Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems
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About this ebook
Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea is a tour de force from Nikki Giovanni, one of the most powerful voices in American poetry and African American literature today. From Black Feeling, Black Talk and Black Judgment in the 1960s to Bicycles in 2010, Giovanni’s poetry has influenced literary figures from James Baldwin to Blackalicious, and touched millions of readers worldwide. In Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea, Giovanni turns her gaze toward the state of the world around her, and offers a daring, resonant look inside her own self as well.
Nikki Giovanni
Nikki Giovanni, poet, activist, mother, and professor, is a seven-time NAACP Image Award winner and the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award, and holds the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry, among many other honors. The author of twenty-eight books and a Grammy nominee for The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection, she is the University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.
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Reviews for Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea
16 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I had to buy this book for the title poem. Which I have an mp3 of Nikki Giovanni reading at some college years ago and is so very very perfect.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I don't really like reading poetry, but I picked this up and started to read and couldn't put it down. I later saw her lecture and she's a compelling speaker too.
Book preview
Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea - Nikki Giovanni
Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea
(We’re Going to Mars)
We’re going to Mars for the same reason Marco Polo rocketed
to China
for the same reason Columbus trimmed
his sails on a dream of spices
for the very same reason Shakelton
was enchanted with penguins
for the reason we fall in love
It’s the only adventure
We’re going to Mars because Peary couldn’t go to the North
Pole without Matthew Henson
because Chicago couldn’t be a city
without Jean Baptiste Du Sable
because George Washington Carver and
his peanut were the right partners for
Booker T.
It’s a life seeking thing
We’re going to Mars because whatever is wrong with us will not
get right with us so we journey forth
carrying the same baggage
but every now and then leaving
one little bitty thing behind:
maybe drop torturing Hunchbacks here;
maybe drop lynching Billy Budd there;
maybe not whipping Uncle Tom to death;
maybe resisting global war.
One day looking for prejudice to slip……. one day looking for
hatred to tumble by the wayside……. one day maybe the
whole community will no longer be vested in who sleeps with
whom……. maybe one day the Jewish community will be at
rest……. the Christian community will be content……. the
Muslim community will be at peace……. and all the rest of us
will get great meals at Holydays and learn new songs and sing in harmony
We’re going to Mars because it gives us a reason to change
If Mars came here it would be ugly
nations would ban together to hunt down
and kill Martians
and being the stupid undeserving life
forms that we are
we would also hunt down and kill
what would be termed
Martian Sympathizers
As if the Fugitive Slave Law wasn’t
bad enough then
As if the so-called War on Terrorism
isn’t pitiful Now
When do we learn and what does it take to teach us things cannot be:
What we want
When we want
As we want
Other people have ideas and inputs
And why won’t they leave Rap Brown alone
The future is ours to take
We’re going to Mars because we have the hardware to do it…
we have
Rockets and fuel and money and stuff
and the only
Reason NASA is holding back is they
don’t know
If what they send out will be what they
get back
So let me slow this down;
Mars is 1 year of travel to get there…….
plus 1 year of living on Mars…….
plus 1 year to return to Earth…….
= 3 years of Earthlings being in a tight space going to
an unknown place with an unsure welcome awaiting
them…tired muscles…unknown and unusual foods…harsh
conditions…and no known landmarks to keep them human…
only a hope and a prayer that they will be shadowed beneath
a benign hand and there is no historical precedent for that
except this:
The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans
I say, the trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans
The people who were captured and enslaved immediately
recognized the men who chained and whipped them and herded
them into ships so tightly packed there was no room to turn…
no privacy to respect…no tears to fall without landing on
another…were not kind and gentle and concerned for the state
of their souls…no…the men with whips and chains were
understood to be killers…feared to be cannibals…known
to be sexual predators…The captured knew they were in
trouble…in an unknown place…without communicable
abilities with a violent and capricious species…
But they could look out and still see signs of Home
they could still smell the sweetness in the air
they could see the clouds floating above the land they loved
But there reached a point where the captured could not only not look back
they had no idea which way back
might be
there was nothing in the middle of the deep blue water to
indicate which way home might be and it was that
moment…when a decision had to be made:
Do they continue forward with a resolve to see
this thing through or do they embrace the waters
and find another world
In the belly of the ship a moan was heard…and someone
picked up the moan…and a song was raised…and that song
would offer comfort…and hope…and tell the story…
When we go to Mars………it’s the same thing…. it’s Middle Passage
When the rocket red glares the astronauts will be able to see
themselves pull away from Earth…as the ship goes deeper
they will see a sparkle of blue…and then one day not only will
they not see Earth…they won’t know which way to look…
and that is why NASA needs to call Black America
They need to ask us: How did you calm your fears…. How
were you able to decide you were human even when everything
said you were not…How did you find the comfort in the face
of the improbable to make the world you came to your world…
How was your soul able to look back and wonder
And we will tell them what to do: To successfully go to Mars
and back you will need a song…take some Billie Holiday for
the sad days and some Charlie Parker for the happy ones but
always keep at least one good Spiritual for comfort…You
will need a slice or two of meatloaf and if you can manage it
some fried chicken in a shoebox with a nice moist lemon pound
cake…a bottle of beer because no one should go that far without
a beer and maybe a six-pack so that if there is life on Mars
you can share…Popcorn for the celebration when you land
while you wait on your land legs to kick in…and as you climb
down the ladder from your spaceship to the Martian surface…
look to your left…and there you’ll see a smiling community
quilting a black-eyed pea…watching you descend
Possum Crossing
Backing out the driveway
the car lights cast an eerie glow
in the morning fog centering
on movement in the rain slick street
Hitting brakes I anticipate a squirrel or a cat or sometimes
a little raccoon
I once braked for a blind little mole who try though he did
could not escape the cat toying with his life
Mother-to-be possum occasionally lopes home…being
naturally…slow her condition makes her even more ginger
We need a sign POSSUM CROSSING to warn coffee-gurgling
neighbors:
we share the streets with more than trucks and vans and
railroad crossings
All birds being the living kin of dinosaurs
think themselves invincible and pay no heed
to the rolling wheels while they dine
on an unlucky rabbit
I hit brakes for the flutter of the lights hoping it’s not a deer
or a skunk or a groundhog
coffee splashes over the cup which I quickly put away from me
and into the empty passenger seat
I look…
relieved and exasperated…
to discover I have just missed a big wet leaf
struggling…to lift itself into the wind
and live
A Robin’s Nest in Snow
Outside the window of my den
Where I sit usually counting clouds
Or airplanes or chipmunks scurrying by
On a snowy day I still see
The nest through the flurries
Snowflakes are so delicate they melt
On your tongue
Sit proudly
on your shoulders
Tangle themselves
in your braids
Last spring I didn’t know
A bird had made a home
In my river birch
There was activity but I thought
It was the crepe myrtle
Only when the tree exhaled
Did the life reveal itself
The snow piled up neatly
Filling the crevice
Hopefully destroying the viruses and bacteria
That can attack the young still blind robins
And I a survivor of lung cancer nestle
Hope in my heart that no harm will remain
When Spring and birds return
The Wind in the Bottle
(For Gloria Haffer on her Sixtieth Birthday)
Twice