POET NIKKI GIOVANNI in a review of her new book of poems in today’s Times:
‘There is no / way not to like Black Americans,” she writes in “Lemonade Grows From Soil, Too.” “We try to practice love. / We use the chicken feet to make a stew; we take the scraps of / cloth to make the quilt. We find the song in the darkest days / to say ‘put on your red dress, baby, ‘cause we’re going out / tonight,’ understanding we may be lynched on the way home / but knowing between that cotton field and that house party / something wonderful has been shared.’
