angeles. i'm tavis smiley. first up tonight, a conversation with the newly elected mayor of new orleans, mitch landrieu. the louisiana lieutenant governor and brother of u.s. senator mary landrieu will be snorn as mayor. also acclaimed poet sonia sanchez is here. april is national poet's month. she is out with her first book of poetry in a decade. we're glad you have joined us. mitch landrieu and sonia sanchez coming up right now. >> there are so many things that wal-mart is looking forward to doing, like helping people live better, but mostly we're looking forward to helping build stronger communities and relationships because with your help, the best is yet to come. >> nationwide insurance proudly supports tavis smiley.

tavis and nationwide insurance working to improve financial literacy and the economic empowerment that comes with it. >>♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] >> on may 3, mitch landrieu will be sworn in as mayor of new orleans. he follows a legendary family from new orleans including his father and former mayor and his sister, current u.s. senator mary and joins us tonight from new orleans. i don't know whether to call you lieutenant governor or mayor.

>> mitch will be good. tavis: we have been friendses a long time. you deserve to be called mayor. >> thank you very much, tavis. great to be with you. tavis: why would anybody respectfully want to be mayor of a city with this many challenges? >> i get asked that question a lot. there are some people that like walking into situations that are calm and peaceful. other people really like challenges. i happen to be one of those individuals that likes going where you needed the most and where you can do the most good. on top of that, it is much more basic. this is my home. it is the only place my father and brothers and sisters and kids have ever known. we're a resilient people. we love this place with all of our heart and soul. i wanted to try to make it better. tavis: you think you can do that? >> i can that i can.u@his now f years. 16 as a legislator and six as a

lieutenant governor. everybody has to do what it is that they can in areas they think will be helpful whether it is in government, the medical profession or housing. this has to be an all hands on deck opportunity to rebuild the city. it is not just about the people that live here. it is an american city. it requires lot of work by people across the nation. tavis: do you think that kind of help after five years is forthcoming? what about the nation people just have katrina and new orleans fatigue? >> let me say this. if we just waited for other people to help us that might be true but what has been happening on the ground here is people are beginning to wake up and start working really hard on new innovative ways to solve old problems and we're actually in the education field and some other fields setting the pace and attracting a lot of interest and talent from across the country.

so really right now it is a tale of two cities but we're starting to move in the right direction and i think people are excited about the possibility of new orleans findings herself again. we'll see. i think it is going to be really hard. i think there are going to be a lot of challenges. some not unlike what other parts of the nation facing but unlike it in the sense that we're doing many of them all at the same time here. i don't believe there is no problem that cannot be solved. we have to find way. it is part of what with doe. in american cities you have to find way to fix it. tavis: is too much being made out of the fact that you are the first white mayor of this chocolate city since your father 32 years ago? >> well, i think that is a very wrong way of looking at the world. a lot in the world has changed in the last 40 years. one of the things most special about the city of new orleans how diverse a people we really are. there has been a generation that has grown up together.

i don't see myself as a white mayor or i don't see new orleans as a black city. we have worked together. people call us a gumbo. it is really important that we get focused on the simple notion that diversity is a strength, not a queakness. it is not about -- weakness. it is not about taking fraur some and giving it to others. crime and the ability to feel safe personly and make sure your sons and daughters are safe on the streets of new orleans and make sure every kid gets a great education and and everybody has the right to work with dig any the place where you the opportunity to recognize american dream. bringing everybody together to find high common ground is a high purpose. tavis: i hear and i appreciate the overview but it begs the question, five years after katrina when you take office in a matter of days, where do you start?

>> the first place you start is with the police department. we've had some very difficult trouble recently with our police department and many of the things stemming from what happened post katrina and rita. the department has to be redorganized and reoriented. the second thing is safety on the streets of the city. i have -- the most heartbreaking things that have happened to me during my transition, young boys 10 and 11 years old have come up to me and say mr. mitch, i just don't feel safe in my home. that's heartbreaking. when kids get worried about storms and things like that say they don't feel in their home because the ever present nature of crime makes them unsafe that's something we need to change, not just here but all across america. that's the first one. schools are the second. we've been making a lot of headway with innovative ways of approaching different models for schooling from public schools to private schools to charter schools.

every kid has got to be able to live and third there is job creation. those three things won't be possible if the city government doesn't work well. we have to spend a fairly substantial amount of time working with the city government all of those things are hard. each one would be hard by themselves but when you to do them altogether it is a particular challenge but it is something i think the people of this city are up for. tavis: what do the numbers suggest to you in terms to have amount of people who have returned to the city post katrina? >> we lost a lot of people. it was heart wrenching to have our brothers and sisters all across the country. people have been slowly moving back. my sense of it now is that after five years, the people that were here before that have come back for the most part have set the level. now what is going to occur is people who are going to commit to live here for the rest of their lives or new folks moving

in. so we're seeing a different trend and a different mix as well. it makes it very interesting. new orleans is going to be a laboratory for innovation and change. i think a lot of how it goes in the future pends on the work we're going to do in the next 12-18 months. if we can make progress people can actually measure people on the cusp but didn't because they were nervous about it or people that wanted to move here because they were concerned about it now will start coming in because it will be a great time to move into the city. tavis: some call it gentrification. >> i think what's happening on the ground here is people are finding new ways to solve old problems. people before relied on government and now ino vating

themselves. this isn't new people coming in char that are changing but people who actually live here. they are working more closely with the faith-based organization and the not for profits and not just waiting on the government to solve their problem. the change is actually coming from the people who are here. not necessarily the people coming out. the folks coming here without actually learning what new orleans is teaching them, not because we're so much smarter than everybody else, we have had to adapt or die. adaptation a more preferable pathway. >> no doubt about that. tavis: in what way are you being challenged? this oil spill off your coast. 42,000 gallons a day being spilled off the coast of new orleans. is that impacting the city? >> to a certain extent it is even though it is a little off in the federal waters. it shows how important economic

and national security is based on the drilling we do here. you know this and have been a great advocate of it. we are losing 100 yards of our coastline every 30 minutes. that protects the gaslines that produce over 30% of the nation's industry. pipelines could be more compromises in the next 100 years. the security will be compromised. it is very important if we are going to drill we do so safely. we protect that as well as the people in the southern part of the country. 85% of us in the country live in coastal areas. again, katrina and reitsa were not just about new orleans. there are a lot of lessons that the nation can learn from us. that is one of them. tavis: finally in your role as lieutenant governor you have been in charge of tourism and culture for the state of louisiana. i know you're going to bring

that experience and all of those contacts to the city of new orleans. if anything it is a city that thrives and exists to a large degree on tourism. that said, what kind of impact does that who dat run in the super bowl, what does that do for the city? >> besides joust making you giddy and joyful it is important that people from around the country know that tourism is a major economic engine for us but it is only successful because it lace on top of a vibe rant rich and deep culture. new orleans want os to emanate things going on to n other big cities we really don't want to be like them. we want to be ourselves. like to saints winning the super bowl, if we just stay after it year after year, we will eventually win. it is not a movie where they

come down and do bad southern accents. it is a place that captures our culture and dialogue. it is a jazz fest. 800 small businesses are going to be fed by that. and then we have the essence festival. it reminds us that we can hit levels of excellence in one field stand we can do it in four tourism and sports entertainment then we can do it in biomedical research and development. we can do it in aero space and digital and media technology. we have the opportunity to grow the city of new orleans into a great american city again and hopefully in the next couple of years we'll take some steps toward that end. tavis: been lieutenant governor of the state six years now and now elected the mayor of the city of new orleans. mayor elect landrieu, congratulations. good to have you on the program. >> thank you for your help and for all of your support.

tavis: appreciate you. up next, acclaimed poet sonia sanchez. april is national poetry month. so stay with us. sonia sanchez is an award-winning poet out with her first book of new poetry in 10 years called "morning haiku." this summer she released a collection of place called "i'm black when i'm singing, i'm blue when i ain't" and then her long-awaited memoir will come out. i'm always delighted to talk to sonia sanchez. what an honor to have you on this program. what an honor to be here, my dear brother. tavis: lew doing? >> fine. i'm working hard. tavis: i know you are. >> my memoir is tentively entitled -- my dad left the house every day he would say

"i'll see you in the funny papers accounts. tavis: so it is going to be called "see you in the funny papers"? >> duke university will publish my plays. tavis: for those who do not know, i don't want to insult anybody. those who don't know what a h anche ku is. you don't just -- haiku. you world define it as what? >> i probably would read some haiku initially. the point is the way we learned it is three tines, five, seven, five, 17 sill billions involved there. it will give us -- sill billions a moment in time. so beautiful that you just stop for a minute and it catches your

brett, period. the way i -- your breath, period. however long it takes you to say the lines, that is the length of the haiku. i called my children, i said it is monday morning. i'm going to travel to the great wall of china. i heard them say and mommy said it is monday but it is really sunday, isn't it and of course i was reading the day before my children read and so the haiku i wrote for them is you will enjoy it. i was reading the day before my children reading the day and one of the -- got up when i read that haiku and said ah, professor sanchez if we here in the east learn how to wear our days well, by the time it gets to the west, perhaps we will

have peace. it is the subtext of the haiku. when there is beauty there is also nonbeauty or where there is good there is also bad. there is that coming together. that's why i love the haiku. for another reason, for our children. whenever i go to the a university i say take me to high school. no charge. let me go speak to young people. what i'm trying to do is establish what i call a haiku mind. way of looking at each other. the way of looking at the beauty in nature and transfering that look at the beauty in ourselves. tavis: how do you respond to someone who might say high skew too simplistic -- haiku is too simplistic? >> we make things complicated because we think things should be complicated. shakespeare was simple for the populace but when we took it over.

no, it is not too simplistic, my dear brother. what is the beauty to have haiku is it is not simplistic. the it is very complex. it reaches all the complexities of our life on this earth. peace. nazz a very complex idea, peace. -- that is a very complex idea, peace. i'm trying to tell young people that i teach them how to breathe before i teach the haiku. that one breath. it keeps you alive. if you learn how to breathe the haiku, you learn how to breathe and if you learn how to breathe, you're more healthier. i write one every day. once i breathe the haiku then i know -- then i go out on the field and i walk three to four miles in the morning and got it together. i can greet the day. will i greet the day with a

handshake or a slap or a smile? whatever. that's what i'm trying to teach people, to greet the day with a smile instead of a slap. tavis: the inspiration, when you roll out of bed in the morning and open your eyes, the inspiration for the haiku that day comes from where? >> the point is i don't roll out of the bed when i wake up. i wake up and i thank the creator for another day. i do some breathing exercises and then i look around the room and then i open the blinds so i can get the sun in the morning. at that point i stop and i think. sometimes i remember a dream. sometimes i remember something that i said the night before and so i pick up the book and begin to write and quite often it is two or three haiku. you might say that is because it is so bloody simple, sonya. you can't do a poem. when i'm writing a book, i do

that. the point is it is the simplicity opposite the complex and the haiku is a complex form, you see? it is complex to say i set sail in tall grass that ain't easy, brother. tavis: i know [laughter] that's why you wrote it instead of me. >> it is -- that official in china jumped up and said if we learn how to wear our days well here in beijing by the time you get it in the west we will have peace. you know? that's what we were talking about. the simplicity and the complexity of a poem such as the haiku. tavis: i'm going to make room in just a few minutes for you to form a wonderful piece out of this book. before i do that, a couple of questions. we just lost a couple of days our dear sister, dr. dorothy

height. you have a wonderful piece in this book that calls down the names of some great sisters. some now living and some gone. two members of my staff are related to evers. you have a piece about her. >> the freedom sister. they called me -- i don't know, a couple of years ago and said dear sister sonya, we would like for you to be one of our freedom sisters in the exhibit. i said what an honor. i said i can tell you 100 other women who could replace me and then there was this silence at their end and they said do you want it? i said yes, what an honor that would be because many of those sisters who are dead are the sisters that rescued teaching black studies. ida wells barnett, when i read

her work, i included it in the curriculum. all of these women that we went back and rescued from obscurity. that's an honor. and then our dear sister, dr. dorothy height. i always tell the story that we were some place and she had finished eating and closed her eyes. i assumed she was sleeping and someone started to say something, talk about something. i recognized that the dates were incorrect, right? but you don't want to embarrass people. i didn't say anything. her eyes opened and she said no, that's not quite correct there and corrected it. so she never sleeps. a great woman. i'm so pleased that they are giving her a statewoman -- she is to lie in state on one day, on tuesday and then people can

come see her and the deltas are going to honor her and she will be at the national ca thedral on thursday. i'm so pleased for her and what an honor to have gone on the road with her. one say she said to me, sonya, sanchez, she said, she called me sanchez. i can't quite understand why you so radical. i turned and smiled and said my dear sister, because you were radical in your day so the children have got to pick it up and go one step further with it. i said i love you because you did what you did and made us understand where we had to pick it up and carry it a step further. her name is sonia sanchez. she is an iconic poet. one that we absolutely revere in this country and i'm honored to

have her on the program. her new book is called "morning haiku." ten years waiting on this particular text. i want to make room for her to bless us with a special reading from the book. so stay with us. from her terrific new book "morning haiku quks here is sonia sanchez reading. until then, good night from los angeles. keep the faith. there are joy about writing these 10 haiku for him on the occasion of his death was s that the 109 high skew inscribeden on his -- haiku is inscribed on his tombstone. one, nothing ends. every believe it grass remembering your sound your sound exploding in the

universe return to earth in as you drum your hand kept reaching for god. the morning sky so lovely imitates your laughter. you came warrior clear your music kissing our spine tapping singing in -- you came drumming sweet life on sails of flesh your -- the settled in our bones your drums following our breaths on to the beat, unbeat, on to

the beat, unbeat. >> your hands shimmering on the edge of rain your hand shimmering shimmering on the legs of rain for max roach. [applause] >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley on pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time with former court terrorism advisor richard clarke plus legendary singer/songwriter judy collins. that's next time. we'll see you then. >> there are so many things that wal-mart is looking forward to doing, like helping people live better, but mostly we're looking forward to helping build stronger communities and relationships because with your help, the best is yet to come.

>> nationwide insurance proudly supports tavis smiley. tavis and nationwide insurance working to improve financial literacy and the economic empowerment that comes with it. >>♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.