at the prayer service, delivered a rousing speech and then raised her arms to encourage the chanting crowd. (Watch Giovanni stir the crowd with a cry of 'we will prevail' )"We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while," said Giovanni, an English professor at the southwestern Virginia university. "We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech," she said. "We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly. We are brave enough to bend to cry, and sad enough to know we must laugh again."
from CNN: Shooting victims remembered with 'hearts full of sorrow'
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3 comments :
It is too bad that Nikki Giovanni is trying to use this situation as a platform to promote her own political agenda. It is supposed to be about the victims, not Giovanni’s political ideology.
But, Nikki Giovanni is not going to change what she thinks for the occasion. She delivered the message she felt to deliver, coming through for everyone else, even as she too grieves as much.
I would rather look at what she did to recognize how she brought a needed and stirring moment to the mourning Hokie community, and mourning nation. It turns out she also was one of the first to realize and report how disturbed the gunman was--over a year ago. Whatever her politics, her insight has been right on throughout this ordeal from its genesis. As far as her poetry, I e-mailed her to tell her I thought her a laureate.
Whether I vote for the same presidential candidate she votes for, or contribute to the same causes as she, or even buy her just-released book--she came through big time as a poet. She was the right poet for the time.
Beyond that, she seems like a pretty cool lady.
Thanks very much for both reading, and leaving your note.
Yours,
Rus
ALI G -Booyakasha, chek i’ out. I is here wif my main man, Nikki G, my bro from Staines. How is you become poet?
NIKKI G- We’re communicators, it’s in our blood.
ALI G: Blood, West Side. Now sis, you, I mean, sorry you is my bro now, you is get some edumacation. You went to America, right?
NIKKI G: I went to Fisk.
ALI G: Tell me about how you is expelled for crack…
NIKKI G: It wasn’t for smoking crack. I started at Fisk in 1960, was soon expelled, and later returned and graduated in 1968. I did enroll and quickly drop out of two graduate schools after that but I did complete that one degree, my bachelor's degree.
ALI G: Wha’eve. You is still my main man. Now you has Tupac Shukar tattoo, right? Can I see that?
NIKKI G: Yes, I have said I would rather be with the street thugs than with the ones who complain about them.
ALI G: Now is you believe Tupac's criminal record make him a better rap artist?
NIKKI G: Well, I don't know about that, but...
ALI G: I like that poem you wrote about nigger can you kill, can you stab a jew, and you draw blood, can you kill a honkie. Ain't that a rap!
NIKKI G: You're talking about my poem "The True Import Of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro." I wrote that a long time ago.
ALI G: But can't you make a rap out of that? You is get the whole crowd to stand up at Virginia Tech with that one.
NIKKI G: No, that was my new poem We Are Virginia Tech.
ALI G: Wha'eve. That was my one an' only main man, Nikki G, my big bro and big time poet, big shout out for Nikki G from VT.
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