POET SPEAKS FOR ART AND TOLERANCE

Poet Nikki Giovanni is a tiny 54-year-old woman who writes and speaks with great conviction and humor about love, social systems, justice and the nobility of the human experiment.

"We're all crazy, but I like to think we're trying," she says.

The black poet and essayist spoke and read poems for an audience of about 100 Friday night at Southeast Missouri State University. Her topic was "Art as Diversity: Diversity as Art," but she wove into the discussion the Final Four, the Jonesboro, Ark., killings and the wisdom of divorce rituals over weddings.

Nobody is making the connection between the violence that is occurring in American schools and the sources of self expression -- arts programs -- that are disappearing from the schools in the name of budget-cutting, she said.

The answer to violence is always to build more security systems and prisons, she said, stressing that she does not condone violence. But, she asked, "Why don't we increase the number of art teachers?"

Giovanni is a fan of the University of Kentucky, women in general and black women in particular, and wonders why Bill Gates needs 21 toilets. "You know if Bill Gates has 21 toilets somebody else is urinating against a tree," she said.

She criticized intolerance toward gays and pointed out that there was a time when blacks, too, were not allowed to marry.

"The black community has not stood up for the gay community the way they should," she said.

She thinks women have never gotten their due.

"I don't understand why men don't wake up every day and say, `Thank you, God.'"

With all the problems, she says human beings have come far in the 20th century, which began with blacks being lynched at a rate of one per day.

An English professor at Virginia Tech, Giovanni has published 20 books of poetry and essays. Her most recent book, "Love Poems," received the NAACP Image Award.

Giovanni had her first book of poetry published while working on her master of fine arts degree at Columbia University. Writing poetry is "a research-based art," she said in an interview prior to her talk.

"You have to learn something, and you have to be interested in something."

She tells her students at Virginia Tech that "it's not important to write every day, but it is important to read every day."

She told the students and others gathered Friday night not to be afraid of happiness. "There's nothing wrong with recognizing the joy we've been given," she said.

"As we live, allow others to live. This is the challenge."

Giovanni ended her program by reading "Ego Tripping," her most requested poem.

"... For a birthday present when he was three

I gave my son hannibal an elephant

He gave me rome for mother's day

My strength flows ever on... ."