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 died Dec. 9 at the age of 81 due to complications from lung cancer. She is remembered as revolutionary poet and activist and a trailblazer in the Black Arts and Civil Rights movements.

Giovanni’s first published work was the poetry collection Black Feelings, Black Talk in 1968, a book that heralded her a powerful figure in the burgeoning Black Arts movement of the 60s and 70s.

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.

In 1971, writers James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni sat down for a riveting two-hour conversation about Black love and ...

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 ...