The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni

• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780061977664
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

From one of America's most cherished and celebrated poets, a landmark collection of Nikki Giovanni's early work!

"Nikki Giovanni is one of our national treasures."—Gloria Naylor

When Nikki Giovanni's poems first emerged during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, she immediately took a place among the most celebrated and controversial artists of our time. More than 50 years later, Giovanni still stands as one of the most commanding, luminous voices to grace America's political and poetic landscape. This timeless classic brings readers Nikki Giovanni's poems from 1967 to 1983, from her books Black Feeling Black Talk; Black Judgement; Re: Creation; My House; The Women and the Men; Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day; and Those Who Ride the Night Winds.

Stirring, provocative, and resonant, these poems heralded the arrival of an indelible literary voice that resounds to this day.

Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day

1978

Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day

Don’t look now

I’m fading away

Into the gray of my mornings

Or the blues of every night

Is it that my nails

keep breaking

Or maybe the corn

on my second little piggy

Things keep popping out

on my face

or

of my life

It seems no matter how

I try I become more difficult

to hold

I am not an easy woman

to want

They have asked

the psychiatrists psychologists politicians and

social workers

What this decade will be

known for

There is no doubt it is

loneliness

If loneliness were a grape

the wine would be vintage

If it were a wood

the furniture would be mahogany

But since it is life it is

Cotton Candy

on a rainy day

The sweet soft essence

of possibility

Never quite maturing

I have prided myself

On being in that great tradition

albeit circus

That the show must go on

Though in my community the vernacular is

One Monkey Don’t Stop the Show

We all line up

at some midway point

To thread our way through

the boredom and futility

Looking for the blue ribbon and gold medal

Mostly these are seen as food labels

We are consumed by people who sing

the same old song STAY:

as sweet as you are

in my corner

Or perhaps just a little bit longer

But whatever you do don’t change baby baby don’t

change

Something needs to change

Everything some say will change

I need a change

of pace face attitude and life

Though I long for my loneliness

I know I need something

Or someone

Or……

I strangle my words as easily as I do my tears

I stifle my screams as frequently as I flash my smile

it means nothing

I am cotton candy on a rainy day

the unrealized dream of an idea unborn

I share with the painters the desire

To put a three-dimensional picture

On a one-dimensional surface

Introspection

she didn’t like to think in abstracts

sadness happiness taking giving all abstracts

she much preferred waxing the furniture

cleaning the shelves putting the plates away

something concrete to put her hands on

a job well done in a specific time span

her eyes were two bright shiny six guns

already cocked

prepared to go off at a moment’s indiscretion

had she been a vietnam soldier or a mercenary

for Ian Smith all the children and dogs and goodly

portions of grand old trees would have been demolished

she had lived both long and completely enough

not to be chained to truth

she was not pretty

she had no objections to the lies

lies were better than the silence that abounded

nice comfortable lies like I need you

or Gosh you look pretty this morning

the lies that make the lie of life real

or lies that make real life livable

she lived on the edge of an emotional abyss

or perhaps she lived in the well of a void

there were always things she wanted

like arms to hold her

eyes that understood

a friend to relax with

someone to touch

al...