While we're on poetry....

Nikki Giovanni will be reading tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the LoDo Tattered Cover. Afterward, I'm honored to be hosting a little reception for her (I'll post pictures). Since we've been talking about poetry lately and in honor of Ms. Giovanni's appearance, I thought I'd post this poem she wrote for Nina Simone:

The Genie in the Jar

take a note and spin it around spin it around don't

prick your finger

take a note and spin it around

on the Black loom on the Black loom

careful baby

don't prick your finger

take the air and weave the sky

around the Black loom around the Black loom

make the sky sing a Black song sing a blue song

sing my song make the sky sing a Black song

from the Black loom from the Black loom

careful baby

don't prick your finger

take the genie and put her in a jar

put her in a jar

wrap the sky around her

take the genie and put her in a jar

wrap the sky around her

listen to her sing

sing a Black song our Black song

from the Black loom

singing to me

from the Black loom

careful baby

don't prick your finger

From The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni 1968-1998 (which features a fascinating discussion between Giovanni and Jill Scott)

KUVO

Thank you Susan Gatschet Reese for a wonderful interview! The rest of the staff was in a meeting so we couldn't do a photo of the 2 of us together.

One of the posters at KUVO letting me know I was definitely in the right place!

I was especially happy to hear the tune "O Nina" by jazz vocalist Rene Marie! What a great tribute to Nina Simone!

In memory

Today is a day I remember two women. The first: my mother, who died on this date 16 years ago. She was the age I will turn in May (God willing). Ever since I was 28, I've been haunted by the idea that I might die the same way she did (of breast cancer) and at the same age she did. It looks like I'm going to make it past the age she was when she died (God willing). And who knows how I'll go? Perhaps this is one fear it's time to let loose. A poem by Lucille Clifton says it better than I ever could:



poem on my fortieth birthday to my mother who died young



well i have almost come to the place where you fell
tripping over a wire at the forty-fourth lap
and i have decided to keep running.
head up, body attentive, fingers
aimed like darts at first prize, so
i might not even watch out for the thin thing
grabbing toward my ankles but
i'm trying for the long one mama,
running like hell and if i fall
i fall.



The other woman I commemorate today is Nina Simone, who was born on this date 75 years ago.



On the surface these two women seem to have nothing in common. Nina Simone, born in the south, a piano protege, a voice like no other, mother to one daughter. My mother, born and raised in the midwest, not famous, couldn't sing, mother of three children. But they were both larger than life characters. Each one just...herself. Each one an inspiration. Each one on my mind and in my heart today.

If you knew Nina

Shauna Roberts asks, "I've been wondering, Carleen, since I'm not familiar with Nina Simone's music, whether you think I would enjoy your book more if I got a Nina Simone album before I read it?"

First of all, sounds like you're going to read Orange Mint and Honey, and for that I thank you!! To answer your question, I don't think the reader really needs to know Nina Simone in order to get her role in my book. However, to not know Nina Simone would really be a loss (and knowing her music probably would increase your enjoyment of the story). So, yes, pick up a CD or two or check out several of her videos on my website where I have sort of a Nina Simone primer.

I had a glass of wine the other night with Bella Stander and Karen Mack who was in town (with her writing partner Jennifer Kaufman) to promote A Version of the Truth (They also wrote Literacy and Longing in LA). When I told Karen that Nina Simone is in my novel, she said something like, "Is Nina Simone having a recurrence? It seems like people are talking about her more." I thought it was just me--being sensitive to Nina sightings (like the reference in Before Sunset) because I was writing about her. As we were discussing it, a young waitress stopped and asked "Are you guys talking about Nina Simone? Did I hear you say her daughter sings?" So sometimes it does seem like Nina Simone and her fans are everywhere.

Just curious: How many of you know Nina Simone's music?

Thanks Shauna for the question!

Simone on Simone

I know I said I'd post about N2, but first a little more about N1.

Nina Simone's daughter, who performs under the name Simone, releases her debut album in March (according to O Magazine). It's called "Simone on Simone." From what I've heard, she's got a dynamite voice (you can hear tracks here, and be sure to check out the hair). Now there's a mother-daughter story! I wonder what Simone (aka Lisa Celeste Stroud) would think of her mother's role as a fairy godmother to Shay in Orange Mint and Honey?

Fried

Haven't been gardening (too bloody hot!). Behind on N2. And damn tired. BUT, there is good news: a high of only 80 today and high 70s tomorrow! That should help. So does this: "Ain't Got No...I've Got Life" by the High Priestess of Soul herself. By the time she throws her hands in the air at the end, you'll know you can go on one more day. (And, if you need to, come back tomorrow and watch it again.)

Spiritual guides

In Orange Mint and Honey, Nina Simone watches over Shay, acting as a a straight-talking Glinda the Good Witch guiding her toward her truth. Nina and Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Bessie Smith, Mildred Bailey and Etta James are Shay's spiritual mamas, their wise words and soulful melodies the only guidance she ever had.

While I wrote Orange Mint, I kept a framed picture of Zora Neale Hurston above my desk. She wears a cool black fedora and looks down at me--guiding me toward my truth. Don't believe me? The agent I signed with for Orange Mint manages Hurston's estate.

In Praise of Nina Simone

The professor taught us to worship the great men of jazz, but it was the women who drew me in: Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Bessie Smith, Mildred Bailey. They were queens, priestesses, goddesses — encouraging me, pointing me away from danger, schooling me in the ways of life. Especially Nina Simone.
From Orange Mint and Honey (Ballantine 2008)

That’s my character Shay Dixon speaking about the late Nina Simone, who would have turned 74 today.

Known as the High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone was fierce, brave and maybe a touch crazy (actually, she might have been clinically depressed or might have suffered from borderline personality disorder).

She was a black woman who wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in 1963 after four little girls were bombed in a church in Birmingham. She was a dark-skinned woman who put the words “Young, Gifted and Black” together at a time when many black folks couldn’t imagine gifted and black being used in the same sentence. Raised in a tiny town in the Jim Crow South, she grew up to stand on stages around the world in front of wealthy white folks and command their attention (and sometimes berated them if they didn’t give it to her).

In other words, she did things you’d have to be brave and maybe a touch crazy to do. May we all be so brave and crazy.

At the beginning of my novel Shay listens to Nina Simone’s version of "House of the Rising Sun" and it sets her on an unexpected path back to her mother. (You can watch Nina Simone performing the song here.)

Interesting coincidence: Nina Simone is a mother-figure for Shay, and my mother died on Nina Simone’s birthday (which I didn’t know when Nina Simone first appeared to me as a character). So yes, today is also the anniversary of when my mother passed, six days after she turned 45.

Happy Birthday Dr. Nina Simone. And here’s to all our queens, priestesses, goddesses, mothers of the spirit, play-mamas and real mamas!