Speaking to the Moment

Poet Nikki Giovanni embraces her contradictions

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“I am a revolutionary poet in a prerevolutionary world,” Nikki Giovanni wrote in her 1971 book, “Gemini: An Extended Autobiographical Statement on My First Twenty-Five Years of Being a Black Poet,” a 1973 finalist for the National Book Award.

Now, just months after celebrating her 80th birthday, how does Dr. Giovanni feel about that statement?

“Call me Nikki, and I don’t reread my work,” she says. “I wrote ‘Gemini’ when I was young. I’ve learned a lot since.”

Writing in the moment and letting the work speak for itself, especially when she reads it to an audience, is a hallmark of the celebrated poet and author. Her book “The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection” was a 2004 Grammy finalist for Best Spoken Word Album.

Retiring last year after teaching at Virginia Tech for 35 years, Giovanni, an outspoken activist for civil and women’s rights, has written more than two dozen volumes of poetry, essays and anthologies and 11 illustrated children’s books.

‘SOUL!’

One of the most renowned artists to emerge from the Black Arts Movement, which was established in 1965 in the wake of the Black Power Movement, Giovanni viewed the creation of Black art as a means of awakening Black consciousness. She, along with writers James Baldwin and Maya Angelou, gained national prominence from a movement often reviled by mainstream culture. But it was a movement that launched both hip-hop and poetry slams.

From the beginning, Giovanni had the ear of young Black activists through her frequent guest hosting of the WNET Group television show “SOUL!”, a performance and variety show that reached more than 65% of Black households during the 1960s and ’70s.

It was on “SOUL!”, in 1971 that she had a now-famous dialogue with Baldwin. Giovanni, who was 28 at the time, jousted with Baldwin, who was 47, over the roles of Black men, white racism and the writer.

Looking back on that iconic interview, Giovanni says, “I recently watched it. I hadn’t seen it in 20 years or so. You know, you learn things. I’ve been curious that we have not — not me because I’m just a poet — that nobody has really dealt with racism as a two-way street. Segregation was a two-way street. I had to be segregated against, but white people had to be taught to segregate against. You know, they didn’t just wake up in the morning and it made sense to them. What’s that song from ‘South Pacific’?” she says, referring to “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1949 musical. She picks up the tune: “You got to be carefully taught to hate before you are 6 or 7 or 8.”

Speaking Truth

For Giovanni, her one job as a poet is to tell the truth. It’s a job she has been doing through the Civil Rights era, the Rodney King riots, the Million Man March, the election of Barack Obama and the Black Lives Matter movement.

It was on full display on April 17, 2007, at a convocation following the Virginia Tech massacre, which took the lives of 32 students and faculty members. Standing before an overflowing crowd that included President George W. Bush, Giovanni delivered her now-famous poem, “We are Virginia Tech.” Her words that day, “We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend and cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again,” drew spontaneous cheering, with the crowd chanting, “We are Virginia Tech.”

If we do love, we have to do hate. If we do good, we have to recognize evil.

“My job that day was to address the student body,” she said at the time. “If we do love, we have to do hate. If we do good, we have to recognize evil.”

Giovanni had recognized evil almost immediately. She knew the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, and had had him removed from her class. She told the dean about the man she called “pure evil” and knew almost immediately who the shooter was as he was wreaking devastation.

As her friend Barbara Crosby once described her, “Nikki’s personal growth has required that all around her grow. … To love her is to love contradictions and conflict.”

Patron of Letters

Eight decades of growth have earned Giovanni seven NAACP Image Awards; more than 30 honorary degrees from colleges and universities nationwide; the keys to more than a dozen cities, including New York and Los Angeles; a commendation from the U.S. Senate; and the first Rosa Parks Woman of Courage award given by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Oprah named her a living legend.

And now, she is being honored by the Library of Virginia with a Patron of Letters degree, along with bestselling author David Baldacci, literacy advocate Michelle Baldacci and award-winning children’s author Meg Medina. The degrees will be presented during the 26th annual Virginia Literary Awards celebration in Richmond on Oct. 14; the ticketed event is open to the public (see below for more details).

The award means a lot to her, so much so that she insisted on returning early from the London premiere of “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” to attend the ceremony. The documentary film won the 2023 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival and was just picked up by HBO.

When asked why she was hurrying back, she says, “Virginia is my home, and it has been for almost 40 years. I have always really appreciated the Library of Virginia. I love London, but it will still be there.”

A Universal View

This is the second time the Library of Virginia has honored Giovanni — she received a Literary Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. And it’s not the first time she has left London in a hurry. Ten years ago, she was in the city giving poetry readings when her mentor, Dr. Louise Shoemaker of the University of Pennsylvania, died. “The only way to get back to the funeral in time was to take the old Supersonic Transport [similar to the Concorde]. I’m a poet and don’t have any money, so I went to a London bank to get a loan, you know, because they’re rich. I told them, ‘This is important to me, and I’m an honest person.’ I told them, ‘You people were involved in the slave trade, and a lot of the money you have came from my ancestors.’ I did get the money, and I paid them back, little by little. You can’t get it unless you ask.”

That flight was a seminal experience for Giovanni, and one that has shaped her view of the world. “I actually saw the curve of the earth, up more than 70,000 feet. I thought that was fabulous. I am a big fan of heaven,” she says. “I always liked the idea of the galaxy. If we are the only life form, if that’s the case, then there has been a big mistake, because human beings, we’re just not good people. We are just not very nice. And I think that is showing up more and more. Once a week somebody is being shot or something. It’s insane.”

Stories are being written by people who have the power, white people. It’s time we write our stories.

Part of that insanity includes Civil War monuments, she says. Touching on the removal of the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Monument Avenue, Giovanni says, “I think a traitor to this country probably shouldn’t have a statue. I can think of a lot of people whose statues I would like to see, if we are just doing statues. I don’t see why we keep having these statues to the same Confederates who really tried to destroy the nation and thought of people like me as property. Why wouldn’t you take it down? Richmond is important to Black Americans. Virginia is important to us. We have a lot of people whose statues need to go up, so why wouldn’t we do that?”

But, she admonishes, “We have to look forward, we just have to.” Looking forward isn’t just looking at this nation or even this planet. It’s about looking beyond, to the galaxy.

“I’m excited about what life forms there are out there,” she says with almost childlike glee. “Well, what happens when another life form knocks on your door? How do you welcome another life form? The way you welcome another life form here on earth.”

She suggests we practice welcoming people who look differently to us here on earth.

“That’s why transgender kids are so important to us, because they’re the ones saying, ‘No, I am not going to be defined by what you think is my gender. I’m going to define that.’ My ancestry is slavery, and we lost our names. What happens when somebody says, ‘I want my own name, and I want my own gender, and I want my own race,’ which will lead to, ‘I want my own religion, I want my own body’?”

A believer that other life forms from beyond our world will be revealed soon, Giovanni believes that humans must go beyond gender, race, religion and all the other elements that separate us from each other. Humans, she says, “have to look at everything differently.”

Memories of Mulvaney Street

Back down on terra firma, Giovanni is focused on a specific street in Knoxville, Tennessee. Although she grew up in Ohio, she was born in Knoxville and spent her summers there with her grandparents — particularly her beloved grandmother, Louvenia Watson, the inspiration for many of her poems.

“My grandparents lived at 400 Mulvaney St.,” she says. She has described the street as “a camel’s back with both humps bulging — up and down — we lived on the down part.” As she wrote in “Gemini,” the little frame house “was duplicated twice more which overlooked the soft-voiced people passing by with ‘Evening, ’Fessor Watson, Miz Watson,’ and the grass wouldn’t grow between our house and Edith and Clarence White’s house.”

Her grandparents’ house, as well as much of the neighborhood, has been torn down and rebuilt. Now the University of Tennessee may take more of the area. “It upsets me,” Giovanni says. “That kind of s--- happens all the time. They took the whole thing. There is still a park there and the creek, but all the rest of it is gone.”

The name of the street was changed from Mulvaney to Pat Summitt Drive, after the women’s basketball coach, taking Giovanni’s last vestige of cherished memories. The poet is striking back the only way she knows how. “I am working on my best job of writing the story of Mulvaney Street, because I knew the people who lived there, the people next door,” she says. “Somebody needs to write about Mulvaney Street. I want to write about what I remember, and somebody else will write what they remember. I am sure there are stories all over, little stories here and there, like Tulsa, St. Louis and Knoxville. Right now, those stories are being written by people who have the power, white people. It’s time we write our stories.”

Honoring Authors

The Library of Virginia’s annual gala shines with literary luminaries

What do you have when you invite a bestselling author, an award-winning children’s author, an activist poet, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, three fearless journalists and several award-winning poets? In addition to very lively dinner conversation, you have the Library of Virginia’s celebration of literature, the Virginia Literary Awards.

The gala, which is being held at the Library of Virginia on Saturday, Oct. 14, will present awards to several exceptional Virginia authors in the areas of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. 

“The Library of Virginia’s Virginia Literary Awards celebration, featuring a stunning array of amazing writers and literary works, has become a not-to-be-missed annual tradition,” says Librarian of Virginia Dr. Sandra Treadway. “At this year’s event, the library will pay special tribute to four outstanding Virginians — David Baldacci, Michelle Baldacci, Nikki Giovanni and Meg Medina — who have made important contributions to libraries and to the literary landscape of Virginia through their writing, philanthropy and advocacy.”

The Baldaccis, Giovanni and Medina are being presented with the library’s honorary Patron of Letters degree. Bestselling author David Baldacci and his wife, Michelle, are being recognized for literacy advocacy through their Wish You Well Foundation, which promotes and fosters literacy and education programs. Giovanni, a poet and educator, is being celebrated for a lifetime of Black activism. And Medina, the 2023-24 National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature and the 2019 winner of the John Newberry Medal, will be honored for her children’s books, which celebrate Latino culture.

But that’s just the appetizer for a full feast of literary excellence. The key reason for the gathering is the Virginia Literary Awards, which, according to Treadway, “highlight and celebrate the amazing work of authors who live in or write about Virginia, as well as individuals who have made a remarkable impact on literature and literacy.”

This year’s finalists are six writers and three poets, including Bill Glose, a combat veteran; Barbara Kingsolver, a Pulitzer Prize winner; Beth Macy, a writer and producer of a Peabody-winning TV series; Bruce Holsinger, a Guggenheim fellow; and Jonathan M. Katz, an Overseas Press Club award recipient. The finalists were chosen by an independent panel of judges from more than 104 submissions. In addition to distinguished recognition, the winner in each category will receive a $2,500 prize. 

While the main award recipients are selected by an independent panel, the library includes the public in its People’s Choice Awards, also being presented at the gala. For the more artistic of heart, the Mary Lynn Kotz Award, also to be presented, recognizes an outstanding book that is written in response to a work of art.

In its 200th year, the library is the most comprehensive resource in the world for the study of Virginia history, culture and government. Founded by the General Assembly in 1823 to organize and care for the commonwealth’s growing collection of books and official records, the library’s collection has grown to 2 million books, maps, newspapers, prints and photographs, as well as 130 million manuscript items.

The gala, which will feature cocktails, dinner, the award ceremony and a silent auction, is the Library of Virginia’s biggest fundraiser. It supports the library’s preservation, education and research initiatives.