Weekly Poem: 'Nikki-Rosa'

**By Nikki Giovanni** (Read by Linda Dixon) childhood remembrances are always a drag if you're Black you always remember things like living in Woodlawn with no inside toilet and if you become famous or something they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother all to yourself and how good the water felt when you got your bath from one of those big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in and somehow when you talk about home it never gets across how much you understood their feelings as the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale and even though you remember your biographers never understand your father's pain as he sells his stock and another dream goes And though you're poor it isn't poverty that concerns you and though they fought a lot it isn't your father's drinking that makes any difference but only that everybody is together and you and your sister have happy birthdays and very good Christmases and I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me because they never understand Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy   Poet and writer "Nikki Giovanni":http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/nikki-giovanni is the author of several books of poetry, including most recently "Bicycles: Love Poems." Her spoken word album, "The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection" was nominated for a Grammy Award and the National Book Award. "Nikki-Rosa" is taken from "The 100 Best African American Poems," edited by Giovanni and published in November. She is a professor at Virginia Tech, where she teaches writing and literature.