“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.
Nikki Giovanni, poet, activist, mother, grandmother, and educator, was raised in Tennessee and Ohio and graduated with honors from Fisk University in Nashville. The author of over thirty books, she is also the recipient of seven NAACP Image Awards, the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry, as well as twenty-seven honorary degrees. She garnered her most unusual honor in 2007 when a South American bat species—Micronycteris giovanniae—was named in celebration of her. A devoted teacher, she spent thirty-five years as University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. She is an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.