Giovanni: Slaves' journey like a trip to Mars

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 07/18/05 | DON O'BRIANT

[KevinDavis]

Nikki Giovanni is a poet, but what she'd really like to be is an astronaut. Or at least travel into space.

"If I had my way, everybody should go into space," Giovanni, 62, said Sunday in a performance that was part of the National Black Arts Festival. Addressing a packed house at the Woodruff Arts Center, Giovanni told stories, read poems and touched on subjects ranging from space travel, slavery and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to her battle with cancer.

[KevinDavis]

[Dr.Hilarious]

"If I had my way, everybody should go into space," Giovanni, 62, said

You first.

[KevinDavis]

Ok...

[AppyPappy]

Nikki Giovanni is a poet

That's news to everyone who ever read her material.

[cripplecreek]

I'll go.

[RightWhale]

the exploration of the red planet is something that can only be understood through black Americans

Well, that is possibly one analogy. Not the only one, however.

[AbeKrieger]

Giovanni defended rap music ("You have to listen to what the young people say")

Glorify drugs, violence against women, flagrant profanity, hatred, bling, whatever garbage. Yeah, this "poet" sure has a solid sense of reality.

[mhking]

Slaves' journey like a trip to Mars

Uhhhhhh... Right.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Drawing a parallel between a voyage to Mars and the middle passage that enslaved Africans survived, Giovanni said the exploration of the red planet is something that can only be understood through black Americans.

One of the most idiotic sentences I've read.     

Ever.

This is Anti-Thought.

[tiamat]

Ever hear the Queen song " '39"?


We ever go to Mars, I'd love to be able to volunteer, but now I am afraid I will be far too old.

Maybe for a grand-child. Hope I live to see it if that is the case.

NOT at all the same thing as what this person is talking about.

[Riverman94610]

Read Ego Tripping!I LOVE that poem.Nikki is very eclectic.All over the map politically,from revolutionary militant to defender of Krugerands in the Eighties which caught her hell from anti-Apartheid activists!

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

My cube was right across the hall from her office. She was a very nice lady, but it was completely obvious that she was not "academic." It's sad, really, because had she been born in a time where her poetry could have been truly examined and criticized (rather than mindlessly praised simply because she was a minority and it was the 1960's), she might have been able to refine he poetry into something quite good. Instead, she caught the prevailing wave of "social-criticism-masquerading-as-art" that is so prevalent in modern university English departments, and much potential was lost...

[HKaddict]

But blacks have already been to Mars, check out this documentary on how the white man kept the Negro star voyagers oppressed.

NASSA - The Old Negro Space Program

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

"...she might have been able to refine her poetry..."

Proofreading is for the little people... *grin*

Where's my Oompah Loompa, darn it?!

[Oberon]

My cube was right across the hall from her office.

In Williams Hall, I'm guessing, at Virginia Tech?

I took two poetry workshops from her. Great lady. The fact that she wasn't "academic" was one of the things I liked best about her, because at the time I was quite tired of the nonsensical aspects of academia...what appeared to me at the time to be the endless critiquing of the cut of the Emperor's new clothes. I loved to hear her talk about the poetry tour she did with Muhammed Ali back in the day.

I came away with my degree, albeit almost despite myself. [sigh]

[Dr.Hilarious]

Nikki Giovanni can go first if she's trying to say it's the same as coming across on the slave ships--that's the point I was making.

[eagle11]

Put me on the Space list.

[eagle11]

The more Americans who take an interest in space travel, the better, no matter what their perspective.

[FierceDraka]

Poets! BAHH! Self-important scallawags too lazy to get real work.

The only poetry that I can stand is the kind that starts out, "There once was a man from Nantucket..."