Nikki Giovanni: Poet + Prophet

I have an irreverent yet sweet story to tell about the time I had a meaningful conversation with the late, great poet, Nikki Giovanni, who passed away recently.

I share this story in celebration of her journey, so well-taken! I’m grateful we met. May she rest in eternal peace.

I was a senior at the University of Minnesota while Giovanni was a visiting lecturer there for a year.

It was the very year she’d published her epic poem, “EGO-TRIPPING,” rocking the literary world and delighting people everywhere, perhaps black women most of all.

Though I was young, and not exactly savvy, I was keenly aware of Giovanni’s might, majesty, and cultural importance.

A student of black literature and cultural theory, I felt in awe that my path had crossed with hers, even if in a small way.

She was kind enough to strike up a conversation one day, taking a sincere interest in what I was studying and what I might wish to do when I graduate.

I told her I was planning to go straight to grad school and she asked what schools were capturing my imagination.

What happened next took me by surprise. For her heart seemed to sink as I shared my lofty ambitions to attend this university or that one, in the coming fall.

I wasn’t used to “losing status” based on my passion for academics, but she was visibly unimpressed.

She then asked me outright if I had the kind of grades to get into those sorts of schools and, uncomfortably put on the spot, I told her that, yes, I pretty much had straight A’s.

She bristled. She gave pause. Her face fell.

She looked me dead in the eyes and said, “I can never understand how a person could prioritize grades to that extent… would it even be possible to have an actual life? And isn’t life so much richer than school? Are you aware that it’s perfectly possible to let your schooling get in the way of your education? You should prioritize the having of a life!”

I had only become an “A student” after arriving at the University of Minnesota. I had fancied myself more of an athlete throughout high school.

I loved college because I was passionate about the subject matter I was studying. Black Studies. Women’s Studies. Postcolonial Studies. Cultural Theory. Literature. Philosophy.

I adored school for the first time in my life and my grades reflected it.

Within days of this conversation, Giovanni gave a huge public lecture. It was attended by hundreds, probably even thousands, and I was right there, eagerly perched in the front row. (Ever the model student!)

Giovanni—an extremely personable and dynamic speaker—had me hanging on her every word, along with everyone in the house.

Then suddenly, there she was, sharing from the stage a story of how alarmed she was while speaking “to a lovely young woman who is a senior in the English Department and who is getting straight A’s…and who thereby surely couldn’t possibly be living any sort of a life!!”

She sternly and at some length counseled the crowd to never, ever make the unsound choice of placing school over life. The entire audience ate it up. They roared, nodded, clapped, and cheered, agreeing with this sage advice, enthusiastically.

I sunk in my seat, mildly mortified, but I never did let my grades slip.

I went on to earn a PhD in a field called History of Consciousness at UCSC; then did a postdoc at Harvard; then taught at Yale for ten years.

BUT… along the way I underwent a powerful transformation. I underwent an awakening. I woke up to my intuition. To my creativity. To my spirituality.

And even though there might have been a way to weave all those aspects of me into my life as an academic… I hadn’t been able to find it, hard as I had tried.

Regardless, an all-powerful current was luring me out and away from academia. Life was shoving me onward into new pastures, with a forcible magnetic pull.

I put in a two-year notice (yes, you read that right, a two-year notice) with the chair of my department, and followed the call of my soul.

Since then, I’ve written three non-academic books, for which I’m currently in the process of finding the publishing channels; I’ve consulted in service to people who are up to amazing things in the world; I’ve ghost-written for people in high places; I’ve studied multiple energy healing modalities intensively; and I’ve offered a ton of transformational teachings within the personal development and wellness arenas.

Turns out Giovanni—in her quirky, inelegant way—had spoken her powerful vision over my life. She seemed to understand in a single conversation with me that my destiny was to unfold in a different playing field than the one I had imagined for myself.

She was so certain that ultimately I’d be wise to shift my priorities! So certain that she spoke it, amplified by a mic, to a sold out crowd. And indeed, I did eventually make the radical decision to place life over school.

I have zero regrets about the path I took. And every leg of it mattered.

But it is funny to consider that, in hindsight, Nikki Giovanni had been absolutely right about what she said to me. She was just wayyyy ahead of her time.

Love + Oneness,

Naomi