Nikki Giovanni: She was BAD, she was loved

By Felecia Piggott-Long, PhD Born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr. on June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Jones and Yolande Giovanni, Nikki Giovanni became one of the most audacious young poets to emerge from the Black Arts Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. While reading the poetry of Nikki Giovanni, I became an activist, a militant soul in search of a revolution. The first books that I purchased from her collection were “Black Feeling, Black Talk” (1968) and “Black Judgement” (1969).   The most recent purchase I have made from her collection is a children’s book called “I Am Loved” (2018). My favorite two poems that she wrote are “Ego-Tripping” and “Nikki-Rosa.” I was also intrigued when I read “The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs Negro.” I fell in love with poetry as a powerful form of rhetoric when I read “Ego-Tripping” because she used allusions to African history and culture as well as biblical imagery. Her diction exudes so much confidence for a young, African American woman in a world determined to keep her from finding her voice. Also, I enjoyed “Nikki Rosa” because the speaker comes to the epiphany that she does not have to...