Giovanni, Nikki (1943-…), is an American poet, essayist, and children’s writer. Giovanni was a leading poet in the Black Arts Movement, a period of revolutionary thought and cultural innovation among African American artists in the 1960’s. Her early poems support racial equality and violent resistance to racism. Her later work deals with such themes as childhood, family life, and love relationships. Much of Giovanni’s free verse poetry is influenced by jazz and blues rhythms. She often gives readings of her works accompanied by music.
Many poems from Giovanni’s early volumes have been collected in The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni (1968-1995), published in 1996. Her later poems appear in the collections Love Poems (1997), Blues for All Changes: New Poems (1999), and Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems (2002).
Many of Giovanni’s children’s poems appear in Ego Tripping and Other Poems for Young People (1973), The Sun Is So Quiet (1996), and I Am Loved (2018). Giovanni has also written story books for children, such as Rosa (2005), a tale about civil rights leader Rosa Parks; and The Grasshopper’s Song: An Aesop’s Fable Revisited (2008). In her picture book A Library (2022), a little girl describes all the places a library can take her.
Giovanni’s essays have been collected in Gemini (1971), Sacred Cows…and Other Edibles (1988), and Racism 101 (1994). A selection of her poems, short stories, and essays was published in A Good Cry (2017). Make Me Rain (2020) is also a collection of poetry and prose.
Giovanni was born on June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her full name is Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Jr.
