"Listen, the great Nikki Giovanni was protected. Inside the church, you can hear it. In the dusty silence, you can hear it. In the electric texture of the crowd, the buzz of the instruments, you can hear it. What you hear and feel is safe in the belly of the blues. Her voice loved like hands on the ivory keys of the church organ deep inside the spell of gospel. Nikki Giovanni is a poet at the pulpit righteous with spirit and energy. A poet in the choir hypnotized with the sound of the past, present and future. Nikki Giovanni inspires a new language rising out of the desolate and uncertain seventies." ' Camae Ayewa aka Moor Mother (Irreversible Entanglements)