Fav Photos

(Bold caps are the names of Nikki's poems and/or book titles and CD titles)

Photo: Pantene Total You Tour, Philadelphia. Nikki invited Oni to rap Dunbar's We Wear The Mask for MC Lyte. 

IF I KNEW NIKKI, The Poem 

If I knew Nikki, she would say "keep walking in the light Oni, read my poems, listen to every recording I left 'specially for you & everyone who has SOULLLL"

Thanks to Apple Music...I do. I am. I can. 

I always will....Remember Nikki Giovanni.

Who wrote a poem called, WHEN I DIE, to poke fun at our destiny. My heart is buried in the somber jazz riffs of JAVON & NIKKI GO TO THE MOVIES.

But right now, I'm under a coconut tree & I sure can't be in Christiansburg, Virginia to celebrate THE LEGACIES, THE POETRY OF NIKKI GIOVANNI.  

Dag! Oh how I want to wear my everyday best & smile & hug whoever Nikki called a friend or family

YES, I heard Nikki & she told me about myself....its true, EGO TRIPPIN' was my high school graduation chant & I still be trippin'.

 If I really knew Nikki...you already know....I saved every letter she ever wrote to me & responded with chapters of my life in response to hers...because one thing I knew about Nikki....she loved to read.

Not that I could understand her handwriting...it had to be published like BLACK FEELING/BLACK TALK...it was challenging....alien penmanship cause she was from MARS.

If I knew Nikki...it was 'cuz I could SHIMMY SHIMMY SHIMMY...LIKE MY SISTER KATE

Fo' sho...Nikki gloried in her own hallaluyour choir in THE WAY I FEEL about Paul Laurence Dunbar, who brought us together...in 1998...to create what was old...into moments of new.

HIP HOP SPEAKS TO CHILDREN.....was a brilliant point of view, showing off a Tupac tattoo.

She knew how we be, she knew how we cook, she knew how we smelled, she knew...KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE to say can you see Amerikka.....what we been going through?

Rest In Poetic Peace Nikki... I will never sing the blues over you...knowing you was LIKE A RIPPLE ON A POND....still moving, forever doin' what we poets do.

You didn't write JUST ANY POEM....you channel your childhood with KIDS STUFF too.

You're sleeping now, but I be feelin' ya play cous...like COTTON CANDY ON A RAINY DAY.

If I knew Nikki - I'd know why she proliferated, pontificated, elaborate....on THE REASON I LIKE CHOCOLATE....as if she really needed a reason... while offering up.... down to earth for real doe memories of NIKKI ROSA

A eternal ACOLYTE serving up THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO NIKKI GIOVANNI...as she spoke on, about & around the SCRAPBOOKS of her/our Black Experience since....whenever.

 Yeah...Nikki knew....TRUTH IS ON ITS WAY....now &  back in the day.

Nikki traveled...as she was QUILTING THE BLACK EYE PEAS....living the BLUES, FOR ALL THE CHANGES especially IN PHILADELPHIA, where one of her endless quotes is a work of art...nuevo graffiti on the side of a brick building on 52nd street.

If I knew Nikki...she'd know me. As one of THE GIRLS IN THE CIRCLE...cuz we ham boned Gwen Brooks, "We Real Cool" poem.....together at Virginia Tech studio's with your friend, Val Gray Ward.

NOW is a memory, but when I get home.... I'm going to my old stomping ground....52nd street.

Stand under Nikki's mural...put one hand on my hip, the other hand under my chin....have my Don Juan take a picture of me, ego trippin'  again.

"I would not reject my strength/though its source is not choice/but responsibility.....Nikki Giovanni

In the corner I'll write a note for Nikki G...in the black n' white of Sharon's photography.

Like I use to & will forever do...the do.

Always Thinking of You

Oni

(c) 12/17/2024 If I Knew Nikki by Oni Lasana