.

Stanza 3: “Amazing Grace”: Well-known song written by a former slave ship captain.

Stanza 3: “Go down, Moses”: Well-known slave spiritual.

Stanza 3: “Marion Anderson”: Marian Anderson (1900–1993), a Philadelphia-born singer, the first African American to perform at the Metropolitan Opera. In 1939 she drew national attention when the Daughters of the American Revolution denied her request to sing in Constitution Hall—because she was Black. Eleanor Roosevelt, then wife of the U.S. president, resigned from the DAR in protest. Subsequently Marian Anderson sang in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, to an audience of 75,000 people.

Stanza 3: “Leontyne”: Leontyne Price (1927–) is an internationally recognized diva whose opera career blossomed in the 1950s.

Stanza 3: “Battle”: Kathleen Battle (1948–) is a soprano who has appeared at most of the world's major opera houses.

Stanza 3: “Bessie”: Bessie Smith (1894–37), “Empress of the Blues.”

Stanza 3: “Dinah Washington”: Dinah Washington (1924–63), one of the great blues singers.

Stanza 3: “Etta James saying At Last”: Etta James (1938–) is a rhythm and blues singer whose career peaked in the 1950s and 1960s; one of her early albums is entitled
At Last.

Stanza 4: “This is a bus seat”: An allusion to Rosa Parks (1913–). See note to “Harvest,”.

Stanza 4: “telling young Alex”: An allusion to Alex Haley (1921–92), who first heard of his African ancestors through storytelling sessions on long summer nights in Tennessee.

Stanza 6: “CC Riders”: “C. C. Rider” is the title of an old folk song that was transformed into a blues song.

Stanza 7: “Peter Salem and Peter Poor”: Giovanni means Peter Salem (1750?–1816) and Salem Poor (dates uncertain), both African American heroes in the Revolutionary War Battle of Bunker Hill. Peter Salem is credited with killing Major John Pit-cairn. Salem Poor is credited with killing Lieutenant Colonel James Abercrombie; he was cited for heroism by some fourteen officers.

Stanza 7: “the 54th Regiment from Massachusetts”: This all-Black Civil War regiment demonstrated unsurpassed courage in its unsuccessful assault on Confederate forces at Fort Wagner in 1863. The regiment is the subject of the 1989 film
Glory.

Stanza 7: “Emmett Till”: Emmett Louis Till (1941–55). See note to “Lorraine Hansberry,”.

Stanza 7: “Medgar Evers”: Medgar Wiley Evers (1925–63), Civil Rights activist and Mississippi field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was murdered in the doorway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 12, 1963.

Stanza 7: “Malcolm X”: Malcolm X, later Al Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz (1925–65), was assassinated on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.

Stanza 7: “Martin Luther King, Jr.”: Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.

“BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER (the Isley Brothers of Lincoln Heights)”

The Isley Brothers, whose father was a professional singer and mother was a pianist, began singing together in the 1950s. Initially there were four brothers: O'Kelly (1937–86), Rudolph (1939–), Ronald (1941–), and Vernon (?–1954), but the core of the group consisted of three after Vernon was killed in an automobile accident. In the mid-1960s, they were joined by their younger brothers Ernie and Marvin and their cousin Chris Jasper.

Stanza 2: “into the Valley”: Suburban area north of Cincinnati.

Stanza 4: “progress is the most important product”: Advertising slogan used by General Electric.

Stanza 7: “perfecting
SHOUT
”: “Shout,” a soul music single reflecting gospel roots, was released in 1959 and brought national attention to the group.

Stanza 8: “Joey Dee”: Joey Dee and the Starlighters were a white rock and roll group that had two huge hits, “Peppermint Twist” and “Shout—Part 1.”

Note: Entries in this index, carried over verbatim from the print edition of this title, are unlikely to correspond to the pagination of any given e-book reader. However, entries in this index, and other terms, may be easily located by using the search feature of your e-book reader.

 

Adulthood,
62

Adulthood II,
260

Africa,
215

Africa I,
176

Africa II,
177

Age,
250

Alabama Poem,
120

All I Gotta Do,
111

Alone,
96

Always There Are the Children,
223

And Another Thing,
189

And Sometimes I Sit,
138

Atrocities,
182

Autumn Poems,
99

 

Balances,
81

Beautiful Black Men,
70

Because,
253

Beep Beep Poem, The,
272

Being and Nothingness,
292

Black Judgements,
88

Black Power,
34

Black Separatism,
15

Boxes,
240

Brother Brother Brother,
361

But Since You Finally Asked,
357

Butterfly, The,
155

 

Cancers,
339

Categories,
165

Certain Peace, A,
158

Charles White,
316

Charting the Night Winds,
299

Choices,
269

Communication,
206

Concerning One Responsible Negro with Too Much Power,
47

Conversation,
149

Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day,
227

Crutches,
238

Cultural Awareness,
79

Cyclops in the Ocean, The,
326

 

Dance Committee, The,
39

December of My Springs, The,
202

Detroit Conference of Unity and Art,
3

Dreams,
67

Drum, The,
318

 

Each Sunday,
200

Eagles,
320

Ego Tripping,
125

Ever Want To Crawl,
140

 

Fascinations,
264

Fishy Poem, A,
147

Flying Underground,
321

For A Lady of Pleasure Now Retired,
116

For An Intellectual Audience,
33

For a Poet I Know,
82

Forced Retirement,
232

For Gwendolyn Brooks,
99

For Harold Logan,
93

For Saundra,
80

For Teresa,
84

For Tommy,
91

For Two Jameses (Ballantine and Snow) In iron cells,
97

From a Logical Point of View,
64

Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr., The,
51

 

Game Of Game, The,
113

Genie in the Jar, The,
110

Great Pax Whitie, The,
54

Gus,
266

 

Habits,
262

Hampton, Virginia,
209

Hands: For Mother's Day,
304

Harvest,
327

Her Cruising Car,
322

Historical Footnote to Consider Only When All Else Fails, A,
16

Housecleaning,
102

How Do You Write A Poem?,
136

 

I Am She,
342

I Laughed When I Wrote It,
185

I'm Not Lonely,
30

Intellectualism,
57

Introspection,
230

I Remember,
156

I Want To Sing,
139

I Wrote a Good Omelet,
337

 

Journey, A,
333

Just a New York Poem,
161

 

Kidnap Poem,
109

Knoxville, Tennessee,
59

 

Laws of Motion, The,
211

Legacies,
143

Letter to a Bourgeois Friend Whom Once I Loved,
27

Life Cycles,
258

Life I Led, The,
203

Linkage,
313

Lion in Daniel's Den, The,
115

Litany for Peppe, A,
52

Lorraine Hansberry: An Emotional View,
301

Love: Is a Human Condition,
331

Love Poem,
31

Love Thoughts,
345

Luxury,
207

 

Make Up,
282

Master Charge: Blues,
114

Mirrors,
310

Mixed Media,
160

Moon Shines Down, The,
293

Mothers,
144

Mother's Habits,
204

My House,
192

My Poem,
86

My Tower,
174

 

New Yorkers, The,
235

Night,
220

Nikki-Rosa,
53

No Reservations,
94

Nothing Makes Sense,
183

 

Of Liberation,
41

Once a Lady Told Me,
199

On Hearing “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair,”
4

Only Song I'm Singing, The,
154

On Seeing Black Journal and Watching Nine Negro Leaders “Give Aid and Comfort to the Enemy” to Quote Richard Nixon,
187

Oppression,
128

Our Detroit Conference,
8

 

Patience,
281

Personae Poem,
11

Photography,
271

Poem,
208

Poem,
242

Poem (For Anna Hedgeman and Alfreda Duster),
181

Poem (For BMC No. 1),
7

Poem (For BMC No. 2),
10

Poem (For BMC No. 3),
14

Poem (For Dudley Randall),
9

Poem (For EMA),
278

Poem (For Nina),
175

Poem (No Name No. 1),
13

Poem (No Name No. 2),
18

Poem (No Name No. 3),
23

Poem (For PCH),
12

Poem (For TW),
6

Poem/Because It Came As A Surprise To Me, A,
127

Poem For A Lady Whose Voice I Like,
135

Poem for Aretha,
103

Poem for Black Boys,
45

Poem for Carol, A,
146

Poem for Ed and Archie, A,
274

Poem For Flora,
131

Poem for langston hughes, A,
356

Poem for Lloyd,
101

Poem For My Nephew,
133

Poem for Stacia,
152

Poem For Unwed Mothers,
122

Poem of Angela Yvonne Davis,
351

Poem Off Center, A,
245

Poem of Friendship, A,
291

Poem on the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, A,
319

Poetry,
221

Poetry is a Tressel,
210

 

Rain,
100

Records,
60

Reflections/On a Golden Anniversary,
320

Reflections on April 4, 1968,
49

Resignation,
334

Response, A,
290

Revolutionary Dreams,
106

Revolutionary Music,
68

Rituals,
151

Robin's Poem, A,
119

Room With the Tapestry Rug, The,
343

Rose Bush, The,
280

 

Scrapbooks,
169

2nd Rapp,
118

Seduction,
35

Short Essay of Affirmation Explaining Why, A,
21

Sky Diving,
332

Something to Be Said for Silence,
213

Sometimes,
132

Some Uses For Them Not Stated,
130

Song for New-Ark, A,
347

Space,
276

Stardate Number 18628.190*,
358

Statement on Conservation, A,
287

Straight Talk,
167

Swaziland,
217

 

That Day,
294

They Clapped,
179

Their Fathers,
254

This Is Not for John Lennon,
307

Three/Quarters Time,
338

Toy Poem,
129

True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro, The,
19

Turning,
288
12 Gates: To The City,
123

Two Poems: From Barbados,
92

 

Ugly Honkies, or The Election Game and How to Win It,
74

[Unititled],
163

[Unititled] (For Margaret Danner),
173

Universality,
58

 

Very Simple Wish, A,
218

 

Walking Down Park,
107

Way I Feel, The,
205

We,
191

When I Die,
171

When I Nap,
159

Wild Flowers,
344

Wilmington Delaware,
24

Winter,
284

Winter Poem,
148

Winter Storm, The,
247

Woman,
275

Woman Poem,
71

Women Gather, The,
197

Wonder Woman, The,
164

Word for Me…Also, A,
341

Word Poem,
36

World Is Not a Pleasant Place to Be, The,
153

 

Yeah…But…,
134

You Are There,
285

You Came, Too,
5

You Were Gone,
346