I laugh with my students…I hope never at…when they tell me they are having Writer’s Block…No Such Thing…I declare…that’s only a sign…of not enough knowledge…go do your research…and to me that’s the end…yet…I am having Writer’s Block…because I want so much…to write the perfect introduction…to one of the nicest young men I know Do I start twenty something years ago…when he walked into my classroom…with an anxious smile saying…I Want To Be A Writer? My job is not…to teach you to write…I shared with the class…but to not get in the way of your writing…My job is to remind you…to have faith in yourself…and find your voice Kwame learned maybe only one thing…from me…The Answer Is Yes…Yes to Juanita Britton (Queen Mother Nana Botwe Adobea II) who asked him to go to her village of Konko, in Ghana, to build a library…Yes to small cities and Book Festivals around the country who needed a writing friend…Yes to starting his own Book Festival… His own publishing company…His own line of greeting cards and posters…Yes to his own idea of empowering young writers by helping them publish a Book-in-a- Day…Yes to the excitement of life…to writing on the road…to growing taller and stronger while trusting that vision and strength…and every time he said Yes we all said Yes to him…Family and Community say Yes…A Poem is like an orange you peel…bit by bit…and enjoy the juiciest part that drips on you…Yes to interviews… Yes to wonderful anthologies…and Yes to his own voice that created the incomparable The Crossover I cry at many things…in my old age…but tears of joy trickled down…when I was hospitalized recently…I awoke after two days to find Kwame sitting across from me…What are you doing here?…You have work to do…I said…It’s the Writer’s time of year…I heard you were sick…he replied…My Literary Son at my side…Nikki…I won The Newbery Award…You have to get well…and come to San Francisco No matter where I am…I’ll be there…Singing the Praises of a writer…who listens to Yes…who will climb that ladder to higher and higher spaces…as he CrossesOver all obstacles…to share his warm and loving…vision Nikki Giovanni Poet/Teacher Kwame Alexander is the winner of the 2015 Newbery Medal for The Crossover (Houghton).