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"If I could come back as
anything--I'd be a bird, first, but definitely the command key is my
second choice."
-Nikki Giovanni
A tribute to one who has done a lot for others is always expected and
justified, but it’s rare to be able to pay tribute to a person for
focusing on her own growth. Nikki has grown to acknowledge that focusing
on personal growth and development is the only way to truly make a
difference in the world. In “Revolutionary Dreams” she says:
i used to dream militant/ dreams of taking/ over america to show/ these
white folks how it should be done/ i used to dream radical dreams/ of
blowing everyone away with my perceptive powers/ of correct analysis/ i
even used to think i'd be the one/ to stop the riot and negotiate the
peace/ then i awoke and dug/ that if i dreamed natural/ dreams of being
a natural/ woman doing what a woman/ does when she's natural/ i would
have a revolution.
Eloquence, style, attitude, realness, and honesty are all incorporated
in the words of this artist. As a woman she demonstrates and proudly
paints her strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and failures, progress and
regress. As a poet she “puts it down” in a way that keeps her readers
grounded and reminded that she’s human also. Nikki-Rosa (a childhood
nickname and title of one of her poems) speaks for women, for poets, for
those that struggle, and for those that love hard. Among the names of
black female poets you may hear her grouped with the rest: Maya Angelou,
Sonia Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Walker Alexander, Rita Dove,
and NIKKI GIOVANNI. However, the realness captured in this woman’s work
is unlike any pain, anger, growth, peace, sexuality, and naturalness
placed on paper. Her work defies categorization. Instead of noticing the
similarities between her writing style and topics and those of other
black female poets of her time period, one can’t help but to also notice
the magnetic pull and envelopment that s/he feels towards her work; this
is because it reflects those elements within our own lives...and we
begin to notice that in this very basic, human sense, Nikki Giovanni is
a reflection of us.
“Nikki” Giovanni was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni in Knoxville,
Tennessee, on June 7, 1943, and raised in the Lincoln Heights area of
Cincinnati, Ohio. When she attended Fisk University, she began taking an
interest in writing and became active in the Civil Rights Movement. She
became extensively involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee on campus and the Writers Workshop. The collaboration of
literature and politics became her forte in her prime years of becoming
a well-known poet. In 1967 she became involved in the Black Arts
Movement which was geared towards supporting the struggle for racial
equality through the radical artistic expression of black intellectuals.
She also organized the first Cincinnati Black Arts Festival. She came to
the forefront of literature with her bold, radical, and honest
expressions in her books Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), Black
Judgment (1968) and Re: Creation (1970). The anger, pain, and
frustration identified with the struggle placed her on the forefront of
the movement and in the American literary world. However, as a balanced
and healthy individual she realized that change is necessary for growth
and then was enabled to be aware of social conditions without being
consumed by them. Understanding how and why America is the way that it
is, enabled her to demonstrate more wisdom and maturity in her future
writings. She grows. It’s evident because she’s a bearer of fruit:
poetry.
In addition to the Civil Rights Movement, her entrance into motherhood
also played a huge role in her life, her writing, and the way she viewed
the world. When Thomas Watson Giovanni was born in 1967, she began to
change holistically. Spin a Soft Black Song (1971), Ego-Tripping (1973),
and Vacation Time (1980) were books of children’s poems. At this time,
she began to embrace the human experience… loneliness, thwarted hopes,
rejection, and family affection. Around this time she began to speak at
various venues, schools, forums, and events earning her more respect,
not only as a poet, but a speaker and person as well. Her outspoken
persona, raw honesty, and fluency with which she presented and continues
to present herself and her viewpoints have earned her the admiration of
many.
So how does Nikki qualify as one who struggles? One possible reason that
Nikki’s work is so relatable to her audience is because it expresses her
internal struggles and frustrations that many can identify with. Her
story’s not the typical “I was raised in the hood in a one room shack
with rats and roaches story,” but a story of one has had the human
experience of fear, trust, thanksgiving, humiliation, lust, denial,
loneliness, failure, misunderstanding, joy, pain and love. The struggles
of being kicked out of Fisk University for rebelling against the social
rules (paternalistic characteristics of historically black colleges
during that era), being a single mother, a black person in America, and
a lung cancer survivor enable a wide range of persons to identify with
her work. Women of all backgrounds understand her pieces on love, need
for fulfillment, confusion, loneliness, and denial. Black people
understand her anger with racism and the process of growing and turning
from that anger. Writers understand the struggle of articulating
feelings and thoughts into words. All artists, lovers of art, readers,
and persons who respect and appreciate truthful words can truly admit
that not only has she struggled, but she has overcome these struggles:
evident in her fluid dance on paper with words. Besides being a poet,
essayist, speaker, mother, activist, and English professor at Virginia
Tech, she is a womb-an. Embracing all aspects of her naturally feminine
and human nature, she paints her perception of poetry:
poetry is motion graceful/ as a fawn/ gentle as a teardrop/ strong like
the eye/ finding peace in a crowded room/ we poets tend to think/ our
words are golden/ though emotion speaks too/ loudly to be defined/ by
silence/ sometimes after midnight or just before/ the dawn/ we sit
typewriter in hand/ pulling loneliness around us/ forgetting our lovers
or children/ who are sleeping/ ignoring the weary wariness/ of our own
logic/ to compose a poem/ no one understands it/ it never says "love me"
for poets are/ beyond love/ it never says "accept me" for poems seek
not/ acceptance but controversy/ it only says "i am" and therefore/ i
concede that you are too/ a poem is pure energy/ horizontally contained/
between the mind/ of the poet and the ear of the reader/ 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.
Asé |
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