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Nikky Finneys poetry collection Head Off & Split won the 2011 National Book Award, and her extraordinary acceptance speech is now part of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. Finney, 59, who is writing two poems for the 2016 espnW: Women + Sports Summit, talks with Allison Glock about her work, about growing up as an athlete -- she played basketball at Talladega (Alabama) College -- and the unique ways sports fortify women.Allison Glock: What drew you into sports?Nikky Finney: I noticed as a girl how my brothers had the freedom to sit in a chair. They could put their feet up. They could lean back. They could stretch. They could do all manner of gymnastic things. I was told, Be still, keep your dress down, keep your legs closed -- all of the things girls are always taught. This began to circulate in my mind and heart, the freedom of movement.AG: Sports allow women to break out. NF: Yes. If I play sports, I can just move. In the backyard of my moms house I made a pit for pole vaulting.AG: Pole vaulting? Wow. NF: I played basketball. I ran track. And I played tennis. I was the only black girl on the tennis team.AG: When was this? NF: I was in high school from 1972 to 1975.AG: That couldnt have been easy at that time.NF: Tennis, its a sport of privilege and money, usually. I was like, Im changing this! Lets put a little color in this sport in Sumter, South Carolina. [Laughs] I was determined.I didnt give up. I was a quick study. I was athletic, I was agile, I was quick. So if I was on your team, you wanted me on your team because I was going to go till the buzzer rang.AG: What influenced you the most when it came to sports? NF: Cynthia Nell was my middle school coach, and as a seventh grader she put me on the varsity girls basketball team. Her doing that changed my life because I knew she saw me. She said, Youre not great yet, but the promise is there. Somebody looking at my promise at that age as an athlete -- it mattered to me. And it still matters.AG: It goes back to what you were saying about gender expectations and longing to be seen as something more than a just a girl. NF: I loved how sport got me out of the house. I loved how it taught me how to take my quiet self and link arms and hands with other people -- how it teaches all of us how to play together.AG: If youre an athlete, you can expand in every direction. NF: Yes! But if Im just a girl in the world, there are rules.AG: Did you like competition? NF: I dont think I was fierce enough.AG: That seems hard to believe. NF: [Laughs] You remember in the Olympics this year, when the runner fell? [American Abbey DAgostino stopped to help New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin after a fall during a qualifying heat of the womens 5,000 meters.] Thats me. I love that moment. I have replayed that moment over and over in my head 1,000 times because I was not really fierce enough to leave somebody in the dust just to be first place. I was a poet who played basketball. My humanity always pulled me back.AG: So sport wasnt about victory for you.NF: No. I played because I loved the feeling of being spent. I loved the feeling of being drenched in sweat. But I dont feel like Im in competition with another human being. I dont think thats why Im here. Id rather be in conversation than competition. Whoa!AG: That was a good line! NF: It was! [Laughs] My basketball coach in college told me, Nikky, you think too much. Shoot the ball. He was right. I would have the ball in my hand and I would go, Well I could bounce it or bank it or twirl it or I could pass it ... Contemplative, my entire life.AG: Were you unable to get out of your head with other sports, like track? NF: No. Running is a really different thing. The body is in motion and you just go. For me, running was all body.AG: Do you watch sports now? NF: I like to watch tennis. I love womens basketball. I love basketball, period. I love watching athletes compete. The WNBA, college ball. USC [the University of South Carolina, where Finney teaches] has an amazing womens basketball team.AG: Do you go see the games in person?NF: Yes!AG: Do you wear a jersey? NF: I dont wear a jersey, but I do go and scream for them.AG: There probably arent a lot of National Book Award-winning poets screaming in the stands for womens college hoops. NF: Have you noticed how when it comes to sports, women are always called girls? Still. In 2016. In mens sports, theyre called men.AG: Our culture seems to have a lot invested in keeping women in the girl box. President Obama said recently, Theres a reason why we havent had a woman president. We as a society still grapple with what it means to see powerful women, and it still troubles us in a lot of ways, unfairly. NF: Yes. And its everywhere, its not just the presidency. Whos in charge? We have a problem in this country about women being in charge. Can she handle it? Will she fall apart? Gender-ridden questions.AG: Speaking of, one thing I find uniquely valuable for women about sports and being an athlete is how it alters your relationship with your body -- how it mutes the whole issue of gender. NF: Yes! Holy moly. Because the world is telling you one thing about your body. And the game, the sweat, the activity, is telling you another thing.AG: When you play sports, your body is something you control and test. It is not about being received by a gaze. Its about what it can do. NF: As a finely tuned instrument. Thats important. Again, movement, the freedom to move, a reason to move -- to be a girl and to be active was really against the grain that I was taught, and what I saw around me.AG: When you were coming up, did your mother make you wear tights? NF: Ohhh, yes: tights and little lace dresses I couldnt stand. I had a Christmas muff that you put your hands in. That I lost.AG: The muff went missing. NF: I think I buried it in the backyard.AG: As a young adult, did you have any preoccupation with your appearance or beauty?NF: Oh, my God. My mother is the most beautiful woman in the world, period, end of story. She would just come in a room and the room would go: [Gasps]. I didnt see myself in that lane at all. I was plain and a tomboy.AG: Yeah, you were real plain. NF: [Laughs] I just wasnt any of the things that they tell girls to be. I was a nerd. I was square. I was always with pencils and books. I wasnt like, the cool girl, you know. I hated makeup -- never wore it. Theres a Def Jam Poetry reading where they told me I couldnt go on TV without wearing makeup. I had flown up from Kentucky to New York and I was like, OK, lets do it. And then I couldnt get the makeup off. [Laughs] I went in the shower, I was scraping. This isnt who I am. Ive always liked to be my natural self.AG: Thats a really hard thing for women to do. Not just about appearance but in general. NF: Thats why sports are so important. I wish we lived in a society where all girls got access to sports activities. It troubles me that we dont. It makes me mad as hell, actually.AG: Do you think back on certain games or plays from your competition days? NF: Yes! One game in particular. Alice Drive, junior high school. The game is tied 43-43. Someone fouls me. I go to the foul line to shoot two free throws. To the left of me is my father. I look over at him standing at the line and he goes, [holds up two fingers.] And I go, I only need one. And he puts two fingers up. So I make the first one. Id won the game! And I look at him, and he mouths, Two.AG: What did that communicate to you? NF: The lesson for me was, its not about winning the game. Its about doing your best in every situation, even after the game is won. My father still talks about that game. Hes been diagnosed with dementia at 85 years old. Hes lost some memory of more recent things. But that game? That game he remembers.AG: Was your family as supportive of your becoming a writer as they were of your athletic pursuits? NF: They supported it, but they were also fearful because it took me out of pocket.AG: It made you different. NF: Because a girl wasnt supposed to be that curious. People were like, Why are you always asking questions?AG: [Laughs] I can relate. Tell me the first time you had to read out loud. When was that? NF: My early 20s. I was in Atlanta, reading alongside the great short story writer Toni Cade Bambara. We were in a community room and I was sweating bullets.AG: What got you through it? NF: Id been used to pressure from playing basketball. I did ask my grandmother for advice. I said, Im always nervous. How do I stop this? And she said, Why would you want to stop it?AG: Ooooh. Thats good. NF: Right? She told me when that happens, you know you are doing what you are supposed to be doing.AG: I might take that one home with me.NF: You may have it. My grandmother gave me a sense of myself in the world, and I always go back to that. She told me to listen to my belly, that there is wisdom you get from your body. Thats why I believe so powerfully in taking care of myself because if I dont do that, then none of this other stuff works. I walk 5 miles every morning.AG: At your house you have your old basketball trophies: Most Valuable Player. Most Improved ...NF: Thats my favorite! MVP, you know, its nice. But most improved? Thats what I took to poetry: Keep working. Im not the poet I want to be yet. And that most-improved tag reminds me every time I look at it that I can keep getting better all the way to the end.AG: How are you not the poet you want to be yet? NF: My desire as a poet is that I want you to see what Im writing. If I fail at that, then I feel like the poem has failed. This isnt just for me. Im really working on the exchange. Im very visual. I watch a lot of movies.AG: Do you watch much television? NF: Like what?AG: Anything. Pop trash? NF: No. I dont have the patience for it. I love cooking shows. [Laughs] But I dont have the patience for the low-brow stuff.I believe what we take in, we put out. [Laughs] Thats a bad line. Last night, oh my God, I had this most amazing dream about two red peacocks walking in a forest and theres a young guy who is shooting a bow and arrow, and he shoots them by mistake. And I am trying my best to save the two red peacocks. And I wake up, drenched. Im just spent. Where did that dream come from? I dont know. Im still trying to figure it out.AG: Maybe the dream is about your parents. NF: My mom loves peacocks. But I dont think it was that. I think it was about how Im feeling about America, how mad I am at us.AG: Its an incredibly divisive time.NF: We dont talk about things enough. We dont have dinner at the same table anymore. We have to not be afraid of each other.AG: It seems like theres a whole movement where were putting people in really tiny boxes. NF: Yes. On all sides. I hate boxes.AG: What do you tell the women in your poetry writing class about holding onto their voice? NF: Every time I go into my classroom, those students are sitting there and I want to give them the right thing. I had a student years ago, for instance, who came into class with a very, very short skirt on, and she was uncomfortable. She kept crossing her legs and pulling her skirt down. So after class I said, Sweetheart, if Im out of line tell me, but you seem a little uncomfortable. And she said, This skirt is just so short and I wish I had a pair of pants. So, we went to Target. And we bought a couple pair of pants. Forty bucks. Somebody else might need my philosophy on Buddhism ...AG: ... and somebody may just need permission to wear pants. Youve said you dont write for applause, that it is about sharing something that matters.NF: Yes! So Im in Philadelphia, doing a reading. I finish and a woman comes up and she goes, How many black women are there like you? She has bruises on her arm, like shes been in abusive relationship. Shes been standing in the back of the room. How many women are there like you? Who didnt have to go through what I went through? She says, Your voice is so tender. Youre so soft. Tell me the secret of that.AG: Wow. NF: Holy moly! And so I went back to the room and I wrote a poem for her.AG: I know that poem: The Girlfriends Train. NF: [Nods] I had to capture that moment, outside of my body. I had to give that back to the world.AG: You did your first book signing at the Kroger grocery in Sumter in 1985, when you were 28.NF: Yup. I had a table in between the milk and cheese section. People would come by and ask, What are you selling? And Id say, poetry.AG: Let me get some yogurt -- and the meaning of life. How did it go? NF: I sold out. [Laughs] Ill do a reading almost anywhere. It doesnt have to be Barnes & Noble. Id do a wrestling match. Poetry belongs everywhere, not just at the presidential inauguration, not just at these special things. But everywhere, because ...AG: ... because it is everywhere. NF: Yes!AG: I also read that you were the neighborhood poet as a kid. Was there much call for a neighborhood poet? NF: Oh yeah: church, Easter poems, birthday poems, Valentines Day. It was the worst poetry ever. Horrible. I buried those in the backyard, too.AG: With the muff? NF: With the muff. But it was early training for people giving me permission to love language and words and to call me into action. I was 13, 14. My name had been called. I had to answer the call.AG: Tell me about the poems youre writing now. NF: Im working on two poems for espnW for the Summit. Im thinking a lot about Paulette Leaphart and her walk across America, because that visual of her is one of the most important, profound visuals I have ever seen in my 59 years. I want to celebrate and honor her, but I want her walking to be central to what Im writing about. To walk, you need a pelvis. And to have a pelvis means you rotate. So many human beings do not want to rotate. They want to go in the same direction. They dont want to be challenged. And you have to ask yourself, Am I willing to rotate??Its called Topless in America.AG: And the second poem? NF: The second poem will be called, Ode to the Girl on a Wheel. Im not just talking about bicyclists -- Im talking about girls who play, who got the wind in their faces. Girls who, like me, sat on that chair and wondered, How can I move? How can I get out of this box that as a girl Ive been put in?AG: I hear you. But it remains distressing to think that even speaking your mind is still considered by so many a ridiculous thing for a woman to be able to do. NF: True. But dont give up. Find somebody else out in the world whos fighting with you. I wouldnt be sitting here with you if 2,000 people before me had not stood in picket lines. I dont know their names, but I know they stood there. Thats where I get my juice to keep going, because Im not going let a bigot or hate stop me. I have a pelvis. I am not giving up. Im not going away. Im not going to be silent. Im full of fight.AG: Do you consider yourself fearless? NF: Im not fearless. That slogan --?no fear --?I wish it had never appeared. You need to know what fear feels like, but you cant let it stop you. Theres something bigger than fear. Courage is bigger than fear. We just have to keep fighting for humanity and for kindness and for tenderness and for empathy and stretching into new spaces. I think of myself as creative. I think of myself as bound and determined to find something wondrous in the world. But thats not special. Thats just bullheaded.AG: Some even might say, inappropriate. NF: Yes. [Laughs] And I couldnt say it when I was young, but every time I was inappropriate, I was joyous. I was like, this is who I was made to be.Nike Air Force Just Do It Blancas .ca NHL Power Rankings for the second straight week, ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Colorado Avalanche. Nike Air More Uptempo 96 Baratas . -- Stanford squashed Oregons national championship hopes again, schooling the Ducks in power football. http://www.airforceonebaratas.com/ .C. United of Major League Soccer. United chose the defender in the second round of the 2013 MLS re-entry draft. Air Force 1 Baratas .Y. -- Bills receiver Stevie Johnson has a bone to pick with the NFL schedule maker. Nike React Element 87 Baratas . The 28-year-old from Calgary matched his career best after missing just one shot in his two rounds of shooting in the mens 10-kilometre sprint competition. Smith finished in 23 minutes 15.HIGH POINT, N.C. -- Demetrius Troy made three 3-pointers and scored 15 points and UNC Greensboro defeated Navy 72-59 on Sunday at the High Point University Tournament.Diante Baldwin added 13 points and R.J. White 11 for the Spartans (3-2), who were 31 of 53 from the floor for 58.5 percent.Shawn Anderson scored 19 points and Bryce Dulin 11 for Midshipmen (1-4), who were just 5 of 19 from the arc (26.3 percent).Troy snapped a 6-6 tie with a 3-pointer that begann a 13-0 run and put the Spartans ahead for good.ddddddddddddNavy was within six, 32-26, at halftime but UNC Greensboro rebuilt its double-digit lead with another Troy 3-pointer giving the Spartans a 17-point advantage, 54-37, with 10 minutes remaining in the game. The lead reached 21 points on Jordy Kuipers basket with 5:15 to go. ' ' '