The World is Round.

by Nikky Finey Inner Light publishing, January 2003 $14.95, ISBN 0-971-48904-1

Let's be frank, fibbin' has become a shameful part of daily discourse. Not just big lies either. But little white lies, brown lies, black lies, deceptions, misinformation, misnomers and falsehoods that litter our days and nights so much that "the benefit of the doubt" has almost become an archaic phrase left to the naive, the elderly and the foreigners among us. But just in time, and before we cast all hope to the wind, comes a ray of remembrance in the spirit of our grandmothers. Nikky Finney's long-awaited third collection of poetry (following 1985's On Wings Made of Gauze, and 1995's Rice) is a shining example of the truth that we dare hope will set us free. The 31 poems in the collection range from momentary observations to prosaic reflections on the past, the present, the family and strangers who make us who we are.

Finney explores such characters as Jacques Cousteau and Saartjie Baartman (the so-called Hottentot Venus), young black women internalizing the violence in their lives and grandmothers lingering over treasures found at the Salvation Army thrift store. Finney's best work takes a leapfrog hop of the extraordinary over the commonplace, as in "Coda," an examination of the often violent encroachment on her close-knit, South Carolina family:" Back then I / believed bombs came wrapped in Black churches*"

In "My Old Kentucky Home: Where the darkies are gay," whose title is taken from the lyrics of the official state song, Finney explores the rituals of young black boys and men burying their dead. "These invisible sons of invisible sons, these / grieving cornrowed eagles do not remove / their hats. They do turn the brims of them / around from front to back. (They have their / way and you have yours.)" Throughout, Finney's love and compassion is evident in her characteristically introspective words and observations. For those who have been eagerly anticipating this new work, take heart, The World is Round is certainly worth the wait.

--Samiya A. Bashir, editor of Best Black Women's Erotica 2, is a BIBR contributor.

BIBR talks to Nikky Finney

Poet Nikky Finney represents what my grandmother would have called "good people" in the best of ways--a kind-hearted, soft-spoken, gentle-minded soul unafraid to let the fire in her belly leap out and flick away at injustice. When I asked her about the notion of "good people," Finney took it to heart and reflected back to memories of her own grandmother.

"I'm fighting to hold on to that which was given to me," says Finney. "It's not easy in a world that gives accolades and abundance to so much of what is the opposite of what I am and who I am in the world. But I hold onto it, because I am my grandmother's child," she continues. "That's my root stone, so that wherever I go in the world I am never lost."

Slowly, we began to get around to talking about her work, and the process that went into weaving her latest collection of poetry, The World is Round.

BIBR: Why did you make us wait so long?

NF: You know, I write slow. I feel things so deeply that they really have to move through three or four different levels of understanding before they can be interpreted by my hand. This is something I didn't understand as a younger writer that I have come to know so clearly here, hopefully at a midpoint in my life. I really do feel things, move through the world, in a slow way. When I was younger slow was negative. I had to really come to terms with slow being good, and the way I do things.

How do you write?

I make time in my life for my work; I think that's how most of us do it. The first level is to just feel what I'm feeling. The second and third levels are waiting for the right words, because you don't choose them, the words choose you. Meanwhile you've got to know words. You've got to stay sharp with what you're looking for, and what words are. So there's this whole different level of keeping your antennae out and being abreast of what kind of craft person you want to be. In a way you're always trying to make your toolbox, keep it fat for things you don't even know you want to write, but you want to be ready.

How did The Worm is Round, as a collection, come about?

I thought I was writing as close to the bone as I could with Rice, but this wave of words, that has come to be known as The World is Round, started around my fortieth birthday. I had no idea how possible it was to actually reach the hand and the pencil inside to the very core of one's heart and say what I had to say about world affairs and about heart affairs with no apology and no hesitation. I didn't know I could do that. I didn't know I hadn't done that. I heard myself say: `You haven't been here before. This writing, you're touching new ground here and it's a ground so fertile that you might not touch it again' So I had to be willing to touch it and to be there and submerge myself in it and then entertain the thought of never going there again.

Tell me about the title, The World is Round?.

I live by the notion that what I put out into the world, in terms of work and words, comes back to me. I think that if more of the world understood the power of language, the power of your deeds, the power of what you say you're going to do then, we would not have this kind of worldwide, statewide, nationwide corruption.

I think it's as simple as that. It's as simple as saying you're going to do something and doing it-as believing what you say, believing in your word and taking somebody at their handshake or their hug.

I was raised by people like that. But I don't find that I'm living in that kind of world any more. The world is round not because Magellan said it was. The world is round because we are human beings and the circle is the most sacred symbol that there is. When we stand in a circle there is no hierarchy. We are all eye-to-eye with each other, shoulder to shoulder, no beginning no end.

Is there part of your poet-self that is a secret historian?

Oh absolutely. I came to know history on the porches in South Carolina with old folks telling stories. History came to me in the faces of people that I felt were left behind by society and its great love for that which is young and pristine.

I found history in the personal stories of my childhood and of my young adulthood, and then the stories of people who felt forgotten by a lot of the world. That's absolutely one of the reasons I'm a writer-I am historian; I am linguist; I am scientist; I am daughter; I am breaking peanuts and pulling alphabets out of the shell.

But definitely I am historian, and that's been since day one. That was the beginning impetus at 13 or 14; I wasn't writing for anyone to read it I was writing to remember.

As a Southern woman writing poetry, how do you feel your writing follows in the tradition of the South?

I hope the colors of that tradition are there in my words.... I would not be here were it not for that bright, brilliant tradition of writing.

It's very important this thing called tradition. It is also extremely important that a writer not be bound by that which she has rocketed out of. I hope that in between those same colors, and in between those same fragrances, I step clear and strong into my own sound and sensibility.

As a poet and a teacher, what is the most important lesson or message that you try to impart to your students and readers?

It is absolutely about the truth. When a writer, of any age, finally makes it across the line where they can tell the truth, and not look over their shoulder to worry about who heard it, that is when you can exhale.

Whenever you can tell your truth without fear of those eyes and ears on you, then you can, maybe not exhale, but maybe then you can truly call yourself a writer--and not a moment before.