I was going through an old writing notebook I filled in Taos last year, when I ran across some notes I had jotted down on Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin. It’s good to re-read writing practice notebooks. Sometimes there are helpful quotes, raw images, inspirational lines to be plucked from the pages of wild mind.
We read Another Country and Giovanni’s Room for the Intensive and I’d checked out a bunch of library books on Baldwin. One was called A Dialogue: James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni (1973), published by J.B. Lippincott.
I remember thinking the generational differences between Baldwin and Giovanni would add a richness to their dialogue. It was true. At the time, Baldwin was 49 and Giovanni was 30.
On February 28th, 2007, Nikki Giovanni spoke On Poetry and Truth in the Ted Mann Theater at the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus. The talk ran on PBS the first week of April and Liz taped it for me. But I didn’t get a chance to watch it until after the closing at the Virginia Tech Convocation. I was riveted to the screen.
She started out talking about how her dog, her mom, her sister, Rosa Parks, and her aunt had all died unexpectedly within a year period in 2005; she started out talking about grief and loss. Then she went on to discuss in great detail, the children’s book she wrote about Rosa Parks, titled Rosa.
She considered the book carefully and wrote with historical precision, considering every detail. That’s the hallmark of a good writer. I could see that writing the book had helped transform her grief.
I wish I would have had a chance to see Giovanni and Baldwin dialogue. They are two writers who have a startling honesty and unwavering passion for what they believe in. Speaking strictly for myself, I am completely inspired by both of them. After hearing an archived Baldwin interview, or listening to Giovanni speak, I want to run out and write my next book.
In Taos last August, I shared some of the Baldwin and Giovanni dialogue with the writers in the Intensive. Some found it inspiring. I thought it might be good to capture here the parts on Truth and Love. You can also still buy the book.
It seems like famous writers and artists used to publically dialogue with each other more regularly than they do today. Maybe it’s my imagination. But I’m hungry to hear gifted writers speak about their work and have frank conversations with one another about the issues of the day.
And while they are at it, I’d like to give them a go at world peace or global warming. It wouldn’t be the first time creative intellectuals debated the truth – and came to a place of compromise and love.
A Dialogue: James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni (1973)
excerpt, p. 78 – p. 82 – On Truth
Giovanni: Exactly. And I’m talking about Chester’s [Himes] pursuit of truth. Because Richard Wright died, or was murdered, before he quit pursuing the truth.
Baldwin: That’s right.
Giovanni: But Chester could say, Okay, I will pursue truth in this way, which looks a little better, so that you can make a movie out of it if you want to and it’ll still be true. And then takes it right to Blind Man with a Pistol.
Baldwin: But, sweetheart, it’s the same thing we were doing on the plantation when they thought we were singing “Steal Away to Jesus” and I was telling you it’s time to split.
Giovanni: But why do we –
Baldwin: Steal away, steal away –
Giovanni: Why do we, as black writers, seem to be so hung up on the truth?
Baldwin: Because the responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him. The act of writing is the intention of it; the root of its liberation. Look, this is why no tyrant in history was able to read but every single one of them burned the books. That is why no one yet really believes there is such a thing as a black writer. A black writer is still a freak, a dancing doll. We don’t yet exist in the imagination of this century, and we cannot afford to play games; there’s too much at stake.
A Dialogue: James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni (1973)
excerpt, p. 92 – p. 95 – On Love
Giovanni: People really feel the need to feel better than somebody, don’t they?
Baldwin: I don’t know why, but they do. Being in competition with somebody is something I never understood. In my own life, I’ve been in competition with me.
Giovanni: Which is enough.
Baldwin: Enough? It’s overwhelming. Enough?
Giovanni: Just by fooling yourself –
Baldwin: That’ll keep you busy, and it’s very good for the figure.
Giovanni: It makes you happy, you know.
Baldwin: Well, it means that in any case you can walk into a room and talk to somebody, look them in the eye. And if I love you, I can say it. I’ve only got one life and I’m going to live my life, you know, in the sight of God and all his children.
Giovanni: Maybe it’s parochial, narrow-minded, bullheaded, but it takes up so much energy just to keep yourself happy.
Baldwin: It isn’t even a question of keeping yourself happy. It’s a question of keeping yourself in some kind of clear relationship, more or less, to the force which feeds you. Some days you’re happy, some days you ain’t. But somehow we have to deal with that on the simplest level. Bear in mind that this person facing you is a person like you. They’re going to go home and do whatever they do just like you. They’re as alone as you are.
Giovanni: Because that becomes a responsibility, doesn’t it?
Baldwin: Well, it’s called love, you know.
Giovanni: We agree. Love is a tremendous responsibility.
Baldwin: It’s the only one to take, there isn’t any other.
Giovanni: I agree and it’s awful; we’re supposed to be arguing.
Baldwin: And we blew this gig.
Giovanni: Goofed again. I think love is an answer but you have to be logical about it, you know.
Baldwin: You say logical or rational and I say clear, but it becomes the same thing. You can’t be romantic about it.
Giovanni: No, you can’t be romantic about love.
Baldwin: That’s all, you know.
Giovanni: I think we’re in agreement.
Baldwin: You think we are?
Giovanni: Yeah.
Baldwin: You asked the loaded question.
Giovanni: I asked the loaded question?
Baldwin: You did. You did ask the loaded question. But it’s all right, because we’re home free.
-posted on red Ravine, Monday, May 14th, 2007
-related to post: Nikki Giovanni – Hope at V-Tech
[…] I’ll be excavating information, excavating lives and people and roots and history. Untangling loose ends. I don’t remember so many things that my mother remembers about the South. And I have my own memories that I now get to ask her questions about. I just thought of that Baldwin quote from that 1973 interview with Nikki Giovanni: […]
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[…] can see more excerpts from their conversation in this post, and you can see other quotes from Baldwin here […]
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[…] two book-length dialogues (one with anthropologist Margaret Mead, the other with poet Nikki Giovanni) […]
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[…] in Georgia the last few summers: visiting with relatives we hadn’t seen in 10, 20, 50 years, excavating family history, honoring the past. It made me even more aware that many of the details of our history will leave […]
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Nikki Giovanni is coming to Minneapolis in January 2009. I can’t wait. Liz and I were looking at tickets this week, and I’m brushing up on her poetry and writings. It’s great to read parts of this dialogue again between Baldwin and Giovanni.
I also wanted to reread what Baldwin said about “excavating experience.” Ever since I first read this book on their dialogue (can you believe it came out in 1973) it has stuck with me. And I often talk about excavating memories.
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about hate, how much hate seems to have been thrown around over the last few years of the campaign. It’s really bothered me. She asked me what I hated. I had to think about it. “I don’t really feel much hate. I guess I hate the hate,” I said.
I found this quote from Jame Baldwin when I went to the links in the comments of this post. It really is what I wish I would or could have been able to say about hate. James said it better:
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
He also said this about writing:
You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world… The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way … people look at reality, then you can change it.
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[…] -related to post: Baldwin & Giovanni – On Truth & Love […]
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I’ve been wanting to come back to this post and make a note that we got tickets to go see Nikki Giovanni in Saint Paul in January 2009! We asked our friend Teri if she wanted to go and she picked up the tickets before seeing Wally Lamb at the Fitzgerald Theater a few weeks ago. I’m very excited to go and see this fiery writer read her work and speak about her truth. Will update after the event.
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Just a note to say, the day has come. We’ll be heading to the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul tonight to see Nikki Giovanni as part of Talking Volumes, partly sponsored by The Loft Literary Center. I’m excited to see her in person and hear her read. She’s fiery and controversial to some. I admire that she’s always spoken her truth, even when it was unpopular. Will report back in on this later!
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I’m glad we’re seizing the opportunity to go hear Nikki tonight. Not just for Nikki (though that would be enough), but for all the writers she has touched (like James Baldwin).
When I was in Duluth last weekend, I spent quite a bit of time at the Memorial for the three carnival workers who were lynched in 1920 after being accused of raping a local. They turned out to be innocent, but it was too late. Duluth has built an amazing memorial in the spot where the deaths occurred, and quotes from prominent writers are carved in the bricks.
Names like Thich Nhat Hahn, Anne Lamott, and George Bernard Shaw are amongst them. This is James Baldwin’s:
“We are responsible for the world in which we find ourselves, if only because we are the only sentient force that can change it.”
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Very exciting, you two. I look forward to the update, and I hope, QM, that you will be able to do a full post. BTW, do you have any book of hers that you can have her sign and, thus, photograph her hands as part of the Writers’ Hands series?
Teri, I forgot that you went to see Wally Lamb. I liked his story about the woman who lives inside a Walmart. She Comes Undone, I think is the name. That’s the only book of his that I’ve read. Have you read that one and/or others?
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I just re-read the excerpts from Giovanni’s interview with James Baldwin. They sure seemed to have a natural chemistry. She’d start a sentence, he’d finish it. They really jibed. And she was only 30. Can you imagine? She seemed so at ease and also prepared. And bold; these weren’t namby questions she asked.
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Yes, QM, I hope between you and Liz you’ve got a Nikki book
(I don’t have one) for her to sign. We’ve got to get up to her table!
ybonesy, are you thinking of Where The Heart Is? Novalee Nation lives in the Walmart after her boyfriend ditches her. The author’s name is Billie _______. It was made into a movie with Natalie Portman.
I haven’t read any Wally Lamb books. Yet. I was extremely inspired when I heard him in person, though. Not only the humorous antidotes about resisting writing each day, but his world view having taught writing in a women’s correctional facility.
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Yes, that must be the one I’m thinking of. I have She’s Come Undone on my bookshelf and remember liking it when I read it, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was about. See?, this is why I try to read books more than once.
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Teri, I am excited to hear Nikki Giovanni, too. And I’m crazy about James Baldwin. And she has sort of carried on his legacy of that style of boldness in the writing (though he seemed a little more reserved in his manner).
Oh, the Memorial in Duluth is so touching and sad. Liz and I spent quite a bit of time there, too, on one of our last few visits. It’s very out-there for a city so small to have a Memorial like that take up a lot almost the size of a building space. And the lynchings, if I remember correctly, happened on the corner just cattycorner to the Memorial. It’s an eerie feeling standing there in the silence. It’s in a quiet part of town, too.
I’m glad you mentioned it, Teri. I have photographs of the Memorial in my Flickr account. I don’t think I ever posted them on red Ravine. But I can go in later and come back and add the links for others to see. Some parts of Minnesota history are very sobering. I, too, noticed the James Baldwin quote and I’m glad you added it in your comment.
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ybonesy, I wish you could come along! I’m pretty sure the books I’ve read of Giovanni’s have been library books (otherwise, they are buried on my bookshelf somewhere). So I’m hoping to purchase one or two tonight. I’d like to get one with her older poetry. And she’s also got a new one out that I want to check out.
I am taking my camera along but I noticed today that the memory card is full. I have to change that before we go! Liz will have her camera, too, so we should be covered. I do hope to have her sign my books and I like the period at the Fitz where we stand in line and work our way up to the stage where the signings take place. 8)
Oh, yb, the first time I read this book with the dialogue between Baldwin and Giovanni, I was blown away by how young she was when this all took place. It made me long for more of that kind of dialogue between writers of different generations today. I wonder why we don’t hear more dialogues like that? They were getting into some deep subjects in that book. I’ve only included a few excerpts in the post. And you’re right, the chemistry between them seemed to flow.
I listened to a Studs Terkel (may he rest in peace, he passed away last October) interview with Baldwin that was fantastic. I checked it out from the library and listened to it on the way to a writing workshop with Natalie in Taos. It was late at night, driving through western Nebraska, almost to Colorado. Books while driving are the best. And hearing the voices of writers who have already walked this earth and left their mark is a gift.
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When I was in Duluth looking at the Memorial I was thinking, “This is a perfect red Ravine post.” Knowing how much you like Duluth, I have already started hoping you’d do a post on it.
When we read Elizabeth Alexander’s poems about Prudence Crandall’s School for “Colored Misses” in Connecticut in the 1800’s, I thought about the memorial in Duluth. Because we didn’t have slavery in the north, I want to pretend things were good for everyone. In Connecticut, the white citizens were so freaked out about the education of black girls in their midst that they burned the school to get it to stop. In Duluth, three men weren’t offered even the basics (a trial, a lawyer), before they were beaten and hung.
On the Memorial it says there were those who were protesting what was happening to the carnival workers, but their voices couldn’t overcome the hysterical mass. I wonder if their stories are recorded anywhere.
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ybonesy,
Since you can’t possibly make it to St. Paul by 7 o’clock tonight for Nikki Giovanni, maybe you should come in April to hear Sandra Cisneros. You and she are, after all, known to be look-alikes, right? 🙂
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Maybe Cisneros or Giovanni will come to NM. That would be slightly less expensive than flying to MN to see them. 8) Although, I will eventually to MN. Maybe when the weather is much more reliable. Isn’t April still a wee bit unpredictable?
Hey, maybe you can do a Duluth post, Teri!!
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The book Home is Where the Heart Is was written by Billie Letts. I have long passed it on to my family & my Mom just read it last week. So many wonderful twists & turns in that book! It was a quick read. Mom read in it 2 days & loved it. It was a quicker read for me, as I couldn’t put it down.
Hope Teri, QM, & Liz have a great time tonight! Should be a good time for all! Looking forward to an update! D
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Quick check-in this morning about Nikki Giovanni. She was one of the most inspirational speakers I’ve ever heard. Particularly for writers and artists, she speaks her truth and is comfortable in her own skin. I’m proud to have shaken her hand during the book signing afterwards at the Fitz. Wow. This woman rocks. I hope to do a future post on hearing her read her poetry from her new book.
In the beginning of the interview, she was asked about edges and if the meaning of “edge” has changed over her lifetime. She said not really. And that writers and artists need to write and create about what scares them, about what they are most afraid of. She quoted from what I think she said was a poem she had written for John Lennon:
Those who ride the nightwinds, must learn to love the stars. Those who live on the edge, must get used to the cuts.
She reiterated what Natalie has often taught us — go to what you are afraid of, and write about that. Move through the fear. Dare to be who you are. If you have the chance to hear her speak, definitely go see her. Her new book Bicycles: Love Poems is wonderful, too. Beautifully presented. I highly recommend it.
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Oh, ybonesy, I wanted to come back and say, April is very unpredictable in Minnesota! And can be quite cold. And Duluth is right on the edge of Lake Superior. Duluth, Canal Park, and Park Point are some of my favorite places to visit. To see what Lake Superior and Duluth look like at the beginning of April, check out this post from a few years ago when Liz and I visited. These are some of my favorite photographs of Lake Superior. It looks like the moon!
Superior, the Great Mother (LINK)
The post is from a few years ago when red Ravine was pretty new. It’s got a little history about Duluth. I think that might also have been the trip we saw the Memorial Teri is referencing. Duluth is a good get-away spot for Twin Cities peeps. Close enough to the Cities, but you also feel like you are getting away. When you come to Minnesota, I want to take you on a little side trip up there!
Teri, should we plan a little mini-writing retreat in Duluth for winter of 2010 with some out-of-town writing friends? I’ve always wanted to hole away in a little cabin on Park Point and write a book. 8)
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Duluth Retreat? Yes! Definitely!
We made need to have everyone sign a waiver, though. You know, something making people admit they’re coming north in the winter and it will be cold. 🙂
Nikki Giovanni. Wow. I have no words. Or, only a few. She talked quite a bit about the writing of some of her books, and it has moved me to put three of her books on hold at the library this morning. She has an affinity for youth in America. That was evident by how she spoke of her love for the students she teaches at Virginia Tech, how she responded to the high school students in the audience during the Q & A, how she showed up her tattoo in memory/solidarity with the slain rap singer Tupac.
We sat in the *absolute* front row. We could practically count her eyelashes. Several times she looked directly at me (Liz & QM, too), and I thought, “These eyes looking at me. The ones who looked at James Baldwin.”
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What an amazing opportunity, you two! Thanks for the updates, the insights into what she said and what you felt while listening and observing.
I imagine her words felt timely insofar that every now and then it’s critical to be reminded about taking chances, putting aside fears, and going for the jugular.
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ybonesy, it’s really inspiring to hear writers who are as excited about you pursuing your passions as they are about themselves. I’d love to take a class from Nikki Giovanni. I imagine her students love her.
It was great, too, because Liz asked her about James Baldwin when she was signing her books. And she also mentioned to Nikki if she would be interested in the Secretary for Arts and Culture Cabinet position when it’s created. [See comment thread on the Arts in the President Barack Obama post (LINK)] It’s one of my wishes that a position like that be created. I think she’d be excellent in that position.
BTW, Nikki referred to Quincy Jones as Q and Baldwin as Jimmy. It just reminds you how connected we all are as writers. And Teri is right — she looked us right in the eye when she spoke and honored the whole audience that way. She was very present. I had never sat in the very first row before at the Fitz. It was like being right up on stage. 8)
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Teri, I wanted to come back to one of your earlier comments about the Memorial in Duluth. Some of their stories may have been recorded. It seems like I ran across a few of them. I did do a little research on it back in 2007. I had thought about doing a post about it at the time when I wrote the Lake Superior post in the link above. But it seemed like a complex subject and I wanted more time to feel out what it was like to have such a public blog up and running and to see how red Ravine would evolve before tackling something like that.
The history of slavery in this country is a complicated one. I’ve only read a little bit about it in my research, barely touched the surface, but I think it’s a myth that there was no slavery in the North. History is just not that black and white. There were people there who were very divided on Lincoln’s proactive stance on abolishing slavery. Thankfully, the majority ruled in our democratic society and time moved on. The country just elected an African American president.
When I was in Savannah last summer, I read about some of the history of many Northerners who went South to buy land and build homes on the backs of slaves. Some from the North became very wealthy by taking advantage of owning homes in the North and the South. Though slavery became more institutionalized in the South, a lot of hypocrisy existed and probably still does. I want to read more in my continued research. I started looking at books on these subjects in last summer’s visit to some of the historical places in Savannah and St. Simons.
I also wanted to mention another blight in Minnesota history that was connected to Abraham Lincoln, the lynching of a large group of Native Americans. Have you read about it? Lincoln became involved and, I’m generalizing here, but if memory serves, because of political pressure, he did not denounce the lynchings but made an executive decision to lynch “only a few” of the Native Americans involved in the trial. I remember reading about it, I think on the Minnesota Historical Society’s website (which is excellent at presenting the facts, BTW). As the U.S. spread further West, there were so many different groups of people who were enslaved and treated as less than human.
All this to say, that history is very complicated. And to have a well-rounded view of what happened, it takes a lot of time to look at all sides, to hear all voices. Liz and I recently watched a documentary on a book written by a historian about the Battle of Gettysburg and it was fascinating. It was a time when families were deeply divided over the Civil War, both North and South.
The author talked about key figures of the war and how different personal accounts from that time, and the way history is written, shape the way we see historical events. It depends on who is doing the writing. She also covers the battle at Gettysburg from right before Pickett’s Charge (George Pickett was from Virginia BTW), to decades after the war ended, when the soldiers from both sides would meet annually to shake hands across the Stone Wall in Gettysburg.
When we moved to Pennsylvania from Georgia in the mid-60’s, I was about 11 or 12. One of the first things I remember we did was to go and tour Gettysburg and sit on that Stone Wall. I loved all the dioramas and learning about the history of the War Between the States. It was made all the more poignant because my mother and I, and my 2 brothers and sister at the time, were all born in the South. My new step-dad was from Pennsylvania and my two younger brothers, who were born after we moved, have only known life in the North. I guess you could say we are a geographically blended family.
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Sometimes I see my understanding of history hasn’t moved much beyond the concrete, easy lessons of a junior high social studies class: The North was against slavery, for Lincoln, and went to war in places like Mississippi to stop the terrible practice of slavery. In the South people loved slavery, loved Jefferson Davis, and had big white houses with women wearing puffy yellow dresses.
I like hearing your perspective, QM, as someone who truly has stood with a foot in both places: the North and the South. Enter QuoinMonkey’s Memoir.
I went to a ceremony in Mankato, Minnesota several years ago that was held at the site of the hanging of 38 Indians in 1862. And, yes, Lincoln signed the order. There were 303 that were supposed to die, and I think the comprise was he would sign the order if the number was greatly reduced. The raid (which led to the hangings) on New Ulm and other small Minnesota towns began because the Native Americans were starving, and were not receiving their government-promised rations.
A prominent soldier at the time said, “Let them eat grass!” a comment that rings painfully through Minnesota history. When his body was found after the raid, those who killed him had stuffed his mouth with grass. A few years ago there was a local business that ran a huge ad for their organic dairy products with the words “Let them eat grass!” pictured with a bunch of cows in a pasture. Presuming the people responsible knew nothing about Minnesota history, I called the newspaper involved. Eventually the ad stopped, but I’m not sure if it was because they woke up, or because they had moved on to a new ad campaign.
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Oh, speaking of Lincoln and Nikki Giovanni, she said something last night that really surprised me. In talking about her book about the friendship between Lincoln & Fredrick Douglass, she said one of the things the two had in common was a fabulous sense of humor.
I never, ever think about Lincoln as being happy or laughing. Only sad, weary, beaten down, and assassinated.
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Me, too, Teri. Hard to imagine that humorous side.
I wanted to ask, How did you guys manage front row seats? Did you get tickets as soon as they went on sale, or was it first-come-first-served and, thus, you got there early? Not bad for the Riverside Rejects. 8) 8)
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If there is room for one more, count me in on the Duluth retreat!
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Right-O! You can’t keep the Riverview Rejects down for long!
Talking Volumes has general seating, so smart cookies like us get there before they open the doors. We started walking down the left aisle, and we just couldn’t stop. Pretty soon we were exactly front and center.
When Louise Erdrich & her two sisters spoke at the Minneapolis Public Library last year, Liz, QM, & I took picnic lunches with us and sat outside the doors. Forget rock stars, we do it for authors.
breathepeace, you’re in for Lake Superior. Bring boots.
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Ah, the picnics outside the doors at the Minneapolis Public Library. Some of my favorite times. Those front row or center seats are really great to have and we’ve stood in line for many an author. Proudly!
breathepeace, YES, please join us on Lake Superior in 2010. Sounds wonderful. Can’t think of a better way to spend winter in Minnesota than writing up on the Big Lake. The wheels are turning for a little writing retreat. 8)
Teri, remember seeing Steve Almond at downtown Minneapolis library and how we got there early for that, too, and met Bob. It always pays off. I remember, too, that Steve Almond said one of his favorite stories he had written was an essay on a conversation between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It’s called Lincoln, Arisen from The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories. Then Thursday night, Nikki Giovanni mentioned that they were good friends and talked a little about Lincoln and Douglass.
You really don’t think about Lincoln laughing all that much, it’s true. I read several places that he suffered from depression, too, way before anti-depressants ever hit the market. I imagine back then, depression carried quite a stigma. I’d like to read one of Lincoln’s biographies. So much has been written about him. But I’ve seen a few authors on PBS BookTalk who’ve written fairly new books on Lincoln. Everyone has a different angle. I want to check them out a little more.
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Teri, I knew you’d probably know about the Mankato, Minnesota incident that involved Lincoln. Thanks for providing the details and numbers. I had remembered that it was around 300 Native Americans to begin with which seems like a monstrous number and total mob mentality. And thanks for sharing your story about writing to the local newspaper to stop the use of offensive phrasing in their ad campaign. I personally think that’s the kind of individual action that the current administration is talking about in their call to service, and you are to be applauded for taking the time to write to them.
I also wanted to say, that I think most of us have simple ideas about history, things we learned in grade school, high school, civics. And it’s not until we dive deeper into subjects that we see the complexity of the world and how it’s not as simple as we once thought. You’ve been digging deeper in our Poetry Group to give us a more well-rounded idea of the lives of the poets we are reading and it enriches their poetry. When we read Elizabeth Alexander’s poems about Prudence Crandall’s School for “Colored Misses” in Connecticut in the 1800’s, and you provided that background before we did the readings, it added so much to those poems.
I learned a lot I didn’t know about Connecticut, too, when I did the research for the Elizabeth Alexander piece [See Presidential Poetics — Elizabeth Alexander (LINK)] over the last few weeks, I read a lot about the Amistad and Connecticut as connected to one of her poems — Mende Vocabulary. That’s when I stumbled on the Amistad Trail or Connecticut Freedom Trail. I’m sure those who live there know the history, but much of it was new to me.
New England: Connecticut: Amistad Trail (LINK)
Then, of course, there are all the connections to Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe. I wouldn’t mind doing a tour of parts of the CT Freedom Trail. I think it was one of our readers, reccos62, who said she was interested in that, too.
______________________
Here are a few things around Hartford from their website:
Faith Congregational Church
2030 North Main Street, Hartford, CT
One of earliest African-American churches founded in Connecticut.
______________________
Frank T. Simpson House
27 Keney Terrace, Hartford, CT
Simpson holds a special place in Connecticut’s history: He was the first employee of the first Connecticut state civil right agency.
_________________________
Harriet Beecher Stowe House
Farmington Avenue and Forest Street, Hartford, CT
Phone: 860-525-9317
Open: Tues – Sat, 9:30 am – 4 pm; Sun 12 – 4 pm.
Harriet Beecher Stowe lived in this home from 1873 – 1896. Known for her book, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” she was an outspoken abolitionist during the decades leading up to the Civil War.
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diddy, I had to look a little at Where the Heart Is written by Billie Letts. The character development sounds so complicated, with many cultures including Black, Anglo, and Native American. I can see how there would be tons of twists and turns. I found this page on Billie Letts with a couple of interview links where she talks about writing Where The Heart Is. Sounds like a great author. It looks like her newest book, MADE IN THE U.S.A, was released in June 2008.
Billie Letts — Interviews and Bio on Hachette Book Group website (LINK)
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I had forgotten the essay by Steve Almond about Lincoln and Douglas; I’ve got the book on hold at the library.
I’ve read quite a bit about Mary Todd Lincoln’s mental state, too. Between the two of them, what was their life like? Or how about for their sons?
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While we are talking in this thread about Civil Rights, I wanted to come back to this post about something that’s bothered me the last few days. While we were safely tucked away in the Fitzgerald listening to Nikki Giovanni last Thursday night, a Hate Crime took place in the Uptown part of Minneapolis. A woman walking from work to the grocery store was attacked by two men walking in front of her, who turned around and started calling her epithets referring to sexual orientation. They assumed she was a lesbian and, before she knew what was happening, she was being beaten in the head and face and kicked repeatedly in the stomach until she was unconscious, all for the way she “looked” to them.
Liz and I heard it on the news when we got home, and saw her interviewed by a local news channel, and were pretty shaken by it. You like to think these things don’t happen anymore, but once you start researching links and news articles in different cities around the U.S., you see they are more common than you think. I couldn’t find the video link to the story but am adding a short link to the StarTribune AP story — Uptown woman attacked in apparent hate crime (LINK).
Minneapolis is one of the most progressive in legal retribution for hate crimes but it still goes on every day. It could be your mother, your sister, your brother, your daughter or son, anyone considered a threat to the status quo. I was happy that Nikki Giovanni referenced in one of her comments, that “we should just get this thing done,” make Gay and Lesbian marriage legal. To keep opposing these freedoms and rights for all sends the message that members of the GLBT community are somehow less than, or deserve less rights than other people and, in my opinion, only adds to the violence. I’m hopeful that things will change as we move further down the road. But it’s occurred to me that there may be an upsurge in all kinds of hate crimes, rather than a diminishment, as part of a backlash to the last election. Things may get worse before better. I guess it remains to be seen.
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Teri, it seems like the life of Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln would have led to pretty interesting talk around the dinner table. Didn’t she suffer from depression as well? I can’t remember now. I wonder, too, what life was like for their sons. And has the family life been covered in any of the biographies. Not sure, but all good questions.
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QM, so very sorry to hear about the attack of the woman in Upper Minneapolis. Man oh man, how disgusting. How sad.
There was a terrible crime in Albuquerque two Christmases ago where two women were returning from an evening out. It had snowed buckets and the streets were slow going, like creeping slow. The women were stopped at a light, and a man in a car behind them, perhaps seeing them kiss or something, got out of his car and went and shot them both. Killed them.
They found him by following his footsteps (he left his car abandoned) to a motel.
Friends of mine knew these women very well. It was a huge shock, a horrible tragedy, and unfathomable that anyone harbors that kind of hatred for others. How can people be so incapable of love? The man who killed them is, I have to believe, someone who never knew anything good in his life.
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ybonesy, thanks. I do remember you mentioning that hate crime in Albuquerque a few years ago. Horrible. And if it turns out to be a person’s friend or relative, it can really be a call to action. Hate crimes are some of the hardest to understand, at least for me. How someone can hate another person they know absolutely nothing about, all based on how they look or false beliefs they carry inside.
I like what James Baldwin said about hate (and I’m sure he faced much of it in his lifetime), the quote I added to one of the comments above:
I don’t know why it is that some people do not have the capacity for empathy or compassion for others. But it’s part of every religion and spiritual path, to hold a compassionate space for fellow beings, for every living being. I like this quote from the Dalai Lama on true democracy:
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When I heard about this story, I cringed. I hate to think about what this woman is going through. When you’re the victim of a violent attack by a stranger, one of the unseen and horrible outcomes is that you don’t know where the next stranger will be who will get to attack you without your consent. Logically, you know the odds are slim that it will happen again. But something comes unhinged inside, and you live with a terrible level of anxiety.
I agree with you, QM. The election of Obama will have an ugly ripple affect…a sad truth. People lashing out. I don’t know how to avoid it. It seems sometimes that we can only mop up the damage.
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I read a children’s book by Nikki Giovanni today: Rosa. It is, of course, about Rosa Parks, and one of the books Nikki talked about at the Fitzgerald.
It’s fun to read it, and easy to hear Nikki’s voice in my head…the way she paces and swings her voice, with that slight touch of a Virginia accent.
I always thought Rosa had been sitting in the white section of the bus. Wrong. There was a “neutral” section, and that’s where she was when she refused to move. The episode in Montgomery, Alabama took place only a few weeks after Emmett Till’s killers were set free. I hadn’t put those pieces together, either. Thanks, Nikki.
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Teri, I saw a Nikki Giovanni interview once where she talked specifically about writing that book about Rosa Parks. It was a really important project for her and she was very tuned in to getting all the details right. I remember she said when she ran a draft by her editors, they wondered if she was being too detailed or telling kids too much. She said absolutely not, that she would not talk down to kids. She said she included all the details so they would know the truth.
It brings up a lot of points about writing on controversial subjects, or rewriting history with a new voice. History has been written primarily from the dominant culture’s point of view. It’s being rewritten all the time with these fresh new perspectives.
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Sinclair, I fear the same, but I sure do hope for something better. The fear that arises must be terrifying and really shake a person’s sense of safety and the way they walk in the world. I feel for her, too, and others who have been the targets of hate crimes or random violence. I don’t think they’ve caught her attackers yet, or even know who they are. She was beaten unconscious and I’m not sure or not if she could identify them.
BTW, Liz told me last night that there will be a vigil on Thursday night near Bryant Lake Bowl in Uptown, a solidarity gathering and walk for this woman and others who have been victims of hate crimes. I’ve really been bothered by this incident because they weren’t there to rob or steal material possessions, but instead to beat her up, to take her dignity and sense of well-being.
I feel this is also true with women who are randomly sexually assaulted; what is stolen from them is intangible and life changing. That kind of violence, in my opinion, is some of the scariest. It makes me want to do something more out in the world to be an advocate and go to bat for others who might have experienced something similar. I don’t know what shape that might take. But it’s really been churning inside. Maybe it will be a piece of writing or an essay. I don’t know.
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I, too, saw the notice in the Star/Tribune for the vigil on Thursday night. I’m thrilled to see a quick, decisive, and non-violent response to this young woman’s attack. It will be a powerful event, and I suspect a huge crowd will gather.
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I read Nikki’s revisiting of the Aesop Fable “The Grasshopper and The Ant,” a book called The Grasshopper’s Song. It’s another book she talked about at the Fitzgerald.
The original fable is about ants storing up food for the winter, grasshoppers trying to get them to play and sing instead, and then the grasshoppers having nothing to eat when the weather turns cold. The moral of the story is “It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.”
Nikki’s take on it is that the grasshoppers entertain the ants all summer with their music, should get paid in food for it. In the book the grasshoppers take the ants to court, sue them for half their income, and win.
I want writers, musicians, and artists to be paid well for their work, too. But there was something in the retelling that smacked of entitlement that was hard to stomach. I think it’s Nikki stirring the old pot. Throwing the pea under the pile of mattresses.
I have one more of her children’s books on hold at the library–the one about Douglass & Lincoln.
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Teri, thanks for sharing about The Grasshopper’s Song. I remember when she mentioned that at the Fitz. Nikki’s take sounds really different than that of Ann Patchett, doesn’t it. [For those who haven’t had a chance to read it, more about Ann’s take and some great illustrations at The Ant & The Grasshopper – Ann Patchett & Lucy Grealy (LINK)]
Do you think since it was a children’s book, Nikki Giovanni was pushing the limits more to illustrate her point? Just curious. BTW, was The Grasshopper’s Song illustrated? Looking forward to hearing about Douglass & Lincoln.
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It was great to go back and read ybonesy’s post on Ann & Lucy. Since I read Truth and Beauty for my first Natalie workshop, it grounds me just to hear the title.
Giovanni’s grasshopper book is illustrated by Chris Raschka. In the book, there is a lot of talk about suing people. It really bothered me. When I was a teacher, my students had learned this lingo, for their parents were always trying to sue someone instead of getting jobs.
One of my co-workers took her students on a field trip to the IDS Center, and a girl slipped on the escalator and broke an ankle. Her mother sued the teacher. It was a devastating experience for the teacher, and all of us who witnessed the madness.
I have low-low-low tolerance for teaching children in picture books to sue people.
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[…] commemorate the 16th president at the Memorial erected following Lincoln’s Centennial. He invited poet and author Nikki Giovanni to recite her new work, written especially for the […]
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[…] I am a big fan of writers and artists who are generous of spirit – those who give or have given back to the world without concern for themselves. Dan Wakefield , author of New York in the ’50s, teaches writing in the prisons. For me, he falls into this category. As do Alice Walker, Natalie Goldberg, and James Baldwin. […]
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