Podcast Summary

On Being with Krista Tippett

Episode: Remembering Nikki Giovanni – ‘We Go Forward With a Sanity and a Love’
Date: December 12, 2024
Featured Guest: Nikki Giovanni (poet, writer, professor, voice of the Black Arts Movement)
Host: Krista Tippett
Theme: A deep, lively, and loving exploration of Nikki Giovanni’s wisdom—her roots, her role as a poet and elder, her perspectives on race, love, legacy, survival, and the future.

Overview

In this tribute episode, Krista Tippett revisits her much-loved 2016 conversation with the late Nikki Giovanni—a legendary voice in American poetry, a cherished elder, and a steady beacon after enormous tragedy at Virginia Tech. The episode embodies Giovanni’s trademark blend of humor, “high seriousness,” generational stewardship, and a relentless insistence on love and growth—as a Black woman, as a poet, and as a human being. Tippett and Giovanni discuss family, food, space travel, Black history, the meaning of poetry, coping with sorrow, and the importance of honesty and joy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rootedness, Family, and Inheritance

• On Grandmothers, Mothers, and Food (03:12)

  • Giovanni describes a family of “foodies before the word had been invented,” with stories of cooking, using every part of the chicken, and learning not to waste—from ingredients to experiences.
  • Quote: “There was nothing that came into [my grandmother’s] kitchen that she didn’t find a use for. And I feel the same way with experience and with words.” (01:18)

• Identity and Name

  • On changing her name from Yolanda to Nikki—an affirmation of identity and respect for her mother.

2. Spirituality, Black Womanhood, and Endurance

• Religious Upbringing (05:19)
  • Giovanni reflects on a Baptist upbringing, the power of the manger story (crediting Mary), and the pain and miracle of birth, both literal and metaphorical.
• Women’s Resilience and Communication
  • The creation of spirituals and survival during the Middle Passage: “It had to be a woman who said, I need to settle my people down… the only common language is going to be, mmm.” (07:09-07:56)

3. The Role of the Poet and Cultural Legacy

• On Being a "Revolutionary Poet" (08:10)

  • Giovanni reflects on life stages and the poet’s calling: “Somebody has to raise a voice… to say, we have to talk, and this is how we work.”
  • Quote: “What I have to do is use my smart to be of some service to human beings.” (10:24)

• Perspective as an Elder

  • Embraces her role as an inspiration for younger generations, while encouraging them to direct their own future: “They don’t need me to tell them what to do. They know what they should do today.” (13:24)

4. Imagination, Survival, and Black Futurism

• Space and the Future (14:01)

  • Giovanni's passion for space travel—linking the endurance of ancestors across the Middle Passage to the kind of resilience needed for interplanetary journeys.
  • Quote: “If you can survive that journey from west coast of Africa to the east coast of the United States and be sane when you get here… we have not dealt with the fact that they were sane when they got here.” (15:59)

• The “overview effect”: A radical shift in perception of life and unity, imagined as accessible to all one day.

5. Naming Sorrow and Building Resilience

• Virginia Tech Massacre and Poetry as Witness (20:14-23:15)

  • Giovanni tells the story of writing and delivering “We Are Virginia Tech” after the 2007 shooting, sharing its rawness, pride, and insistence on mourning without moving on for others’ comfort.
  • Quote from poem:
    “We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly.
    We are brave enough to bend, to cry.
    We are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.” (20:14–22:28 full poem)

• The Healing Power and Authority of Poetry: Poetry as “telling truth as we understand it,” refusing to waste experience or voice.

6. Re-Examining History and Race

• Slavery, Survival, and Forward Movement (26:15)
  • On the need to see all sides in stories like Rosa Parks, and to understand that Black Americans are “always going forward… we go forward with a sanity and a love.”
  • Quote: “Race was a bad idea 200 years ago or 300 years ago. It’s a ridiculous idea today.” (16:29)

7. Love, Loss, and the Everyday

• Food, Family, and Love (30:30)
  • Giovanni’s candid reflections on love, both familial and romantic, and the lessons of food and memory.
  • Quote: “If I had a choice between food and sex to remember it, I’d always remember the food… the food was always wonderful.” (32:43)
  • Teaches her students: “You have a voice. Use it. Never let anybody take your voice away from you.” (25:40)

8. Radical Honesty, Truth-telling, and Generational Change

• Open talk about race and pain as catharsis and progress (“One of the nicest things [our generation] created was just the fact that we could say, hey, I don’t like white people. It was the beginning... of being able to like them.” (35:07))
• On the limits of justice and the necessity of new dialogue (38:12):
  “There is no justice. …What I’m going to do is tell you that [the world] needs to be changed, because it does… But the youngsters coming up are going to find another way.”

9. Beauty, Canons, and Creating New Worlds

• Beauty and Cultural Canon (44:21)
  • Giovanni is “not against the canon” but wants it to expand. She imagines the Mona Lisa smiling to the sound of spirituals and affirms the need for Black beauty and experience in the canon, too.
• Hope and the Future
  • Finds hope in community, travel, music—“I really, really like what we’re doing in the Black communities… and I think that’s something the world benefits from.” (45:41)

10. The Life of a Poet

• Writing as Self-Dialogue (46:35)
  • Writing, for Giovanni, is dialogue with oneself; the writer must “be pleased with it… you’re not writing so you can write a best seller… you’re writing to tell the truth.” (46:53)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On survival and forward motion:
  “All my people have ever done is go forward. And we go forward with a sanity and a love.” (27:54)

• On memory and identity:
  “I refuse to let who I was at 25 inform or make me be who somebody else thinks I should be at 72.” (25:09)

• On intergenerational wisdom:
  “I like to think, you know, essentially, I’m fertilizer, and so they’re growing something.” (13:18)

• On resilience and loss:
  “We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly. We are brave enough to bend, to cry. And we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.” (‘We Are Virginia Tech’ poem, 20:14–22:28)

• On beauty and inclusion:
  “What you want to say is, now let’s look at the Mona Lisa. …But I also know that there’s Ashley Bryan… He does a lot of work on illustrating the spirituals. I don’t want to exclude.” (44:21)

• On writing and honesty:
  “You’re writing to tell the truth and you’re writing to satisfy that in you that says, ‘I have this truth to share.’” (46:53)

Timestamps of Important Segments

• Roots, food, waste and inheritance: 01:00–04:12
• Spiritual legacy & the language of survival: 05:19–07:56
• Being a “revolutionary poet” & generational responsibility: 08:10–10:43
• On being an elder and role model: 11:56–13:28
• Space, futurism, and Black endurance: 14:00–15:59
• The “We Are Virginia Tech” poem and bearing witness: 20:14–23:15
• Rethinking slavery, identity and going forward: 26:15–28:55
• On love, family, and what endures: 30:30–33:08
• Truth-telling, race, and dialogue: 35:07–39:18
• On beauty, canon, and inclusivity: 44:21–45:41
• Writing, dialogue, and telling the truth: 46:35–47:28

The Episode’s Lasting Messages

• Wisdom is making use of every “ingredient” of life—nothing is wasted, everything shapes us.
• Poetry is service; it’s raising a voice for those in the ship, in the room, or across generations.
• Love is vital, but not all love lasts; learning what to keep and what to let go is maturity.
• The Black American journey is always toward the future, with sanity and love.
• True justice may be elusive, but new ways of living and talking must be found.
• Include every song, every story, every flavor in the canon—the future needs all our voices.
• “You have a voice. Use it.”

Tone

The episode radiates Giovanni’s warmth, honesty, insistent intellect, and humor. It is celebratory but unflinching about pain and history, rich in storytelling, bracing in its refusal of sentimentality, and deeply hopeful in its belief in growth, legacy, and love.

Additional Selected Quotes with Timestamps

• “I am not sure that justice can come from any of that. The only thing that can come is revenge, and revenge is a bad idea.” (38:12 – Nikki Giovanni)
• "I hope my skin doesn’t change to those blotchy colors. I hope my shoulder finds a head that needs nesting…and I hope I die warmed by the life that I tried to live.” (47:45 – Nikki Giovanni, poem)
• “Never let anybody take your voice away from you. Don’t waste what you know.” (25:40 – Nikki Giovanni)
• “We will prevail. We will prevail. We will prevail. We are Virginia Tech.” (22:28 – ‘We Are Virginia Tech’ poem)
• “Love is no better than the lover. Crazy people love craziness.” (30:43 – quoting Toni Morrison)

This episode offers replenishment, orientation, and clarity—a celebration of Nikki Giovanni’s lived wisdom and the gifts she has given to generations past, present, and yet to come.