The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (30 page)

L.15: “Wilson pickett”: Wilson Pickett was unrivaled in the sheer energy he brought to a number of hits in the 1960s, including “In the Midnight Hour” and “Mustang Sally.”

L. 15: “the impressions”: The Impressions were a Chicago group led by Curtis Mayfield; the original group also included Jerry Butler, whose lead vocals helped make “For Your Precious Love” a huge hit and launched Butler's solo career.

L. 16: “temptations”: The Temptations, a five-member group, were the most successful of Motown's male vocal groups.

L. 16: “mighty mighty sly”: Sly and the Family Stone was an important group in the late 1960s; they brought together gospel, rhythm and blues, and rock.

L. 20: “new breed men”: New Breed was a store in Harlem in the 1960s.

L. 20: “breed alls”: Overalls made of leather, suede, or velvet, popular in the late 1960s.

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

The first portion of the poem (lines 1–149) was written on August 8, 1968, and the postelection lines (150–58) were written on November 18.

L. 5: “lyndon”: Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–73), thirty-sixth President of the United States (1963–69).

L. 6: “ike”: Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), thirty-fourth President of the United States (1953–61).

L. 6: “nixon”: Richard M. Nixon (1913–94), vice president under Eisenhower (1953–61) and thirty-seventh President of the United States (1969–74).

L. 6: “hhh”: Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–78), vice president to Lyndon B. Johnson (1965–69), and the Democratic presidential candidate in 1968. He narrowly lost the 1968 election to Richard Nixon.

L. 6: “wallace”: George C. Wallace (1919–98), governor of Alabama for multiple terms. Wallace was an open segregationist who attempted to block integration of public schools in the 1960s. He was an Independent presidential candidate in the 1968 election, in which he received roughly 13 percent of the vote and carried five Southern states.

L. 6: “maddox”: Lester Maddox (1915–2003), governor of Georgia from 1967 to 1971 and lieutenant governor from 1971 to 1975. Before he entered politics Maddox gained notoriety for closing down his Atlanta restaurant (1964) rather than desegregate it. He unsuccessfully sought the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination.

L. 16: “daley”: Richard J. Daley (1902–76), Democratic mayor of Chicago from 1955 to 1976. Daley brought national attention to himself during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago by allowing city police to use violence against demonstrators protesting the Vietnam War.

L. 17: “booing senator ribicoff”: At the 1968 Democratic Con
vention in Chicago, Senator Abraham Ribicoff (1910–98) nominated George McGovern (1922–) to be the party's presidential candidate. In his nomination speech, Ribicoff referred to the “Gestapo tactics on the streets of Chicago,” which provoked a torrent of expletives from Daley. Ribicoff was Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President John F. Kennedy and served as a U.S. senator from Connecticut from 1963 to 1981.

L. 21: “julian bond”: Julian Bond (1940–) served four terms in the Georgia House of Representatives (1967–74) and six terms in the Georgia Senate (1975–87). He was first elected to a one-year term in 1965, but the House refused to seat him because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was again elected in 1966 to fill his own vacant seat, and the House again voted against seating him. After he won a third election, to a two-year term, in November 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Georgia House had violated Bond's rights. Bond had been one of the founding members of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and subsequently editor of the protest newspaper
The Atlanta Inquirer
. He is currently chairman of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).

L. 24: “life”:
Life
magazine. L. 24: “muskie and huskie humphrey”: Edmund Muskie (1914–96) was a U.S. senator from Maine (1958–80). He was the Democratic running mate of Hubert H. Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election.

L. 30: “john and bobby”: John F. Kennedy (1917–63) and Robert F. Kennedy (1925–68), both assassinated.

L. 31: “evers and king”: Medgar Wiley Evers (1925–63) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68). See note to “Adulthood,”.

L. 32: “caroline”: Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg (1957–), daughter of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. An attorney and writer, she is today president of the Kennedy Library Foundation.

L. 34: “arthur miller”: Arthur A. Miller (1915–), award-winning playwright, author of
Death of a Salesman.
Miller in fact
attended the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago as the delegate from Roxbury.

Ll. 46–47: “and hhh says…wrong”: The 1968 presidential candidate Hubert H. Humphrey refused to denounce Chicago's Mayor Daley for his deployment of the police during the convention.

L. 55: “politics of '64”: The 1964 Democratic ticket was President Lyndon B. Johnson and Hubert H. Humphrey. Johnson had succeeded to the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963; because he was the sitting president, his election in 1964 was virtually guaranteed, and he enjoyed a landslide victory over Barry M. Goldwater, the Republican candidate.

Ll. 56–62: “the deal…chicago”: Giovanni's argument is that the leaders of the Republican and Democratic political parties conspired together, agreeing that Johnson would be allowed to win the presidency in 1964 in return for which Nixon would be allowed to win the 1968 election. The 1968 Democratic Convention produced a candidate (Humphrey) less likely to win than, for example, Robert F. Kennedy might have been had he not been assassinated. Like many intellectuals of the 1960s, Giovanni was convinced that national events were orchestrated through the conspiracies of a few powerful figures.

L. 56: “the bird”: An allusion to President Johnson's wife, “Lady Bird” Johnson.

L. 58: “dallas”: An allusion to Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Texas.

L. 60: “los angeles”: An allusion to the assassination of the presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968, in Los Angeles.

L. 61: “tricky dick”: Nickname for Richard M. Nixon (1913–94), thirty-seventh President of the United States (1969–74), who was forced to resign early in his second term.

L. 62: “chicago”: Site of the 1968 Democratic Convention.

L. 66: “second reconstruction”: Just as the first Reconstruction, following the Civil War, was largely a failure and was followed by increasing violence against Blacks in the South and the erosion
of their civil liberties, Giovanni sees the events leading to the election of Nixon as tied to the erosion of gains made during the Civil Rights movement.

L. 77: “gregory or cleaver”: An allusion to the comedian and activist Dick Gregory (1932–), who ran for president in 1968, and to Eldridge Cleaver (1935–98), Black militant minister of information for the Black Panthers; Cleaver was wounded in a Panther shoot-out with police in 1968, jumped bail, and fled to Algeria.

L. 81: “nixon-agnew”: Spiro T. Agnew (1918–96), Richard Nixon's running mate in the 1968 presidential election. Formerly the governor of Maryland, Agnew served as vice president from 1969 to 1973, when he resigned after being fined for income tax evasion.

Ll. 87–88: “about nigeria…on'”: An allusion to the thirty-month civil war in Nigeria, also known as the Biafran War (1967–70), which cost an estimated one million lives, most of them lost to starvation.

L. 119: “mccarthy”: Eugene J. McCarthy (1916–) was a candidate for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination. He announced his candidacy in 1967 on an antiwar platform, challenging President Johnson and his policies. McCarthy's campaign success in New Hampshire (in March 1968) helped draw Robert F. Kennedy into the race and influenced President Johnson's decision not to seek reelection. McCarthy was a U.S. representative from Minnesota from 1949 to 1959 and a U.S. Senator from 1959 to 1971. After he lost the presidential nomination, he finished his term in the Senate and returned to university teaching.

L. 124: “the assassination of one”: A reference to Robert F. Kennedy.

L. 128: “teddy”: A reference to Senator Edward M. Kennedy (1932–), brother of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, and a member of the U.S. Senate since 1962.

L. 150: “wallace”: George C. Wallace, who ran as an Independent in the 1968 presidential election; see note to line 6 on backmatter.

“Cultural Awareness”

L. 17: “maulana”: Maulana Karenga, a Black Nationalist, first instituted the celebration of Kwanza (Swahili for “first fruits”) in 1966.

L. 17: “elijah”: Elijah Muhammad (1897–1975), longtime leader (1933–75) of the Nation of Islam.

L. 17: “el shabbaz”: Malcolm X, later Al Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz (1925–65), was assassinated on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.

L. 23: “zig-zag papers”: Used to roll marijuana.

“For Saundra”

L. 21: “no-Dick”: Richard M. Nixon (1913–94), thirty-seventh President of the United States (1969–74).

“For a Poet I Know”

L. 14: “aretha”: Aretha Franklin (1942–), “Queen of Soul.” L. 15: “james brown's is humphrey”: James Brown (1933–), “Godfather of Soul,” was an important supporter of Hubert H. Humphrey and his presidential campaign.

L. 16: “columbia”: This poem was written in January 1968, when Giovanni was enrolled in Columbia University.

L. 29: “joe goncalves”: Dingane Joe Goncalves, founder of
Journal of Black Poetry.

L. 30: “carolyn rodgers”: Carolyn M. Rodgers (1945–), Chicago-born poet associated with the Black Arts movement.

L. 31: “hoyt fuller”: Hoyt Fuller (1927–81), journalist, educator, and editor of
Black World
(formerly
Negro Digest
), an important publication during the 1960s and early 1970s.

L. 32: “jet poem”: A reference to
Jet
magazine.

“For Teresa”

Teresa Elliott was a close friend of Giovanni's mother.

L. 24: “peppe”: The poet's nephew, Christopher Black (1959–).

L. 26: “gary”: The poet's sister, Gary Ann (1940–).

“My Poem”

L. 3: “wrote a poem”: A reference to “The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro,”.

Re: Creation

Re: Creation
was published in 1970 by Broadside Press. It is composed of forty-two poems (including the poem of dedication), which were written between May 1969 and July 1970, that is, during the last few months of Giovanni's pregnancy and the first year of her son's life.

“For Tommy”

In the original edition, this poem was under the heading “Dedication.” Thomas Watson Giovanni, the poet's only child, was born August 31, 1969.

“Two Poems From Barbados”

These two poems were written in June 1969 and July 1969, respectively.

“For Harold Logan Murdered by “persons unknown” cause he wanted to own a Black club on Broadway”

Harold Logan, together with the rhythm and blues singer Lloyd Price, acquired in the 1960s the old Birdland jazz club, just north of Fifty-second Street on Broadway. Although Logan and Price dubbed the club the Turntable (also the name of their recording company), it continued to be remembered affectionately as Birdland. It was, of course, closed on Sundays, and the intrepid Giovanni decided it would be a great place to have a book party to promote
Black Judgement.
She approached Logan, who let her use it with the proviso that she bring in at least a hundred people; if she failed to do so, she would have to pay him $500. Logan was rumored to be connected to the mob, which gave Giovanni added incentive to advertise her event and fill the house. Ironically, she
did such effective publicity that people were lined up for over a block to get in. The offices of
The New York Times
overlooked this line, and a reporter got interested in where all those people were going on a Sunday afternoon. A photograph and story were featured in the
Times
on Monday, which boosted Giovanni's sales even more.

Logan was, in fact, brutally murdered inside the club, and Price distanced himself as much as possible; he moved to Africa and involved himself in nonmusical ventures through most of the 1970s. After he returned to the United States in the early 1980s, Price's career took on new life, and he continues to perform at concerts and festivals.

“No Reservations (for Art Jones)”

Art Jones was a prisoner who wrote Giovanni a letter.

“For Gwendolyn Brooks”

This poem was written for
To Gwen With Love: An Anthology Dedicated to Gwendolyn Brooks,
which was published in 1971 by Johnson Publishing Company. In the anthology, the poem has the subtitle “a ‘note of love.'”

“Poem for Aretha”

L. 55: “billie holiday's life”: Billie Holiday (1915–59), influential but tragic jazz singer whose life was marked by financial difficulties, attachments to abusive men, and addiction to drugs.

L. 56: “dinah washington's death”: Dinah Washington (1924–63), singer and pianist whose range included blues, gospel, rhythm and blues, and pop. She died of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.

L. 67: “johnny ace”: John Marshall Alexander, Jr., a.k.a. Johnny Ace (1929–54), popular rhythm and blues singer whose premature, bizarre death sustained his reputation long after he had died. Franklin covered several songs he had written, including “Never Let Me Go” and “My Song.”