Nikki Giovanni has said that she comes from a long line of storytellers. She has used her voice to become one of the most well-known African-American poets in the world, winning a multitude of awards and keys to more than two dozen American cities. She gained initial fame in the late 1960s as a pioneer of the Black Arts Movement.
Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. was born in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1943. Her intense appreciation for African American culture and heritage was instilled in her by her grandmother, whose death would spur Giovanni’s passion for writing as a coping mechanism.
She attended Fisk University, an esteemed HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities) during a time when a literary and cultural renaissance was emerging. She served as editor of the campus literary magazine and worked to restore the Fisk chapter of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. After graduating with a bachelor’s in history, she attended graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. By 1967, Giovanni was fully dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement and an advocate for Black Power.
Giovanni’s initial poetry collections, Black Feeling, Black Talk and Black Judgement, were published privately. These volumes were a response to the assassinations of such figures as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers, and her need to articulate the struggle, and the rights, of Black people. Re: Creation followed, further developing her political and spiritual awareness.
Upon the birth of her son, Giovanni published several volumes of children’s poetry, including Spin a Soft Black Song, Ego-Tripping, Vacation Time, The Sun Is So Quiet, and I Am Loved. Her political concerns were revisited in Those Who Ride the Night Winds, which was dedicated to Black American heroes and heroines. Later collections include Love Poems, Bicycles, Chasing Utopia, and Make Me Rain.
Giovanni’s honors are vast and include seven NAACP Image Awards, the Langston Hughes Award for Distinguished Contributions to Arts and Letters, and the Rosa Parks Women of Courage Award. She has taught at Queens College, Rutgers, and Ohio State, and is currently a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech.