I am SO GLAD that I went. Not only did she read her wonderful poetry, but she had so many other WONDERFUL, AMAZING things to say. I cannot wait to scour the libraries and read everything of hers that I can.
Ms. Giovanni said some really wonderful things, and I tried my best to write them all down. I don't know if it's the journalism in me, or my strong desire to write them all out, and post them around the room so I don't ever forget them.
One thing she said that I really liked was, "People are crazy, and there's not much you can do about that." I feel like I deal with that a lot, especially with this job... People, students, whatever, are always going to do what they're gonna do... And I'm doing my best to learn to just take a step back and accept that.
Another wonderful thing she said was, "If you have to go down, you need to go down on something you believe in... something that makes sense to you." This was so wonderful, and doesn't really need any more explanation... But, later she mentioned that, "You can't make sense out of the senseless." Gosh, I would have loved to just sit there and listen to her talk for hours.
There were other gems of knowledge... "I'm so sick of comfortable people telling people who have no choices what they should be doing." I wanted to hug that woman.
And, I think maybe my favorite (oh, who am I kidding? I loved it all) quotes throughout the night had to have been, "If you don't have anything else to do, you have to fall in love."
All in all, a nice night. I went after and got dinner by myself, which was nice, if only because generally I don't go out of my way to get food I want... Rather, I just grab something and eat in the office. I came back to my room, took a bath, and just generally lounged about.
And now it's 2:15 in the morning, and all I want to do is sleep... Which isn't happening... Awesome. Goodnight, and you should read something of Nikki Giovanni's!
1 comment:
it sounds fantastic!
glad to know those journalistic tendencies are still hanging around!
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