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“I know crying / Is a skill / I automatically wipe / My eyes even though I know / Crying / Is a skill.” In this 2017 video, Nikki Giovanni reads her poem “I Married My Mother” from her collection A Good Cry: What We Learn From Tears and Laughter (William Morrow, 2017).
“I'm a native Tennessean. I know what it is / to be free. I am singing the country blues. I / am whittling a wooden doll. I am / underground mining coal.” Nikki Giovanni reads a selection of her poems and speaks about her book Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid (HarperCollins, 2013) for the Salon@615 series at the Nashville Public Library.
“When you’ve done the best you can do, you let it go. And go write another poem.” In this 2009 video, poet Nikki Giovanni discusses traditions in storytelling, generating ideas, and hip-hop music as classical poetry.
"I write pretty good poetry most of the time, and that's what I want to do." Nikki Giovanni responds to the notion of being a living legend and shares stories of her experience in the Black Arts Movement.
