Good evening.
Thank you for being here tonight.
I have the pleasure of introducing Nikky Finney.
Before I do that, though, I just want
to also say that I stand here before you tonight
as a directly impacted person, and that I
stand in solidarity with the folks who are
working for sentencing reform.
And on behalf of these justice issues, thank you.
She walks in beauty, like the night, and her words follow.
I first encountered Nikky Finney when
I was a shiny, newly minted professor at Berea College.
Shown to my office by an elder faculty member, who told me,
Nikky Finney, the poet, used this space during her residency
here.
[LAUGHTER]
Like a good scholar with a new reference,
I set about to find who Nikky Finney was,
and what work she did in the world.
This was 2011 and Head Off & Split
was the work that called to me.
The way this collection braided the painful political
experiences of the present day segregated South of Hurricane
Katrina, and the past public and personal experiences
of the Civil Rights era, shattered my mind
in the best possible way.
The way this collection illustrated the intense beauty
and pain of Black girl becoming inside oneself,
and inside one's family, and outside, and on the other side,
through a long lineage of Black heroism in the shape
and image of ourselves as Black women, whose capaciousness
is vast and ever expanding has become
significant to how I locate myself as a Black scholar,
teacher, mother, in this life journey that
has withstood political terror in the aftermath of history.
At the height of my obsession with Head Off & Split,
I remember losing track of my copy of the book.
I found it under my daughter's pillow.
A third grader at the time, she told me
she decided to read it to herself in bed the night
before, that she was curious because of the dead fish
wrapped in paper on the cover.
Her eight-year-old self went on to tell me
that she only made it through the first poem, "Red Velvet."
And In case I didn't know already, it wasn't about cake.
[LAUGHTER]
It was about Rosa Parks.
I continued to probe her interpretation.
She confessed and resolved that even though the poem confused
her now, that she was going to keep reading it
because she could tell it was important for her
to eventually understand.
The following year, she went on to read a few stanzas of "Red
Velvet" aloud to her class for their Black History Month
Celebration.
The teacher asked students for a rationale
of why they chose to share what they shared.
Milora's read, quote, "So that other students can know
the truth about Rosa Parks.
She sewed, and she planned, she wasn't old,
and she wasn't tired."
Hashtag, parenting win.
[LAUGHTER]
During my couple of years in Kentucky,
I would come to learn from Black women
colleague friends at the University of Kentucky
that Nikky was among the faculty there, and that she was indeed,
every bit the supporter, lover of, and friend to Black women
that one imagines and hope she is, that she
was a blessing and a paradigm.
Though I didn't have the opportunity
to know Nikky Finney in that context,
I felt her presence linger in my Berea College office,
and I got to see her from a distance
a few times, just in passing when
I was in the company of some of our mutual friends.
My interest in Ms. Finney and her work
continued through her now famous and lauded acceptance speech
from the National Book Critics Award for Poetry.
This speech is the wordsmithing and world
making of an artist at the pinnacle of her craft.
I return to it often, in the classroom,
and in alone spaces when I need to be reminded
of my own literacy narrative and of the important labor
of teaching and resistance that I have been carved and called
to do in academic settings and in my community.
I left Kentucky, and in 2015, I came to the U of A.
At that time, my dear colleague, professor Adela Licona
hosted a lovely feminist gathering for me at her home.
A lover of poetry herself, before breaking bread
rather than a prayer, though the best poetry is like a prayer,
Adela offered and read to us one of her favorite poems.
It was Nikky Finney's "The Making of Paper,"
which Nikky had written for Toni Cade Bambara.
I thought of "Red Velvet" and Rosa Parks,
of these poems, gifts from Nikky Finney to us
that record into history anew the Black women elders, whose
words and deeds have guaranteed us greater access to freedom,
the pursuit of creativity, and black girl dreaming.
The women gathered that night at Adela's house.
We were fed delicious food and drink by our host,
but above all, what I remember about that night was
that we were nourished mightily by Nikky Finney's poem.
It was a night of inspiration, joy, affirmation, and laughter,
and Ms. Finney was among us.
More recently here in Tucson, another shared affinity
for the work of Nikky Finney emerged.
And my burgeoning friendship and co-teacher relationship with
the brilliant local poet Teré Chapman Fowler.
Teré was kind enough to allow me to share some of their journey
with Nikky and her work with you tonight.
Teré told me, quote, "I didn't believe in the magic that I
believe in now.
I didn't believe that these poems can be carefully crafted
and magically open doors that read
as closed, that these poems could catapult me into the sky,
and into a new city, into a new experience.
I didn't believe in colleges or universities
because it felt like they didn't believe in me.
During this time, I was sitting on the third floor
of this building.
During this time, I wrote poetry,
but I made a living saying welcome to Livingsocial my name
is Teré Fowler Chapman.
Can I have your email address?
Over and over and over again.
During this time, I would write poems and update my blog
any chance I could.
The blog, a reminder I was beyond just the voice
being used as a customer service machine.
During this time, my favorite poet was Nikky Finney.
I believed in her magic, I believed in storytelling, I
believed in myself.
I listen to all of her interviews.
I watched all of her videos on YouTube.
And I wanted more than anything my own copy
of Head Off & Split.
During this time, I had one of her quotes,
"You come from people that can fly," plastered on my cubicle.
I wrote poems and shook them loose,
and asked my storytelling to dance the way her truth dances.
I practiced performing and asked my voice
to gently land quietly the way hers gently landed quietly.
Her soft poems threw this inspiration in practice,
I found my own dance, my own landings, and my own poetry.
During this time, I received an email
that Ms. Finney had found my blog,
a blog that folks barely knew was there.
During this time I remember going back and forth
if it was really her, and how could this have happened,
and there was no way this was real.
During this time, I remember making the decision
to write her and say thank you.
During this time, she messaged me back.
And her message, she told me, "You
don't sound like anybody else, you
don't think like anybody else, you are wise and full
of a passionate heart.
I'm going to tell you what Toni Cade Bambara said to me when
I was 26.
OK, Nikky, so you can write pretty, so what?
So what's the plan for you and your pretty words?
Now I'm saying to you, OK, Teré, so you can write pretty.
So what's the plan for you, and your pretty world of words?
Take a deep breath.
Teré goes on to say, though Nikky told me explicitly not
to be foolish, the next day, I quit my job.
I became a poet.
[LAUGHTER]
And I became a teaching artist, and I became an organizer,
and I became an executive director.
And I became an artist of my craft, and I became a teacher.
And I became a college student, and I
became an assistant principal.
And I became something.
I became unafraid and affirmed the way
I felt when reading her poems.
And I would not have jumped the way
I jumped without those words from Ms. Finney.
[APPLAUSE]
So that is the story of how Nikky Finney and I have tangled
and traveled across eight years in several states,
and ended up with each other and with everyone gathered here
together, at the Poetry Center tonight.
And how along the way, Ms. Finney's
touched my daughter's life.
And by extension a class of fourth graders,
and the lives of my fierce queer women of color colleague
friends, and so many of my students and on and on.
Ms. Finney, thank you for always acknowledging and naming
our ancestors and kinfolk in all that you do.
I tingle every time I reach the point in your acceptance
speech, where you shout out your professor Dr. Gloria
Wade-Gayles, great and best teacher of my life.
My hope is that in my own practice,
I will someday be that teacher for somebody.
Like you, I believe in the power and wisdom of teachers.
I hold dear, and continue to be blessed by each of my Florida
public high school English teachers, who
took what my family made and what the universe gave
to help find me, to help me find pathways that eventually led me
to that office in Berea.
To your life, and mind altering poetry, and to the night
that is before us now thank you for being here
and thank you for not leaving the arena to the fools.
[APPLAUSE]