Nikki Giovanni. Last night I rode over to Pasadena in search of THE Nikki Giovanni. And I found her. Standing behind a podium at CalTech, speaking to a crowd over 700. Let me clear things up: Nikki Giovanni was scheduled to speak during CalTech's Social Activists Lecture Series last night and I attended.

Three things you should know about me and Nikki Giovanni. One, when I was in elementary school in Woodlawn Ohio every other month Nikki Giovanni would visit my classroom and read poetry. Although quite small, I always sensed she was someone special who seemed very grounded in the conjuring of "words". Two, during my last year of high school my mom and her husband Ron moved us from the townhomes of Springdale to a house on Burns Avenue. Burns Avenue is the street where Nikki Giovanni grew up; a landmark she frequently mentions in her writing. We moved literally one block away from her legendary home. [It's also worth noting, a good friend of mine from high school and also senior class president, Tracey Farley Artis, laid claim that her family actually moved into the Burns Avenue landmark once the Giovanni's moved out.] Three, over the Winter Holidays my mom's youngest brother, Roger—my favorite, creative, smart, good-looking uncle, paid me a visit at my dad's. Once he arrived, he handed me three books—a collection of Langston Hughes' poems called DON'T YOU TURN BACK, and two Nikki Giovanni collections: The Women and the Men and Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day. He found them at a yard sale.

Needless to say, last night was special for me. Although I arrived a bit late and was seated in the balcony with only a birds-eye view of Mz Giovanni, it was a night of inspiration and thought and truth. When I walked in she was dropping knowledge about Mars, about black folk and the Middle Passage, about those 17th-century Africans making a decision to live, to endure their new unwelcoming world across the Atlantic, about if there's anybody on this planet who'd understand how to transport and survive a far away place like Mars, it would be black Americans. It was moving.

She also re-told the haunting and horrific story of Emmitt Till's murder. I didn't know he was slightly overweight; I didn't know he stuttered; I didn't know he suffered with polio and walked with a limp. I didn't know his murderers drilled a hole into his eye before dumping him in that water. I didn't know the town's sheriff said that it was a shame his mother kept his casket open; I didn't know his mother said she kept his casket open to show the entire world THE SHAME.

I sat there listening to Nikki, laughing with Nikki, crying with Nikki, and I wondered if her shadowy presence in my childhood watered my creative seeds. If I owe a bit of my creative journey to her. And then I remembered something so spectacular. When I was in the first grade I wrote and illustrated a book. It was called THE SILLY PUPPET—about a puppet boy who was willing to do anything, anywhere, including kissing the ground and jumping to the sky. It won the Young Author's Award. The award ceremony was in an auditorium somewhere in Cincinnati. I remembered being a bit late and forced to sit in a far away seat, but when they called my name to receive the award, guess who was my presenter... Yes, Miss Nikki Giovanni.

Last night was not quite coming full circle, but it damn sure was very close.

Until next time,

Keith