The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (3 page)

 

 1961–63
  Giovanni lives with her parents in Cincinnati, takes care of her nephew, and works at Walgreens. She also takes courses at the University of Cincinnati and does volunteer work with children and parents among her mother's clients. Her parents move into a better house at 1168 Congress Avenue, just a few blocks from the house on Jackson. In March 1962, her grandfather Watson dies, and she drives her mother and nephew to Knoxville for the funeral.

 

 1964–66
 Giovanni's grandmother Louvenia is obliged to move from her home at 400 Mulvaney Street, which is sacrificed to “urban renewal.” Although her new house on Linden Avenue is nice, it lacks the accumulated memories of the old house, which Giovanni has come to regard as home. Giovanni travels to Fisk to explore the possibility of reenrolling. She discovers that Dean Cheatam is gone and that her replacement, Blanche McConnell Cowan (“Jackie”) is completely different. Dean Cowan purges the file Dean Cheatam collected on Giovanni and encourages her to come back, which she does in the fall of 1964. Giovanni does well academically and becomes a leader on campus. She majors in history but takes writers' workshops with the writer in residence John Oliver Killens. In spring 1966, at the First Writers Conference at Fisk, she meets Dudley Randall, who will soon launch Broadside Press; Robert Hayden; Melvin Tolson; Margaret Walker; and LeRoi Jones, now Amiri Baraka. She edits a student literary journal (titled
Élan
) and reestablishes the campus chapter of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). She
publishes an essay in
Negro Digest
on gender questions in the movement.

 

 1967
 Having completed her undergraduate coursework in December, Giovanni moves back to Cincinnati and rents her own apartment. She receives her B.A. in history, with honors, on January 28. Her grandmother Louvenia Watson dies on March 8, just two days before she was to have come for a visit. Giovanni drives her mother, sister, and nephew to Knoxville for the funeral, marking the most significant loss of her life. She turns to writing as a refuge and produces most of the poems that will make up her first volume,
Black Feeling Black Talk.
She edits
Conversation,
a Cincinnati revolutionary art journal. She attends the Detroit Conference of Unity and Art, where she meets H. Rap Brown (1943–), now Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, and other movement leaders. She organizes a Black Arts Festival, Cincinnati's first, for which she adapts and directs Virginia Hamilton's
Zeely
for the stage. Moves to Wilmington, Delaware and, with the help of a Ford Foundation fellowship, enrolls in the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Work. Works at a People's Settlement House in Wilmington as a part of her graduate studies.

 

 1968
 Giovanni borrows money to publish her first volume of poetry,
Black Feeling Black Talk.
She drops out of the University of Pennsylvania but continues working at the settlement house. Continues writing poems at a prodigious rate. Goes to Atlanta for the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated on April 4. Receives a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Moves to New York City, where she begins almost immediately to attract attention. Enrolls in an M.F.A. program at Columbia University's School of Fine Arts. At the end of the year, uses money from sales of
Black Feeling Black Talk
and a grant from the Harlem Arts Council to privately publish her second volume of poetry,
Black Judgement;
Broadside Press offers to distribute it.

 

 1969
 Giovanni teaches at Queens College. She has a Sunday afternoon book party (to promote
Black Judgement
) at the old Birdland jazz club, which attracts hundreds of people and makes the next day's metro section of
The New York Times.
Gains increasing attention from the media and begins receiving invitations to read and speak. In April
The New York Times
features her in an article entitled “Renaissance in Black Poetry Expresses Anger.” The
Amsterdam News
names her one of the ten “most admired Black women.” Regularly publishes book reviews in
Negro Digest.
Travels to Cincinnati for Labor Day weekend and gives birth to Thomas Watson Giovanni, her only child. Returns to New York and begins teaching at Livingston College of Rutgers University; frequently makes the commute with the struggling writer Toni Cade Bambara (1939–95).

 

 1970
 Giovanni edits and privately publishes
Night Comes Softly,
one of the earliest anthologies of poetry by Black women; it includes poems by new and relatively unknown writers as well as by established poets such as Margaret Walker and Mari Evans. Establishes NikTom, Ltd. Meets Ellis Haizlip (1929–91) and begins making regular appearances on his television program,
Soul!,
an entertainment-variety-talk show that promoted Black art and culture and allowed political expression. (During the history of the show—1967–72—which aired on WNET, many important artists and leaders, including Muhammad Ali, Jesse Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Gladys Knight, Miriam Makeba, and Stevie Wonder, made appearances. Giovanni was for several years a “regular.”) Giovanni publishes
Black Feeling Black Talk/Black Judgement
as one volume with William Morrow & Co. Publishes
Re: Creation
with Broadside Press. Writes and publishes the broadside “Poem of Angela Yvonne Davis.” Has become a recognized figure on the Black literary scene; in the anthology
We Speak as Liberators,
published this year, she is referred to as an “established name.”
Ebony
magazine names her Woman of the Year.

 

 1971
 Giovanni publishes autobiography,
Gemini,
and poems for children,
Spin A Soft Black Song. Black Feeling Black Talk/Black Judgement
comes out in paperback. Records
Truth Is On Its Way
with the New York Community Choir. Performs with the choir in a concert to introduce the album at Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem before a crowd of 1,500. Continues regular appearances on
Soul!,
including an appearance in January with Lena Horne. The Mugar Memorial Library of Boston University approaches her about housing her papers and she accepts; today the Mugar has all her papers and memorabilia.
Contact
magazine names her Best Poet in its annual awards.
Mademoiselle
magazine names her Woman of the Year. Travels to Africa.
Truth
sells more than 100,000 copies in its first six months. Giovanni travels to London to tape special segments of
Soul!
with James Baldwin; these air on December 15 and 22. Falls ill from exhaustion after returning to the United States.

 

 1972
 Giovanni publishes
My House.
Joins National Council of Negro Women. Receives an honorary doctorate from Wilberforce University, becoming the youngest person so honored by the nation's oldest Black college.
Truth Is On Its Way
receives NATRA's (National Association of Television and Radio Announcers) Award for Best Spoken Word Album. Receives widespread attention from print media, including publications such as
Jet, Newsweek, The Washington Post,
and
Ebony.
Appears frequently on
Soul!
and is a guest on
The Tonight Show.
Plays an active role in a new publication undertaken by her friend Ida Lewis,
Encore,
later renamed
Encore American & Worldwide News,
a Black newsmagazine. Until 1980 Giovanni acts as consultant, contributes a regular column, and helps finance the magazine. Puts on a free Father's Day concert with La Belle at Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem. Performs at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center with the New York Community Choir and La Belle. Receives key to Lincoln Heights, Ohio. Reads at the Paul Laurence Dunbar Centennial in Dayton, Ohio, where she and
Paula Giddings, then an editor at Howard University Press, conceive the idea of a book composed of a conversation between Giovanni and Margaret Walker (1915–98). Travels to Walker's home in Jackson, Mississippi, in November to begin taping.