JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Each week, a well-known guest draws a card from our Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. Nikki Giovanni is one of America's most admired poets. She's won the NAACP Image Award seven times and was named by Oprah as one of 25 living legends. But Nikki mostly doesn't dwell on those accolades, as she tells Wild Card host Rachel Martin.
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RACHEL MARTIN: One, two, three.
NIKKI GIOVANNI: OK, three.
MARTIN: Three. Do you think about the legacy that you will leave behind?
GIOVANNI: No.
MARTIN: Wow, I'm surprised by that answer.
GIOVANNI: Yeah. Yeah.
MARTIN: Huh.
GIOVANNI: You know, 'cause it gets you caught up in your life, and that's not what your - your life is not about your life. Your life is about your duty. And so no, I don't think about it, you know?
MARTIN: Have you seen people get too caught up in preemptively analyzing their legacy?
GIOVANNI: Oh, I've seen a lot. As I say, I know a lot of famous people, and they're - oh, you know, I wonder what my stamp would look like. I'll be dead, so it doesn't matter. No, I'm serious.
MARTIN: Someone did not say that to you.
GIOVANNI: And - yeah.
MARTIN: Oh, wow.
GIOVANNI: And so you just - like, no. No. I'm just glad when me and cancer wake up - and now when me and cancer and pneumonia wake up. And one day we won't. And I don't know. Maybe I'll be sad. Maybe not. I don't know. It's interesting. My friend, Toni Morrison, whom I do and still do love so very much - and my favorite Toni Morrison, among other things, is "Sula." And when Sula is dying, she says, oh, wait till I tell Nel - 'cause Nel is her best friend. And she says, wait till I tell Nel it doesn't hurt. Wait till I tell Nel.
MARTIN: Let me ask this question in a different way then, though. I get what you're saying that you don't want to get wrapped up in your ego. You don't want to think about, you know, whoa, I'm so important. People are going to remember me. What are they going to write on my tombstone? What are they - all the great accolades they're going to give me? But are there moments when you think back on your life and allow yourself moments to feel proud?
GIOVANNI: Oh, I - there are moments that I feel proud because I've worked hard. And I think the word that means - as you probably also have heard in this conversation - a lot to me is duty.
MARTIN: Yeah.
GIOVANNI: And when I went to the opening of the African American Museum in D.C...
MARTIN: Yeah.
GIOVANNI: ...You go around and around. I certainly recommend anybody doing it. And I had forgotten because a lot of those things I don't handle and I'm not interested in. I forgot we gave permission to use my poetry and gave permission to use my - and it's not something - if you start paying attention to that, you'd be crazy.
MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah.
GIOVANNI: And when I turned to the right, there was a photograph of me. And I just automatically - and it brings tears to my eyes. I automatically just turned over my shoulder to my left to say, look, Grandmother, I did my duty. And - yeah. I - and that still amazes me that I did - I mean, I just - it's like she was there. I did my duty. And that's what matters to me.
SUMMERS: That's poet Nikki Giovanni talking to NPR's Rachel Martin. Hear more from that conversation by following the Wild Card podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAURYN HILL SONG, "SWEETEST THING") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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