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Nikki Giovanni

American poet, writer and activist

Nikki Giovanni (June 7, 1943 – December 9, 2024) was an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator.

Giovanni in 2008

Quotes

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  • Poetry is the culture of a people. We are poets even when we don’t write poems; just look at our life, our rhythms, our tenderness, our signifying, our sermons and our songs.
    • Gemini: An Extended Autobiographical Statement on My First Twenty-five Years of Being a Black Poet. Penguin Books. 1976. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-14-004264-1. 
  • Poets shouldn't commit suicide. That would leave the world to those without imaginations or hearts. That would bequeath to the world a mangled syntax and no love of champagne. Poets must live in misery and ecstasy, to sing a song with the katydids. Poets should be ashamed to die before they kiss the sun.
  • You have to read the poem and say, “My god, that’s a good poem,” and kind of smile at yourself. If you’re not willing to do that, then you’re wasting your time, and you’re hurting yourself in another way because you’re trying to please somebody who doesn’t like you. You don’t want to get in that position.

The Women and The Men (1970)

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I. The Women

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  • it is not unusual
    that the old bury the young
        though it is an abomination
    ...those who make war
    call themselves diplomats
    ...the unfaithful pray loudest
    ...we judge a man by his dreams
    not alone his deeds
    ...by his intent
    not alone his shortcomings
    ...it is not unusual
    to know him through those who love him
    • The Women Gather (for Joe Strickland)
  • ...i sit waiting
    for a fresh thought
    to stir the atmosphere
    • The December of My Springs
  • i hope my shoulder finds a head that needs nestling
    ...i hope i die
    warmed
    by the life that i tried
    to live
    • The Life I Led

II. The Men

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  • they say you should fight the cold with the cold
    but since i never do anything right
    i called you
    • Hampton, Virginia
  • ...i believe
    the most beautiful poem
    ...is your heart
    racing
    • Poetry is a Tressel
  • how do you write a poem
    about someone so close
    ...don't you already know
    what i feel and if
    you don't maybe
    i should check my feelings
    • How Do You Write A Poem?

II. And Some Places

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  •     may i spin a poem around you
    come let's step into my web
    and dream of freedom together
    • Africa
  • if nature is true
    we shall all lose our eyes
    since we cannot even now distinguish
    the good from the evil
    ...i've a mind to build
    a new world
    want to play
    • A Very Simple Wish
  • ...do you ever stop
    to think what it looked like
    before it was an avenue
    ...ever look south
    ...and see gazelles running playfully
    after the lions
    ...did you ever, sit down
    and wonder about what freedom's freedom
    would bring
    ...the Iroquois, Alonquin
    and Mohicans... could caress
    the earth

    ever think what Harlem would be
    like if our herbs and roots and elephant ears
    grew...
    the parrot parroting black is beautiful...

    ever think it's possible
    for us to be
    happy

    • Walking Down Park
  • if trees could talk
    wonder what they'd say
    met an old man
    ...told me "girl! my hands seen
    more than all
    them books...
    at tuskeegee"
    ...met an old woman
    ..."sista" she called to me
    "...my feet
    seen more than yo eyes
    ever gonna read"
    ...if trees would talk
    wonder what they'd tell me
    • Alabama Poem
  • if it does not sing discard the ear
    for poetry is song
    if it does not delight discard
    the heart for poetry is joy
    if it does not inform then close
    off the brain for it is dead
    if it cannot heed the insistent message
    that life is precious

    which is all we poets
    wrapped in our loneliness
    are trying to say

    • Poetry

Paint Me Like I Am (Dec 2003)

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: Teen Poems from WriterCorps. Introduction.
  • We need food for the Soul
              We need poetry ... We deserve poetry
  •     Paint me Hopeful         Paint Me Futuristic         Paint Me Nikki    
              I'm a Poet

“Nikki Giovanni: Interview" (2008)

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Mosaic Magazine (Aug 1, 2008) Source.
  • History is wonderful. We have so much we can learn if we would quit making ideology out of history, and just deal with what happened…
    • NOTE: On writing without historical references.
  • Politics is personal. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s ideological. It means that one cares about what she or he is doing, what he or she is writing…
    • NOTE: On the politics seeping into the personal.
  • As a writer, one has to be willing to be wrong, willing to make mistakes. I’ve put everything on the table and accepted the fact that I may come up short. And, if (or when) I do, that’s okay.
    • NOTE: On accepting fault as a writer.

ego-tripping (2013)

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: and other poems for black people
  • There is a game I must tell you of
    It's called Catch the Leader Lying
    (and knowing your sense of the absurd
    you will enjoy this)
    ...
    You must invent your own games and teach us old
    ones how to play
    • poem for black boys (with special love to james) (2 Apr 67)
  • Black love is Black wealth and they'll
    probably talk about my hard childhood
    and never understand that
    all the while I was quite happy
    • nikki-rosa (12 Apr 68)
  • let's build
    what we become
    when we dream
    • word poem (perhaps worth considering) (12 Apr 68)
  • then I awoke and dug
    that if i dreamed natural
    dreams of being a natural
    woman doing what a woman
    does...
    i would have a revolution
    • revolutionary dreams (20 jan. 70)
  • ...as i grew and matured
    i became more sensible
    and decided i would
    settle down
    and just become
    a sweet inspiration
    • dreams (2 oct. 68)

The Authority of a Writer (2024)

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: An Interview with Nikki Giovanni. Interview by Jan McDaniel. A Source.
  • If I were advising someone on a writing career, the deal is this: write. If you get it published, good. If somebody pays you, better, because you have to eat, but the deal is you have to write.
  • The authority of the writer always overcomes the skepticism of the reader.
  • I'm a big fan of the black woman and so I'm always looking at aspects of the black woman--what she's doing and how she does it.

Quotes about Nikki Giovanni

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  • At the library I would go the shelves alphabetically. I was drawn to anyone with a female name, with a Latino or Spanish name. There were very, very few. But as a teenager I discovered African American poetry. Gwendolyn Brooks was the first. Then Phillis Wheatley. I really identified with this slave woman writing poetry to assert and affirm her humanity. Suddenly my eyes were open to history. There was a whole explosion of African-American women poets-Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, June Jordan. I have a poem in my head that's going to take me years to write down. Its working title is "On Thanking Black Muses." I owe them, because poetry really changed my life, saved it.
  • (At National Black Theater performance) I was in awe of the words I witnessed that day. It was the first time that I heard the works of writers like Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka. I heard poetry that was about me, that was very immediate. I connected to it in a visceral way. That experience moved me so profoundly that I went home and that night I wrote my first batch of poems. It was like the floodgates opened. That reading empowered me with a voice and gave me permission to express everything that had been festering in me for years. So I just started experimenting with language and writing all kinds of things.
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