Remembering Nikki Giovanni (1943-2024)

"...and if ever i touched a life i hope that life knows

that i know that touching was and still is and will always

be the true

revolution"

Excerpt from Nikki Giovanni’s poem “When I Die”

Under gray skies and a sprinkling of rain on Tuesday, we awoke to news of the passing of poet, author, and educator Nikki Giovanni. She was 81.

One of the leading poets of her generation, the author of more than 25 books, a seven-time NAACP Image Award winner, and the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award, Nikki Giovanni was a prominent voice of the Black Arts Movement for more than 50 years.

Her debut collection, Black Poetry, Black Talk, was published in 1968. Her final poetry collection, titled The Last Book, is set for publication in 2025.

In 2019, with a major assist from her longtime friend, retired University at Albany Professor Leonard Slade, the Writers Institute hosted an event that brought Nikki Giovanni to campus to celebrate the 50th anniversary of UAlbany’s Department of Africana Studies.

The visit came upon publication of her latest book, A Good Cry: What We Learn from Tears and Laughter, her memoir about the joys and perils of aging; the violence of her parents’ marriage and her early life; the people who have given her life meaning; the grandparents who took her in and saved her life; the poets and thinkers who influenced her; and the students who gave her life purpose.

(Nikki Giovanni and Leonard Slade at the University at Albany Oct. 10, 2019. Paul Grondahl / NYS Writers Institute)

(UAlbany President Havidán Rodríguez, his wife Rosy Lopez, and NYS Writers Institute Director Paul Grondahl at the 2019 event.  Patrick Dodson / UAlbany)

(An embrace between old friends: Leonard Slade and Nikki Giovanni at the University at Albany Oct. 10, 2019. Patrick Dodson / UAlbany)

More photos from the 2019 Nikki Giovanni talk at UAlbany.

Heritage

(for Walter Leonard)

The folk here

Are old

There are wheel

Chairs and people

Struggling

To push them

There are sad

eyed people looking

Up from beds they

Cannot stretch out

In

And some simply cannot

Move their heads

All will become something precious

Sapphires . . . Emeralds . . . Rubies which

Will be discovered

By other explorers who

Will polish and shape

The stones

And we will wear them

Never knowing

Whose loved one

We have

Embraced

Video: Nikki Giovanni at the University at Albany, 2019

Videos:

In November, 1971, Nikki Giovanni joined James Baldwin for a wide-ranging conversation aired on the PBS program Soul!, an entertainment/variety/talk show that promoted black art and culture and political expression. The video was recorded in London and it was later published under the title A Dialogue in 1973.

During the talk, Baldwin had this to say about the condition of being a writer: "The very first thing a writer has to face is that he cannot be told what to write. You know, nobody asked me to be a writer; I chose it. Well, since I’m a man I have to assume I chose it; perhaps in fact, I didn’t choose it. But in any case, the one thing you have to do is try to tell the truth. And what everyone overlooks is that in order to do it — when the book comes out it may hurt you — but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt me first."

1971 

1972

2017