Renowned poet and Black arts movement icon Nikki Giovanni dies at 81

Source: NPR

Renowned poet and Black arts movement icon Nikki Giovanni dies at 81

December 9, 202410:02 PM ET
Andrew Limbong

The renowned poet Nikki Giovanni has died. Giovanni died on Monday, Dec. 9, following her third cancer diagnosis, according to a statement from friend and author Renée Watson. She was 81. "We will forever be grateful for the unconditional time she gave to us, to all her literary children across the writerly world," said poet Kwame Alexander in the statement.

Giovanni published her first poetry collection, Black Feeling Black Talk, in 1968. It established her as an emerging figure out of the Black Arts Movement. In it, Giovanni writes about the intersections of love, politics, loneliness and race. Her language is sometimes spare and longing, other times dense and righteous. The final lines in "Word Poem" read, "let's build / what we become /when we dream."

She was born Yolanda Cornelia Giovanni, Jr., on June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tenn. Though she grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and its surrounding suburbs, she returned to Nashville to attend Fisk University for college. There, she met other writers who'd become leading Black literary figures – Dudley Randall, Margaret Walker, Amiri Baraka and more. While at Fisk, she also re-established the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

As her writing career took off, Giovanni became a regular guest on Soul!, a Black arts and culture talk show on WNET. Her conversation with the acclaimed writer James Baldwin came on the heels of being named "Woman of the Year" by both Ebony magazine and Mademoiselle.

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Read more: https://www.npr.org/2024/12/09/nx-s1-5222858/nikki-giovanni-poet-obituary


Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni speaking at Emory University on 6 February 2008