American poet, writer, activist, and educator Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 7, 1943. She grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduated with a degree in history from Fisk University. Influenced by her participation in the Black Arts Movement and Black Power Movement, Giovanni wrote her notable books of poetry Black Judgment (1968) and Those Who Ride the Night Winds (1983).
Giovanni self-published her first volume, Black Feeling Black Talk (1968), and in 2009, with Bicycles: Love Poems (2009) became a New York Times best-selling author. Her recording The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection (2004) was nominated for an Emmy award. Giovanni's work explores gender, race, sexuality, and the African American family, and her poetry was political and aimed to uplift the black experience in the arts and as part of the Black Arts Movement.
She received many awards, including the Langston Hughes Award, the Virginia Governor’s Award for the Arts, the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the inaugural Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award, the American Book Award, the Emily Couric Leadership Award, a Literary Excellence Award. In 2004, her album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection, was a Grammy finalist for Best Spoken Word Album. Giovanni was a seven-time recipient of the NAACP Image Award, and her autobiography, Gemini, was a finalist for the 1973 National Book Award.
Giovann's latest publications include Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose (2020); Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid (2013); and The 100 Best African American Poems (2010).
She died on December 9, 2024.
Today, in her honor, as reading recommendations, I chose her poems "Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)," "Knoxville, Tennessee," and "Mothers," as well as her books Love Poems (1997), The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 (2003), and A Good Cry: What We Learn from Tears and Laughter (2017).
Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)
I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile
I am a beautiful woman
I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat's meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can't catch me
For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother's day
My strength flows ever on
My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save
I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
across three continents
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended
except by my permission
I mean . . . I . . . can fly
like a bird in the sky . . .
Copyright © 1968 by Nikki Giovanni.
Knoxville, Tennessee
I always like summer
best
you can eat fresh corn
from daddy's garden
and okra
and greens
and cabbage
and lots of
barbecue
and buttermilk
and homemade ice-cream
at the church picnic
and listen to
gospel music
outside
at the church
homecoming
and go to the mountains with
your grandmother
and go barefooted
and be warm
all the time
not only when you go to bed
and sleep
"Knoxville, Tennessee" from Black Feeling, Black Talk, Black Judgment by Nikki Giovanni. Copyright © 1968, 1970 by Nikki Giovanni.
Mothers
the last time i was home
to see my mother we kissed
exchanged pleasantries
and unpleasantries pulled a warm
comforting silence around
us and read separate books
i remember the first time
i consciously saw her
we were living in a three room
apartment on burns avenue
mommy always sat in the dark
i don’t know how i knew that but she did
that night i stumbled into the kitchen
maybe because i’ve always been
a night person or perhaps because i had wet
the bed
she was sitting on a chair
the room was bathed in moonlight diffused through
those thousands of panes landlords who rented
to people with children were prone to put in windows
she may have been smoking but maybe not
her hair was three-quarters her height
which made me a strong believer in the samson myth
and very black
i’m sure i just hung there by the door
i remember thinking: what a beautiful lady
she was very deliberately waiting
perhaps for my father to come home
from his night job or maybe for a dream
that had promised to come by
“come here” she said “i’ll teach you
a poem: i see the moon
the moon sees me
god bless the moon
and god bless me”
i taught it to my son
who recited it for her
just to say we must learn
to bear the pleasures
as we have borne the pains
Copyright Credit: Nikki Giovanni, “Mothers” from My House. Copyright © 1972 by Nikki Giovanni.
Source: The Collected Poems of Nikki Giovanni (2003)
Essential Books by Nikki Giovanni
Description courtesy of Bookshop.org "In a career that has spanned more than a quarter century, Nikki Giovanni has earned the reputation as one of America's most celebrated and controversial writers. Now, she presents a stunning collection of love poems that includes more than twenty new works.
From the revolutionary "Seduction" to the tender new poem, "Just a Simple Declaration of Love," from the whimsical "I Wrote a Good Omelet" to the elegiac "All Eyez on U," written for Tupac Shakur, these poems embody the fearless passion and spirited wit for which Nikki Giovanni is beloved and revered.
Romantic, bold, and erotic, Love Poems expresses notions of love in ways that are delightfully unexpected. Articulating in sensuous verse what we know only instinctively, Nikki Giovanni once again confirms her place as one of our nation's most distinguished poets and powerful truth-tellers.
In a career that has spanned more than a quarter century, starting with her explosive early years in the Black Rights Movement, Nikki Giovanni has earned a reputation as one of America's most celebrated and controversial writers. Her mind-speaking work has made her a universal favorite and a number-one best-seller. The love poems-the revolutionary "Seduction," the whimsical "I Wrote a Good Omelet," and the tender "My House" to name just a few - are among the most beloved of all Nikki Giovanni's works. Now, Love Poems brings together these and other favorites with over twenty new poems. Romantic, bold, and erotic, Love Poems will once again confirm Nikki Giovanni's place among the country's most renowned poets and truth tellers." Shop the book from Bookshop.
Description
courtesy of Bookshop.org
"'From one of America's most cherished and celebrated poets, a landmark collection of Nikki Giovanni's early work!'
'Nikki Giovanni is one of our national treasures.' - Gloria Naylor
When Nikki Giovanni's poems first emerged during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, she immediately took a place among the most celebrated and controversial artists of our time. More than 50 years later, Giovanni still stands as one of the most commanding, luminous voices to grace America's political and poetic landscape. This timeless classic brings readers Nikki Giovanni's poems from 1967 to 1983, from her books Black Feeling Black Talk; Black Judgement; Re: Creation; My House; The Women and the Men; Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day; and Those Who Ride the Night Winds.
Stirring, provocative, and resonant, these poems heralded the arrival of an indelible literary voice that resounds to this day."
Shop the book from Bookshop.
Description
courtesy of Bookshop.org
"The poetry of Nikki Giovanni has spurred movements, turned hearts and informed generations. She's been hailed as a firebrand, a radical, a courageous activist who has spoken out on the sensitive issues that touch our national consciousness, including race and gender, social justice, protest, violence in the home and in the streets, and why black lives matter.
One of America's most celebrated poets looks inward in this powerful collection, a rumination on her life and the people who have shaped her.
As energetic and relevant as ever, Nikki now offers us an intimate, affecting, and illuminating look at her personal history and the mysteries of her own heart. In A Good Cry, she takes us into her confidence, describing the joy and peril of aging and recalling the violence that permeated her parents' marriage and her early life. She pays homage to the people who have given her life meaning and joy: her grandparents, who took her in and saved her life; the poets and thinkers who have influenced her; and the students who have surrounded her. Nikki also celebrates her good friend, Maya Angelou, and the many years of friendship, poetry, and kitchen-table laughter they shared before Angelou's death in 2014."
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