She was a Black teacher for me throughout all chapters of my life. I received my first poetry collection from my father, “The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni,” when I was in high school.

Giovanni’s earliest works nodded to her expansive vision. Her first book of poems, Black Feeling, Black Talk, was self-published in 1968, when Giovanni was in her mid-20s.

After learning that Nikki Giovanni, a world-renowned Black poet and Black Arts Movement leader, passed away at 81, many naturally responded by sharing and discussing her work. Poems, lectures ...

Nikki Giovanni, a celebrated poet, activist, and literary icon, passed away peacefully on December 9, 2024, at the age of 81. The news was shared by her friend and fellow writer, Renee Watson, who ...

As a young poet, she wrote an essay, “Black Poems, Poseurs and Power” (1969), critiquing what she saw as the exclusionary, elitist practices of Black Arts leaders like Amiri Baraka.