Chasing Utopia by Nikki Giovanni

                           
    (Y)our Job Safety Is Our Priority: A Path for Poetry
    (should read “our job safety is your priority”
    but I cannot make my computer cross things out)
    A poem is not so much read as navigated. We go from point to point discovering a new horizon, a shift of light or laughter, an exhilaration of newness that we had missed before. Even familiar, or perhaps especially familiar, poems bring the excitement of first nighters, first encounters, first love . . . when viewed and reviewed.
    I’m not a big fan of adjust this line, change this word, add a this subtract a that. The poem like the kitten, like the tadpole, like the moth is and with time will mature to become . Sometimes it gets consumed to make another poem better—sometimes it simply is out in the world too long and dries up—sometimes a friendly scout seeing the struggle of the butterfly to break free from the cocoon decides to make the struggle easier and cuts her loose . . . call it an MFA program workshopping a poem too much. She falls to the ground, unable to soar because a doer of good deeds didn’t want to see the pain. Though now all that is left is a tenure-track position and the bitterness of tears shed for dreams not unwon but unchased.
    I like to think poems are maps—they don’t Google but rather guide us along the way. There is no destination on a country road. You see an old woman slightly bent moving through the field. A frisky calf frolicking. Sometimes a deer standing still. Why would there be a destination when life itself is a journey? You go not to get there but to be there.
    On my good days I like to think a glass of blanc de blanc (as real champagne is for movie stars and presidents), a bit of sun through the clouds, my backyard birds singing, the koi contentedly lazing through the pool, and Alex, my little Yorkie friend, and I are a country road. We meander, we laugh, we would like to love. We are a journey—a poem. Open us. Explore. Inhale. Wonder.
    COFFEE (original)
    Vitamin C prevents
    Colds
    A and D do sunshine
    Things
    We need calcium
    For strong bones
    There must be something
    For the eyes
    Carrots, Cabbage, Lettuce
    You never saw
    A blind rabbit
    And I have a friend
    Who thinks Salmon
    Will prevent
    A loss of your mind
    But I believe
    In Coffee
    Drip
    Percolated
    Pressed
    Coffee
    Black not sweet
    No cream
    Coffee
    Which smells like morning
    And feels like friendship
    Coffee
    While we laugh
    And preview
    Our day
    COFFEE (edited)
    Vitamin C prevents
    Colds
    A and D do sunshine
    Things
    We need Calcium
    For strong bones
    And
    There must be something
    For the eyes
    Carrots, Cabbage, Lettuce
    You never saw
    A blind rabbit
    And I have a friend
    Who thinks Salmon
    Will prevent
    A loss of your mind
    But I believe
    In Coffee
    Drip
    Percolated
    Pressed
    Coffee
    Black not sweet
    No cream
    Coffee
    Which smells like morning
    And feels like friendship
    Coffee
    While we laugh
    And preview
    Our day

THE BROWN BOOKSHELF
    The Journey: The journey begins with the idea. It begins with a story. The journey is the step any writer takes to declare: I have something to say. I have a voice. I need to Use it. Since poetry is my vehicle on this journey, I chose to form my own publishing company and publish myself. I learned to set type, to bind, to cut. These skills are not necessary in the computer age, but they were then. Skills give us freedom. Freedom gives us wings.
    The Inspiration: I am a lover of history. It was Malcolm X who said: “Of all our endeavors, history is the most qualified to reward all research.” That may not be a totally accurate quote, but I remember being enchanted with heroes, with quests, with the search for the difficult and the unknown. Human beings are worthy of our interest. I continue to be fascinated by who we are and of which greatness we are capable.
    The Back Story: My latest book, Bicycles,