The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (2 page)

BOOK: The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni
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As one reads through the poems in this volume, one cannot avoid recognizing that race and gender are inextricably intertwined constituents of Giovanni's thematic concerns. The significance of individual women in the poet's life is evident from the outset of her career—teachers, friends, her mother, and her grandmother are represented in her poems as crucial to her sense of self and well-being. In her mature poems, especially in those from
My House
for
ward, Giovanni demonstrates increasing awareness of the extent to which gender is a problematic component of identity for women. As she says in “A Poem Off Center,” “maybe i shouldn't feel sorry / for myself / but the more i understand women / the more i do.” Even Giovanni's early militant poems remark the subordinate role women were expected to play in the “revolution.” Other early poems take note of the sexist treatment to which the successful Black woman is apt to be subjected by the Black man. In “Poem For A Lady Whose Voice I Like,” for example, the male speaker attributes Lena Horne's success to her physical attractiveness and the attention bestowed on her by white people, rather than to her abilities and talent as a singer; his final exasperated charge is that “you pretty full of yourself ain't chu,” to which she replies, “show me someone not full of herself / and i'll show you an empty person.”

Countless poems play variations on this theme, reiterating the idea that the position women are expected to occupy—solely because of their gender—leaves them “empty” in one way or another. Expected to “sit and wait / cause i'm a woman” (“All I Gotta Do”), women live in a world.

made up of baby clothes

  

to be washed

food

  

to be cooked

lullabies

  

to be sung

smiles

  

to be glowed

hair

  

to be plaited

ribbons

  

to be bowed

coffee

  

to be drunk

books

  

to be read

tears

  

to be cried

loneliness

  

to be borne

 

  

“[Untitled]”

Expected to devote their lives to the needs of others, women do not necessarily receive any gratitude for such devotion, but may actually be punished for it. As Giovanni says in “Boxes,”

everybody says how strong

i am

only black women

and white men

are truly free

they say

it's not difficult to see

how stupid they are

i would not reject

my strength

though its source

is not choice

but responsibility

Variations on the idea expressed in the final stanza may be found frequently in Giovanni's poetry.

While many of Giovanni's poems explore and describe women's lives, others celebrate women—Black women in particular—as a way of providing an antidote to the slurs so often cast upon them. None offers a more audacious celebration than the enormously popular “Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why).” Without question one of the most powerful celebrations of the Black woman ever written, the poem attributes to her the creation of all the great civilizations of the world. Far from being bound to a narrow and confined existence, the speaker asserts, in the poem's famous concluding words, that “I…can fly / like a bird in the sky….” Although “Ego Tripping” accumulates outrageous claims to power (“the filings from my fingernails are / semiprecious jewels,” “The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid / across three continents”), it also accurately reflects Giovanni's frankly chauvinistic belief that whatever good we find in our world is attributable to the Black woman. Characteristically, in this poem and many others (as
well as in her prose), Giovanni urges that we not be ashamed of an aspect of identity over which we have no control—in this case, gender—just because the world in which we live uses it as a basis for oppression. Although she does not deny the reality of the oppression, she rejects the notion that the victim is responsible for her own oppression. Instead, in what is a frequent gesture, she embraces her gender and her race, and, in poems like “Ego Tripping,” offers her own definition and description of the Black woman. She once commented, in fact, that “Ego Tripping” was written in opposition to the gender roles typically taught to little girls; it “was really written for little girls…. I really got tired of hearing all of the little girls' games, such as Little Sally Walker.”
8

The speaker in “Poem (For Nina)” similarly emphasizes the importance of embracing her racial identity. If the white world cannot see beyond the color of her skin, and tries to oppress her because of it, then she will embrace in order to celebrate that component of her identity:

if i am imprisoned in my skin let it be a dark world with a deep bass walking a witch doctor to me for spiritual consultation

let my world be defined by my skin and the color of my people

for we          spirit to spirit          will embrace this world

The centrality of race and gender in Giovanni's poetry is evident throughout this volume, which brings together all of the poetry she published between 1968 and 1999. Especially in her later poetry, African American history becomes an important focus. A notable example is the powerful “But Since You Finally Asked,” which was written to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the slave memorial at Mount Vernon. The initial public reading
of this poem at the Mount Vernon ceremony was accompanied by a deluge of rain, and to the participants gathered on the slope overlooking the Potomac River nature itself seemed to join in mourning the “many thousand gone.” Giovanni's poem recounts the history of African people brought to America in chains, who were never “asked…what we thought of Jamestown,” never told “‘Welcome'…‘You're Home'.” The poem juxtaposes the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the realities of life for Black Americans, the only Americans, the poem suggests, who have actually believed in and tried to practice those ideals—which were never intended to include them. Brutally enslaved, denied their humanity, erased from history, Black Americans “didn't write a constitution…we live one.” Echoing words from the Negro National Anthem (“Lift Every Voice and Sing”), Giovanni concludes the poem with a celebration of the courage, integrity, and generosity of her people.

This poem makes clear why Nikki Giovanni continues to be so well loved: she is the definitive “poet of the people.” The significant body of work collected here will allow readers to follow her development as a poet and a thinker. More than anything, this collection dramatizes Giovanni's dynamism, her refusal to continue journeying down familiar poetic paths, her commitment to growth and change. To borrow from her own words in “Stardate,” we might well say that this is not just a collection of poems but “a celebration of the road we have traveled…[and] a prayer…for the roads yet to come!”

—
VIRGINIA C. FOWLER

July 1995

 1943
  Born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Jr., on June 7 in Knoxville General Hospital, Knoxville, Tennessee, the daughter of Yolande Cornelia (1919–) and Jones “Gus” Giovanni (1914–82), and the sister of Gary Ann (1940–), aged two years, nine months. Knoxville is the home of Giovanni's maternal grandparents, John Brown (1887–1962) and Emma Louvenia Watson (1898–1967). In August the family of four moves to Cincinnati, Ohio, home of her father, where her parents take jobs as houseparents at Glenview School, a home for Black boys. The children and their mother make frequent visits to their grandparents' home in Knoxville throughout their childhood. At some point during Giovanni's first three years, her sister—for reasons no one really understands—begins calling her Nikki.

 

 1947
 The family leaves Glenview and moves briefly to Woodlawn, a suburb of Cincinnati. Giovanni's father teaches at South Woodlawn School and works evenings and weekends at the YMCA. Because Woodlawn has no elementary school for Black children, Gary lives with her father's half brother and his wife, Bill and Gladys Atkinson, in Columbus, Ohio, where she attends second grade.

 

 1948
 The family moves to a house on Burns Avenue in nearby Wyoming, another suburb of Cincinnati. Giovanni begins kindergarten at Oak Avenue School, where her teacher is Mrs. Elizabeth Hicks; her sister enters third grade there.

 

 1949–52
 Giovanni completes the first, second, and third grades at Oak Avenue School, while her sister completes the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. In 1951 her mother accepts a third-grade teaching position at St. Simon's School, an all-Black Episcopal school in the nearby Black suburb of Lincoln Heights.

 

 1952
 Gus Giovanni makes a down payment on a home at 1167 Jackson Street in Lincoln Heights and moves his family there. Giovanni's parents had hoped to build a home in a new all-Black housing development called Hollydale. But after several years they realize that obtaining a loan is not going to be possible in the foreseeable future; racist lending practices simply cannot be circumvented. With the money he makes from selling his stock in this venture, her father is able to make the down payment on the Jackson Street house. During World War II, Lincoln Heights had been known as the Valley Homes, affordable housing for employees of General Electric, but with the economic boom following the war, white residents began moving to other suburbs. The U.S. government sold the homes to a corporation of Black citizens, and Lincoln Heights was born.

Giovanni enters fourth grade at St. Simon's School. Her sister enrolls in seventh grade at South Woodlawn School, where their father teaches.

 

 1953–57
 Giovanni continues her schooling at St. Simon's School, where she completes the fifth through eighth grades. Her seventh-grade teacher, Sister Althea Augustine, is an important influence on her and ultimately becomes a lifelong friend. Her sister enters Wyoming High School as one of the three Black students who desegregate the previously all-white school. In 1955, when Emmett Till is killed, Gary's teacher makes the comment “He got what he deserved.” Gary and her friend Beverly Waugh walk out in protest. Eventually the school makes an official apology. Also during this period, Giovanni's father quits his teaching job to take a better-paying position as a probation officer in the Hamilton County Juvenile Detention Office. Through his contacts in that position, he is able to help Giovanni's mother obtain a position with the Hamilton County Welfare Department, which carries better wages than the one hundred dollars a month she has been earning at St. Simon's School.

 

 1957–58
 Giovanni enters the ninth grade at Lockland High School, an all-Black school. Her sister's negative experiences in desegregating Wyoming High School make her and her parents uninterested in having her try to attend one of the white high schools. Gary leaves home to attend Central State University. Meanwhile, the tensions between her parents are difficult for Giovanni to handle. So in 1958 she asks her grandmother Watson if she can come to Knoxville for the summer. Once there, she tells her grandparents her real plan: to stay with them and attend school in Knoxville.

 

 1958–60
 Giovanni enrolls in Austin High School, where her grandfather taught Latin for many years. Her grandmother, who is involved in numerous charitable and political endeavors, becomes an increasing influence on her, teaching her the importance of helping others and fighting injustice. When a demonstration is planned to protest segregated dining facilities at downtown Rich's department store, her grandmother cheerfully volunteers Nikki. In high school Giovanni has two influential teachers: her French teacher, Mrs. Emma Stokes, and her English teacher, Miss Alfredda Delaney. They persuade her to apply for early admission to college. Meanwhile, Gary has a son, Christopher, in April 1959. That summer Giovanni returns to Cincinnati to take care of Christopher, who is living with her parents.

 

 1960–61
 Giovanni goes to Nashville to enroll in Fisk University—her grandfather's alma mater—as an early entrant. Academics present no problem to her, but she is unprepared for the conservatism of this small Black college. Almost from the outset she runs into trouble with the dean of women, Ann Cheatam, whose ideas about the behavior and attitudes appropriate to a Fisk woman are diametrically opposed to Giovanni's ideas about the intellectual seriousness and political awareness appropriate to a college student. She goes back to
Knoxville to spend Thanksgiving with her grandparents—without obtaining permission from Dean Cheatam. To compound the problem, when she visits Dean Cheatam the Monday after Thanksgiving, she articulates her contempt for the rules. Not surprisingly, she is expelled on February 1. She goes back to Cincinnati, where she lives with her parents. Her grandmother, far from uttering any reproach, travels to Nashville to meet with Dean Cheatam and later writes a letter protesting her decision.

BOOK: The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni
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