Nikki Giovanni is one of America's most widely-read poets, and her literary work is known all over the world.

She first gained popularity during the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements in the 1960s and 70s, and since then, she's won numerous awards.

And Oprah Winfrey recognized her in 2005 as a living legend.

Giovanni sat down for a wide-ranging conversation with "American Black Journal" contributor, Cecilia Sharpe of 90.9 WRCJ during her recent visit to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

- Literary icon, Miss Nikki Giovanni, welcome to Detroit.

- Thank you.

- So I wanted to start this conversation going back to your first reading at Birdland.

And that story was really interesting to me, about how that came to be.

Can you recount that moment for our viewers?

- Sure, I'll never forget, my mother's a jazz fan.

And so when my second book came out, "Black Judgment," I thought, "Well, what would be the most perfect place to have the debut of that book?"

And I thought, "Birdland."

And Birdland was down, that's in the old days when Birdland was down, and it's New York, you know, and of course "The New York Times" was up.

So a lot of has changed since then.

But I just went and went down, because on Mondays, almost nobody's in the clubs.

And I just went downstairs and said, you know, "I'd like to meet Mr. Logan," because that's who Logan and Wilson Pickett owned Birdland.

- Okay.

- And he said, "I'm Harold Logan, who are you?"

(laughing) And, "I'm Nikki Giovanni, I'm a poet, and I'd like to have a reading at your club."

And he just looked at me like, "What?"

And I said, "Well, you know, you're closed on Sunday," that's in the old days when they were closed on Sunday.

I said, "You're closed on Sunday, so I was thinking to have a reading at your club on Sunday if it's okay with you."

And he said, "Well, what you gonna pay me?"

I said, "Oh, Mr. Logan, I don't have any money, I'm a poet."

(laughing) You know, that's a silly question.

And so he thought about it for a minute I guess.

He said, "If that fool is crazy enough to come down here and ask me," he said, "Well, I tell you what, you bring me 100 people, and you can have the club, 99 people and you owe me $500."

I said, "Well, thank you," and we shook hands.

It's one of those, like, "Oh, was that wise?"

And so I started working on it.

You know, you get 100 people to do anything.

Well, you can, but where the club is, and the way it goes, so on Sunday, I had Morgan Freeman was my next door neighbor, Novella Nelson, Barbara Ann Teer.

So I knew a lot of people, and they all agreed to read.

And so the line start, and then the line turned.

And when they did that, "The New York Times" was wondering, "Well, what are those mostly Black people doing down there?"

So they sent a reporter down and he said, you know, "I'm looking for Nick Giovanni," and he finally got to me.

He said, "I'm looking for Nick Giovanni."

I said, "Well, I'm Nikki Giovanni."

He said, "No, no, where is he?"

It's just the way people looked at things.

I said, "Well."

I figured he'll find out eventually.

- He'll figure it out- - Yeah, he'll figure it out.

- He'll get the picture.

- But they did, because of the line and everything, it got a headline in what they call the "Extra," the second, because nobody had seen a poet bring that, you know, to bring that many people into a club.

It was great.

- So you held up your end of the deal?

- I did.

- You didn't owe Mr. Logan $500?

- No.

- You brought over 100 people.

- Yeah, much over.

- And a new audience to Birdland.

Wanna fast forward to today, when the truths are not being told about history, books are being banned, you seek to continue to share the truth about history, your documentary, "Going to Mars" definitely reflects an accurate depiction of history.

But you just recently worked with Javon Jackson, from the Jazz Messengers, on a project, "The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni," where you present sacred or gospel hymns and jazz.

What was the importance to you of focusing on those particular genres?

- Well, first of all, it was a good friend of Nina Simone, and one of her favorite songs was "Night Song."

So I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to do something with it?"

And Javon had said, I had said to Javon, "You know, we oughta do something spiritual, or something together."

And he said, "You know, I was thinking the same thing."

I don't know if he was or wasn't, or just trying to be nice, but we decided let's do it.

He said, "Why don't you send me 10 or or 12 tunes?"

And I sent them, but the only song that was not a spiritual was "Night Song."

And I said, "This is one of Nina's songs," which I knew because I knew Nina.

And it's the only song, 'cause I can't sing, and I said that to him, "I'm not a singer, but this is a song I wanna sing."

And he called me back, he said, "Well, Nikki, you know, it's a lot of people that making records that can't sing, so you're not alone."

I said, "Javon, I don't know if he should say it like that."

I really love him, we're getting ready.

We're in the middle of our next, and our last, if I may say so, not 'cause I can't keep doing this, but we're doing "Javon and Nikki Go to the Movies."

- Yes, I wanna talk about that project.

You do have this new project coming up with him.

I was waiting 'til the end, but we can talk about it now, because you have, you say it's the last, but you have the juice in your tank, and so you're producing this next project, "Javan and Nikki-" - "And Nikki."

- "Go to the Movies."

So what can people expect to hear from this project?

- Well, what we've done is taken some old songs, and again, my mother is figuring into this, because I used to hear Mommy singing some old songs.

And there's some songs that I love, "The Folks Who Live on the Hills," you know, there's songs that I love.

And then I'm actually, I hate to say it like that because I don't wanna embarrass him, but I'm actually teaching Javon some of the old, because he doesn't know songs like, you know, (laughing) right now my mind's gonna go blank, "From Here to Eternity," you know, because he's a young man.

And so he knows all of the Charlie Parker, and he's a big Sonny Rollins fan, but he doesn't know, he never sat in the movies like all day, and saw the movie.

You know, in my day, you could go to movies, and when you did, once we got out of the South, 'cause I was born in Knoxville, that was segregated, so I didn't really do movies in the South, but when the family moved to Cincinnati, you could.

And you could go to sit in the movie all day long, the Albee Theater, and you could sit there all day long, and you could see the movie two and three times, and hear the music.

And my mother, one of her favorite is "Time After Time."

So there were songs that I wanted to put on, you know, for Mommy, to put on record.

And as I say, Javon's the only person that lets me sing.

So, (laughing) so everybody's gonna say, "Damn, I can see why she shouldn't a been singing."

(both laughing) - I think also just the blending of his time and your time, of being able to go to the movies, and sit there all day and watch, now you get kicked out of the movie theater as soon as the movie, the credits are rolling, they're ushering you out.

So just another way to bring that history, and connect it and share it.

So we've taken these words, these stories, and put it into this documentary.

It's a must see, "Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project."

And it does a great job of reflecting on the past, examining the present, and taking a little sneak peek into the future, telling the story of your life.

I watched it and I could not watch it without stopping and pressing rewind over.

I didn't make it past the first 30 minutes, I was pressing rewind over and over again, and just taking in the content.

And I promise if you watch it again, you're gonna learn something new.

How did you initially feel about having a documentary about your life created?

- I was against it, and Rada Studio, and Joe Brewster and Michele Stephens, brought that to us.

But to come to me, you have to go through Ginny Fowler, because she handles all of that.

And they called, Michele called Ginny, and said, "We'd like to do this documentary."

And so this is something that has to come to me, because many of the decisions that are made are made by Ginny, she doesn't need to ask.

She didn't need to ask me would I talk to you, for example.

She's like, "The answer to that is yes."

So she doesn't have to be out, but this had to come to me.

And so we were having dinner, and she said, "Well, they wanna do this documentary."

And I said, "No," you know, "people do documentaries when you're dead, so I'm not dead, the answer is no, I don't want it."

And we want a small, our office is a small, it's three people, and Gloria is the other as our attorney.

And so I said, "Well, I'm gonna call Gloria and see what she thinks," because Ginny had already said, "I want it, I think you should do it."

And I called Gloria, and Gloria, "Nik," she said, "Nik, you should do it."

So I'm saying, "How did I get outvoted in my own company?"

(both laughing) But I was outvoted, so I just got out of the way.

And I would say that to any artist anywhere.

I did my work because I created the work.

And I had to have some faith in the people that were gonna do something else with it.

And I did, I had faith that, well, I had faith that Ginny and Gloria are gonna make the right decision, because that's what they do.

We've been together for 50 years or more now.

And it was just important to not, I don't know film, so it was important for me not to do something that I don't know.

So I just stepped back, and let them do it.

So they were the ones, Michele essentially was the one that thought, "Okay, this is what's important," 'cause I'm a space freak.

And I know that as we go to the future, honestly, there has to be life in the galaxy, because anything else is illogical.

And I would say that if I were teaching the class, when I was teach, to think that only third planet from the yellow sun is the only life in this galaxy is illogical.

It doesn't work, it's wrong.

And if that's illogical, that means that you have to let, you have to look for what is the other life.

And what I think that we need to be telling our children, Nina says, "To be young, gifted and Black," but it's a little, I think that we need to remind life forms, us, on this planet, that we are all earthlings, and that what we share is not the color of our skin, or our gender, or our religion, none of these things.

What we share is that we live on this planet, which means we should treat each other better.

And I think we should start in preschool, to say, "When the kids say, you know, 'Who are you,' the answer is, 'I'm an earthling,'" so that when they go into, because somebody's going, we have people in space, and somebody's going beyond that into the galaxy.

And when some other life form says, "Who are you?"

The answer has to be, "We're earthlings," because nothing else will make sense to them.

If we said, "Oh, I'd come from Detroit," they'd be looking at you like, "What?"

I mean, they're not against you, you know, but, "What, what's a Detroit," you know?

- Our basic form is we're an earthling, we're human beings, yeah.

- We're an earthling form.

And then we say, "And where are you?"

Say "I'm a Jupititarian."

But I'm a big fan of Mars, so because we know that there was water on Mars, that we know, because we can see it, if you look at Mars, you can see where the rivers were.

- Where the rivers were.

- And again, logically speaking, Mars burned itself up, which we, actually speaking, are in danger of doing, because it only takes a couple of nuclear bombs, and we're gone.

- Right.

- And we'll be the same way.

And so you have to learn what else is out there, what do we learn from what is out there, and how do we learn to get along with it?

Which is why the documentary starts with, "The only way to understand space is through Black women."

- Well, the documentary is, "Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project."

Please check it out, it is a must see.

I have to watch it again, and I'll probably rewind it.

Your poem, "Quilts," it was really my mom who read the poem first, and she says, "Cecilia, you have to read this poem, it's, you know."

And I said, "Okay, Mom," you know, you listen to your mom.

And so I listened to you reciting "Quilts," and then I read it, and it was so inspirational, and so many takeaways from "Quilts."

One thing that stood out is that we all have a purpose, and at any age or stage of life, you have something to share.

But today, when everyone is so distracted, whether it's with social media, or someone telling you how you should be, or, you know, how to talk and influences, how do you encourage people to find their purpose, walk in it, and live as their authentic selves?

- I don't think it's, I don't try to encourage people.

I don't try to do anything but share what I know.

And all I really have are words, and words are, you know, little.

Words are very small things.

- They make a big impact.

- But that's also part of the "Quilt," because we're talking, so we're building a quilt.

Or if we were 200 years back, we would be enslaved, and we would be making a stew, and we would be telling the story that would become a folk tale.

And we would be teaching our children, and hoping that their children taught their children, because our children, we're two women here, would've been taken away from us and sold.

So the last thing, even though they may not know that they heard it, that our children would've heard, was, "If anybody ask you who you are, tell 'em you're a child of God."

And that's what we gave to our children, which is a part of the "Quilt," that there's always gonna be a little something that you carry with you, and you can pass it along, and you can pass it along.

And that's what's important, that everybody has something to give.

And I love that poem so much.

I usually, I'm reading it, and I'm crying half the way through.

I've really not gotten to the point that I can read that point without tears coming to my eyes, because you remember, I mean, I have a quilt.

My grandfather has a tie in there, you know, and my, you know, I have the baby, you know, this is the baby who died, who had pneumonia.

And so all of these things come into, this is how we tell our history.

So in one respect, I do not worry about fools.

I don't worry about what they have to say.

We are not gonna tell your story.

I don't need them to tell my story, because for 200 years, we told our story, and we are gonna continue to tell our story, because our story cannot be not told.

But on the other hand, like all people who only have words, I am gonna continue to talk, but all of the great people on Earth, you show me a great person, and I'll show you what he and she did.

What they did was talk.

And that's even Harriet Tubman, who led people to freedom, but she led 'em to freedom because they said, "Moses is coming."

And she was the one walking around and saying, "Moses is coming, get ready."

It's all talk.

(gentle music) Home is a place we all have to find, child.

But it's not just a place where you eat or sleep.

Home is knowing, knowing your mind, knowing your heart, knowing your courage.

- Can you possibly think of yourself as a typical Black woman?

- No, I think it would be folly if I said I typical (laughing).

I mean, I hate people that do that, that (laughing) run around, you know, they've done everything and then all of a sudden, "I'm just an ordinary Joe."

No, I think that I'm not typical at all, but I think that what I share with other Black women is an insatiable curiosity, and a desire to make things better.

I think that that's the commonality that we come together on.

- Well, I was wondering if before you leave, if you would read a poem for us from your book.

- Oh, I'd be delighted.

"I suppose living in a materialistic society, luxury to some would be having more than what you need.

Living in an electronic age, seeing the whole world by pushing a button to the nth degree might perhaps be adequately represented by having someone there to push the buttons for you.

I have thought, 'If only I could become rich and famous, I would live luxuriously in New York,' knowing famous people, eating in expensive restaurants, calling long distance anytime I want.

But you held me one evening, and now I know the ultimate luxury of your love."

- Miss Giovanni, thank you for what you shared with me today, and everything that you have shared over the decades.

And I look forward to your next project that's coming.

- Thank you.