If I Were a Poet or There May Be a Reason Why

I saw Nikki Giovanni on Def Poetry the other day and it made me think of something. Back in like 2000 when I lived in DC and was still wet behind the ears, I met The Greatest Poet of All Time Nikki Giovanni at a conference for a national youth organization. I had just been elected a youth board member and Miss Giovanni was a luncheon speaker or sumthing. As the title of my blog hints, "Ego Trip" has been my favorite poem since childhood, as it was the first bit of poetry to which I could actually relate (blush). Appropriately, I was delighted at the opportunity to meet the woman who has written my manifesto. She was a delightful woman and she autographed for me a program booklet or sumthing, which I long ago misplaced.

In the years since, I've discovered more of her (and others') poetry. If there is to be one single other work that I relate to and appreciate as much as that first poem, here it follows. My only question is why is it taking the rest of the world, AND ESPECIALLY BLACK FOLK, so long to figure out what Nikki Giovanni realized some 30 years ago?

A Poem/Because It Came As A Suprise To Me

By Nikki Giovanni


homosexuality

(an invention of saul

as played to perfection by the pope)

is two people

of similar sex

DOING IT

that`s all