(ambient music) - I wanted to start this conversation going back to your first reading at Birdland.

And that story was really interesting to me about how that came to be.

Can you recount that moment for our viewers?

- Sure, I'll never forget.

My mother's a jazz fan.

And so when my second book came out, "Black Judgement," I thought, "Well, what would be the most perfect place "to have the debut of that book?"

And I thought, Birdland.

And Birdland was down.

That's in the old days when Birdland was down.

And it's New York, you know.

And, of course, the "New York Times" was up.

So a lot has changed since then.

But I just went and went down.

Because on Mondays, almost nobody's in the clubs.

And I just went downstairs and said, "You know, I'd like to meet Mr.

Logan."

Because Logan and Wilson Pickett owned Birdland.

- Okay.

- And he said, "I'm Harold Logan; who are you?"

And, "I'm Nikki Giovanni.

"I'm a poet and I'd like to have a reading at your club."

And he just looked at me like, what?

And I said, "Well, you know, you're closed on Sunday."

That's in the old days when they were closed on Sunday.

Said, "You're closed on Sunday, so I was thinking "to have a reading at your club on Sunday "if it's okay with you."

He said, "Well, what you gonna pay me?"

I said, "Oh, Mr. Logan, I don't have any money; I'm a poet."

(Nikki laughs) You know, that's a silly question.

And so he thought about it for minute I guess and said, "If that fool is crazy enough "to come down here and ask me."

He said, "Well, I tell you what.

"You bring me 100 people and you can have the club.

"99 people and you'll owe me $500."

I said, "Well, thank you."

And we shook hands.

It's one of those like, "Oh, was that wise?"

And so, I started working on it.

You know, you can get 100 people to do anything.

Well, you can.

But where the club is and the way it goes.

So on Sunday...

I had Morgan Freeman was my next door neighbor, Novella Nelson, Barbara Ann Teer.

So I knew a lot of people, and they all agreed to read.

And so the line starts, and then the line turned.

And when they did that, the "New York Times" was wondering, "Well, what are those mostly Black people doing down there?"

So they sent a reporter down.

And he said, you know, "I'm looking for Nick Giovanni."

And he finally got to me.

He said, "I'm looking for Nick Giovanni."

I said, "Well, I'm Nikki Giovanni."

He said, "No, no, where is he?"

It's just the way people looked at things.

I said, "Well."

I figured, "He'll find out eventually" - He'll figure it out; he'll the picture.

- But they did, because of the line and everything, it got a headline in the what they called the extra, the second.

Because nobody had seen a poet bring that, you know, to bring that many people into a club.

It was great.

- So you held up your end of the deal?

- I did.

- You didn't owe Mr. Logan $500.

You brought over 100 people.

- Yeah, much over.

- And a new audience to Birdland.

I wanna fast forward to today, when the truths are not being told about history, books are being banned, you seek to continue to share the truth about history.

Your documentary, "Going to Mars," definitely reflects an accurate depiction of history.

But you just recently worked with Javon Jackson from the Jazz Messengers on a project, "The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni," where you present sacred or gospel hymns and jazz.

What was the importance to you of focusing on those particular genres?

- Well, first of all, I was a good friend of Nina Simone.

And one of her favorite songs was "Night Song."

So I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to do something with it?"

And Javan had said...

I had said to Jovan, "You know, we ought to do something, "spirituals or something together."

And he said, "You know, I was thinking the same thing."

I don't know if he was or wasn't, or just trying to be nice.

But we decided, let's do it.

He said, "Why don't you send me 10 or or 12 tunes?"

And I sent them, but the only song that was not a spiritual was "Night Song."

And I said, "This is one of Nina's songs," which I knew because I knew Nina, and it's the only song... 'Cause I can't sing.

And I said that to him, "I'm not a singer, "but this is a song I want to sing."

And he called me back.

He said, "Well, Nikki, you know, it's a lot of people "that are making records that can't sing, "so you're not alone."

I said, "Javan, I don't know "if you should say it like that."

I really love him.

- So you've taken these words, these stories, and put it into this documentary.

It's a must see, "Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project."

And it does a great job of reflecting on the past, examining the present, and taking a little sneak peek into the future, telling the story of your life.

I watched it, and I could not watch it without stopping and pressing rewind over.

I didn't make it past the first 30 minutes.

I was pressing rewind over and over again and just taking in the content.

And I promise, if you watch it again, you're gonna learn something new.

How did you initially feel about having a documentary about your life created?

- I was against it.

And Rada Studio and Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson brought that to us.

But to come to me, you have to go through Ginny Fowler because she handles all of that.

And Michelle called Ginny and said, "We'd like to do this documentary."

Our office is small.

It's three people, and Gloria is the other as our attorney.

And so I said, "Well, I'm gonna call Gloria "and see what she thinks."

Because Ginny had already said, "I want it.

"I think you should do it."

And I called Gloria, and Gloria said "Nik, you should do it."

So I was like, "How did I get outvoted in my own company?"

(Cecelia and Nikki laugh) But I was outvoted, so I just got out of the way.

And I would say that to any artist, anywhere.

I did my work, because I created the work.

And I had to have some faith in the people that were gonna do something else with it.

And I did, I had faith that Ginny and Gloria are gonna make the right decision, because that's what they do.

We've been together for 50 years or more now.

And it was just important to not...

I don't know film, so it was important for me not to do something that I don't know.

So I just stepped back and let them do it.

So they were the ones.

Michele, essentially, was the one that thought, "Okay, this is what's important," because I'm a space freak.

And I know that as we go to the future, honestly, there has to be life in the galaxy because anything else is illogical.

And I would say that if I were teaching the class, when I was teaching.

To think that only the third planet from the yellow sun is the only life in this galaxy is illogical.

It doesn't work, it's wrong.

And if that's illogical, that means that you have to look for, what is the other life?

And what I think that we need to be telling our children, Nina says, "to be young, gifted and Black."

I think that we need to remind life forms, us, on this planet that we are all earthlings, and that what we share is not the color of our skin or our gender or our religion, none of these things.

What we share is that we live on this planet, which means we should treat each other better.

And I think we should start in preschool to say, when the kids say, you know, "Who are you," the answer is, "I'm an earthling."

So that when they go into... Because somebody's going.

We have people in space, and somebody's going beyond that into the galaxy.

And when some other life form says, "Who are you," the answer has to be, "We're earthlings."

Because nothing else will make sense to them.

If we said, "Oh, I come from Detroit," they'd be looking at you like, what?

I mean they're not against it, you know, but "What, what's a Detroit?"

- Our basic form is, we're an earthling.

We're human beings.

- We're an earthling.

And then we saying, "Where are you?"

Say, "I'm a Jupitarian."

But I'm a big fan of Mars, because we know that there was water on Mars.

That we know because we can see it.

If you look at Mars, you can see where the rivers were.

And again, logically speaking, Mars burned itself up which we, as we're speaking, are in danger of doing.

Because it only takes a couple of nuclear bombs and we're gone.

- Right.

- And we'll be the same way.

And so you have to learn, what else is out there?

What do we learn from what is out there?

And how do we learn to get along with it?

Which is why the documentary starts with, "The only way to understand space is through Black women."

- Well, I was wondering if, before you leave, if you would read a poem for us from your book?

- Oh, I'd be delighted.

"I suppose living in a materialistic society "Luxury to some would be having more than what you need.

"Living in an electronic age "Seeing the whole world by pushing a button "To the nth degree might perhaps be adequately represented "By having someone there to push the buttons for you.

"I have thought if only I could become rich and famous "I would live luxuriously in New York "Knowing famous people, eating in expensive restaurants "Calling long distance anytime I want.

"But you held me on5 evening "And now I know the ultimate luxury of your love"