The Life & Works of Nikki Giovanni through the Digital Archive
Interviewer and playwright Pearl Cleage interviewing Nikki Giovani for An Evening with Nikki Giovanni (2005)
Nikki Giovanni is an African-American poet, author, writer, and activist. Born on June 7, 1943, Giovanni Spent much of her childhood between Cincinnati Ohio, and her native Knoxville Tennessee. The hot southern summers with her beloved grandparents and the loving household of her parents inspire Nikki-Rosa, a poem that captured critical and communal acclaim. The poem details the “hard” but “happy” childhood of its author. Similar to many pieces of the Black Arts Movement, poem subverts the expectations of black struggle. Within the work, Giovanni affirms that her impoverished environment was not a pitiful experience for her. She also criticizes the white outsiders who can neither empathize with nor accurately convey her uniquely Black experiences. One stanza of the poem reads:
And though you’re poor it isn’t poverty that
concerns you
and though they fought a lot
it isn’t your father’s drinking that makes any difference
but only that everybody is together and you
and your sister have happy birthdays and very good
Christmases
and I really hope no white person ever has cause
to write about me
because they never understand
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
This sentiment is reflected in what Dr. Giovanni would later share with the HistoryMakers Digital Archive. She says, “My dad [Jones 'Gus' Giovanni] drank too much and I think there were many unpleasant weekends, you know... There's a lot of stress out there and I think as a kid you don't realize that some of the ugliness that you're seeing is not directed at you… I think a lot of life is about decisions and the joy of having intelligence is that you can begin to separate how you feel from what you know.”
The Giovanni nuclear family. From left to right: Giovanni’s sister (Gary), father (John), mother ( Yolandé) and herself.
The family valued their children’s education above all else, working to ensure that Nikki and her siblings took any opportunity that would afford them mobility. This included Giovanni’s sister integrating an all white high school. She speaks about the schools reaction to the murder of Emmet Till, saying “My sister [Gary] integrated Wyoming High School… And when Emmett Till was killed…there were only three black kids, Jimmy, Beverly and Gary. … And the sociology teacher said, "He got what he deserved.’ So they walked out... [my father] went up to the school board, and he said, you know, ‘I want Brad Barry fired.’” The parties involved eventually compromised, however Giovanni notes the impact that had on her family's philosophy on education. “… You get scarred by things like that. And so he and mommy in talking things over, decided they had given a child to integration [and] sent me to grandmother, thinking I would be safe, never realizing that one, there was no safety.”
Disillusioned by the prospect of integrated schools, Giovanni completed her secondary education and enrolled at Fisk University as an early entrant. There Giovanni simultaneously honed her craft and came head to head with Fisk’s administration. A clash with the schools Dean of Women, resulted in Giovanni’s expulsion from the university, and Giovanni would later return to graduate on the Dean’s List.
Nikki Giovanni circa 1967; her senior year of college
Giovanni’s grandmother was a particularly prominent figure in her life. In the poem “Legacies', Giovanni illustrates the childhood understanding of mortality, and the importance of tradition and independence. It is a short and bittersweet portrait of a maternal bond that certainly reflects Giovanni’s own relationship. In the Evening with Nikki Giovanni special, Giovanni laughs through watery eyes and recites her grandmother's phone number. She then goes on to say “I just don't--I don't know where we'd be without, without the grandmothers, period, not just mine.” It was her grandparents who introduced Giovanni to Latin scholarship, ancient Greek mythology, practical problem solving, and the astronomy. She calls herself a “very practical poet” because of these figures.
Professionally, one of the major themes of Giovanni’s work is its black femininity. In the poem “Ego-Tripping,” Giovanni explores the power black womanhood. In this bombastic and unapologetic display of black femininity in history and culture, Giovanni declares herself as divine through colorful metaphors and striking language. An excerpt of the poem reads:
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
While discussing the work during An Evening with Nikki Giovanni, the writer says “… the black woman is everything…. I knew I had a good poem once it was finished, but to know that I had a poem that was inclusive was wonderful. … 'cause I think everybody's a black woman anyway, I do.” Giovanni emphasizes the inclusivity of black femme spaces and its destruction of gender. Later, in the same interview she responds to the intersections of racial and gendered perspective in her work. She says, “...Everything that I write about is about the world as a black woman, that there is no gender …. it's not that there aren't other people…you're using the images that everybody can use. But I'm always looking through the eye…of a black woman because to me, if you say, ‘Who am I?’ I am a Southern, black woman, very much grounded in the women of my grandmother's generation.”
Giovanni’s admiration of generational love is not limited to the past however. Later in her career Giovanni was beloved by her contemporaries for her appreiecation of Hip-Hop culture. Giovanni was particularly invested in the rise and fall of hip hop legend, Tupac. Notedly, Giovanni got the rappers THUG LIFE tattoo on her arm following his tragic passing. She also made her mourning apparent through the poem “All Eyez On U (4 2Pac Shakur)” In it, she echoes the comments said about Emmet Till to her sister and collective black mourning. The stanza reads:
don’t tell me he got what he deserved
he deserved a chariot and the accolades of a grateful people
he deserved his life
it is as clear as a mountain stream as defining as a lightning strike
as terrifying as sun to vampires
On her admiration for Tupac, Giovanni told the Archive, “there was no way to avoid the breadth of this young man. And it, it's the love. When you start to talk to people, you know, it's the love that, that they felt about him, that they felt that he was giving to them.”
TuPac’s legacy is just an example of Giovanni’s appreciation for contemporary black music. She discusses the generational patterns of Black Music when she tells the archive. “What I'm saying in terms of rap, every generation complains about the generation that's in front of them, right? … I know that if it's a train the track is going to run all the way back to the spirituals, all the way around the corner to the work songs. Rap is a legitimate voice and it's a legitimate voice of the community.” This respect for the hip hop generation is reflected in her work, with multiple appearances on hip hop albums (including the 2000 TuPac album The Rose That Grew From Concrete), and her own children’s book Hip-Hop Speaks to Children.
Thinking on her own life and conftributions, Giovanni had this to say to the Digital Archive. “I'm so in love with black people. It's such a fascinating history and we're just beginning. … This history is so important and so the more you know the more you're able to keep putting the pieces together… love it so much. And so I've enjoyed my career. I'm enjoying my career and I continue to.” Giovannni has made it clear on numerous occasions that she would rather not summarize her own life. “I don't think that it's my job”, says a 60 year old Giovanni back in 2003, “I'd disadvantage my work by making that choice of what I think is significant.” There is no doubt, however, that Giovanni’s work and insight will be the subject of praises long after she rests her pen.
If you would like to view any of the interviews mentioned in this blog post, please view this MyClips Playlist!
