Nikki Giovanni's dog bit me and I didn't even make the cover.

Monday Morning Mementos

I’m standing in the hallway of Nikki Giovanni’s home outside of Blacksburg, VA sheepishly clutching a ziplock baggie of Aji Amarillo peppers from my garden that I brought with me for her and her partner. I haven’t officially met Nikki yet, but Ginney and I have just finished a tour of the property. A small meditative bench overlooks a koi pond on the side of the house. Ginney marks it as a special place for Nikki, but the dappled light is a bit too contrasty for a good portrait. Potted plants, mostly vegetables, crowd the back deck. Inside, the front room acts as part library and part museum. I’ll later learn that it’s particularly crowded right now as she sorts through all the books and materials she’s collected over a 35 year career at Virginia Tech. I identify the room as a place where an art director would want a portrait. The light sucks here, too, but unlike the pond, I’ll have to figure out how to make this work.

Ginny disappears into the back, and I’m left standing in the doorframe of the kitchen. Scanning. Scanning. Scanning. Always aware of my surroundings, I go into hyper-drive on assignment. There’s a small writing desk in the vestibule, a roll-top, and a plain but well-loved wooden chair to match. I had pre-visualized this chair in the lead-up to this shoot, so I was very happy to discover its existence.

Nikki’s dog has come to investigate the stranger in its house. It’s a Pomeranian, and barely half as tall as the baby gate it’s standing behind, tail wagging gleefully. Without thinking I reach down to give the little guy the pets he so desperately wants. The bite comes immediately and with precision, my hand not more than a few inches past the plane of the baby gate. He manages to get two of my fingers in his mouth before I rip my hand back with equal amounts of shock and pain. In the moment I let out a little laugh, knowing that there’s no way I mention this to Nikki or Ginney. The dog and I stand there for a few more minutes in a comedic stand-off, his tail still wagging gleefully, daring me to try again while I still feel the sting of his sharp teeth. Somehow he knows that I’ll keep my mouth shut.

When Nikki emerges a few minutes later she’s reserved, shy even. She speaks softly, and asks what the plan is. We start in the library. I want to tackle the tricky lighting first and buy myself a little more time for the sun to inch towards the horizon for our second setup. She gives me a tour of some of her memorabilia as I fumble with my camera settings like a true professional.

For her part, as soon as the camera comes to my face, Nikki knows what to do. She’s been here plenty of times and gives me exactly what she wants to give me and nothing more. Nikki humors me as I fulfill the art director’s request to provide a few images of her leafing through books. I hate this part. I notice the pull for the blinds in my viewfinder and do nothing about it in a little act of defiance—maybe they’ll also notice and not use the images. Joke’s on me. The joke is always on me. Of course they used this image.

Once we make our way outdoors both Nikki and I relax a little. I’ve managed to get what I need to satisfy my art director, and now I get to play. I ask Nikki if she knows my favorite poetry professor at William and Mary, Hermine Pinson, and she does. We talk about education, and how my wife is fighting the good fight. She talks about her career, Virginia Tech basketball, and the special mailbox that she and Ginney have just installed to protect their packages from porch pirates. At this point, I’m comfortable directing her, and asking more from our collaboration. I even manage to make a few jokes that get a genuine response—not often my strong suit.

I’m on a roll now, and I’m confident that I’ve got not one, but at least five cover worthy images, dare I even say ten. I start to shoot for black and white, even though I know they’ll never be published.

Finally, I make the ask. Let’s get Ginney out here.

After the shoot, I rush home and make prints to send their way as a thanks for their time. Shortly after, I get a hand-written thank you in the mail from Nikki. The only time that’s ever happened with an editorial subject.

And then I wait for weeks to hear which image gets chosen for the cover—of course I have strong opinions about which one it should be. I’ve delivered some great portraits of a living legend, but I’m still nervous. I wait. And I wait. And I wait. And then the email arrives: “The issue was sent to print a couple of days ago and they ultimately went a different direction for the cover. I was super bummed...I really loved those images of her against the grey background outside. Either way, the feature photos inside were great.” A few weeks later, I see the magazine. They’ve chosen an image of a salsa band for the cover. It’s objectively a terrible image that’s been over manipulated to fit the designer’s chosen color palette, but no doubt it hits an advertising demographic that a poet wouldn’t. I’ve lost five times as many covers as I’ve won, but this one fucking hurt. Nikki passed away a little over a year after I share this time with her, and the sting of her loss reignited my poetry journey, but mostly it serves to remind me of how small and inconsequential we all are in the end. Thanks for reading.