Filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson have created an exhaustively comprehensive documentary portrait of one of America’s most enduring and controversial literary giants, Nikki Giovanni. This captivating Sundance Awarded film from HBO Documentaries brings the life of this prolific artist and activist to the big screen through the writer’s own words and those of family, friends and fellow wordsmiths.
Selected poems are read over archival footage, with the voice of multi -award winning actress Taraji P. Henson lending her distinctive dramatic voice to Giovanni’s highly energized poetry. Henson also served as an Executive Producer of the film.
Going To Mars traces the development of her highly individualized voice from her roots in segregated Tennessee, to her later emergence as a unique voice in the Black Power movement.
The title of the film comes from a poem, “Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea (We’re Going to Mars)” from her book Poems and Not Quite Poems, written in 2010.
It reads in part:
We’re going to Mars for the same reason Marco Polo rocketed to China,
For the same reason Columbus trimmed his sails on a dream of spices….
We’re going to Mars because Peary couldn’t go to the North Pole without Matthew Henson,
Because Chicago couldn’t be a city without Jean Baptiste DuSable……
We’re going to Mars because whatever is wrong with us will not get right with us…..
We’re going to Mars because it gives us reason to change.
Giovanni firmly believes that Black people and Black women in particular, are uniquely qualified to lead the first manned space mission to Mars.
“My position to NASA is that you’ve got to get more black women involved. Because if there’s life on Mars, the first thing a Black woman’s gonna say is ‘Are you hungry, baby? Did you have anything to eat?’ You can go anyplace and a Black woman’s gonna say that to you.”
Going to Mars is sprinkled with bon mots of wisdom and irony throughout. Evidence these remarks from a 1978 public television interview:
“I would hate to think of myself as a prophet. Prophets die. “But don’t we all?” said the interviewer.
“But they (the prophets) do it sooner,” Giovanni counters with classic irony.
“What I’m trying to do is bring out a reality. I’m what they call a personal poet. I try to bring out the personality of my life. I come from people like my parents, who are good people. Because they’re black people. And black people are good people. And from that goodness, we can create a Revolution.
“The Revolution isn’t a reaction to ‘whiteness,’ but a forward thrust of Blackness.”
One gem that runs throughout the documentary is a conversation between a 28 year old Giovanni and the 47 year old world famous novelist James Baldwin gleaned from Ellis Haizlip’s WNET television program “Soul”, recorded in 1971.
In the discussion, which lasted over two one-hour programs, the pair discussed the role of Black men in society.
” I had to watch what my father had to endure to raise nine chlldren on $27.50 a week,” Baldwin confessed to the young poet.
“As a kid, I didn’t know what he was going through. I didn’t know why he was impossible to live with. Why he was always in a rage.
“It was because he couldn’t say then, what our kids can say today; ‘I don’t like white people and I don’t want to work for them.’ He couldn’t say anything or his children didn’t eat!”
The film charts the changes in Giovanni’s views over the years on black rights, the plight of black women, the environment, and society in general, as she approaches age 80.
A couple of turning points involving uncomfortable developments in her life are also faced head on. One of them involved her criticism of high profile black leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Harry Belafonte over their protests against South African apartheid.
Giovanni felt that their efforts were disingenuous, considering the plight of Black Americans at home.
Another uncomfortable moment addressed by the film involved her battle against breast cancer.
During one of her many university appearances, she confronted an upcoming mastectomy with her characteristic acerbic wit. “I’ve done just about everything I’m going to do with that t*t for the past 74 years, so go ahead and take the t*t!”
Giovanni’s 2010 poem Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea and her preoccupation with Black people traveling to Mars actually attracted the attention of NASA officials.
“I got to meet Dr. Charles Bolden, the first Black head of NASA. He’s so cute, and so nice. He liked my poem and asked if he could use it for a project he was doing regarding going to Mars, and I said ‘Yes.’
“About a month later, I got a call from his office asking me to send an invoice. “You mean they’re going to pay me to use my poem?’ I said. So I responded, ‘This is what I want; I just want to meet Dr. Bolden.’ That was the payoff”
Having now turned 80, Nikki Giovanni has retired from her position at Virginia Tech, where she has taught for 37 years. “Right now, I’m into physics. That’s what I’m really studying because the galaxy is expanding, and if the galaxy is expanding, that means the Earth is expanding, and soon we’re going to become a Black Hole.”
Her conclusion is that in order to survive, the inhabitants of this planet just might need to go to Mars.
Which leads us back to the original focus of this article. How realistic is the author’s dream of sending Black people to Mars? It’s a concept that challenges the boundaries of reason. But then, it wouldn’t be Nikki Giovanni, would it?
From HBO Documentaries, streaming now on PrimeVideo. Visit HBO.com and filmlinc.org for more.
