Topeka, Kan. – Washburn University invites the public to join the Washburn community for an evening with world-renowned poet Nikki Giovanni 6 – 8 p.m. March 7
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American poet Nikki Giovanni
Who Is Nikki Giovanni?
Nikki Giovanni established Cincinnati’s first Black Arts Festival in 1967. She published her first book of poems, Black Feeling, Black Talk in 1968.
Early Life
Poet and writer Nikki Giovanni was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Jr., was born on June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Giovanni is a prominent poet and writer who first caught the publics attention as part of the Black Arts movement of the late 1960s. Growing up in the Cincinnati area, she often visited Knoxville to see family, especially her maternal grandmother. After graduating with honors from Fisk University in 1967, she returned to Cincinnati and established the city’s first Black Arts Festival. Giovanni also began writing the poems that are included in her first self-published volume, Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968).
Nikki Giovanni, finding the song in the darkest days
Nikki Giovanni, an author and poet, in Christiansburg, Va., Dec. 11, 2020. Part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s, part of a Biden campaign ad in 2020, she has never stopped writing. Shaban Athuman/The New York Times.
by Elizabeth A. Harris
(NYT NEWS SERVICE)
.- Over the course of her 52-year career, Nikki Giovanni has written 12 childrens books and eight nonfiction books, and she has released 10 spoken word albums. But the genre for which she is best known is poetry.
When you flip through a stack of her 19 collections (its a tall stack), you find her face, still radiant and smiling at 77, staring back at you from the covers. This is an unusual choice for the jacket of a poetry book, but Giovanni is the rare poet whom a good number of people will actually recognize a distinction that is all the more noteworthy considering how long it has been true.