Nikki Giovanni, renowned poet, activist and leading figure of the Black Arts Movement, has died.
The author died on Dec. 9 in Blacksburg, Va., following her third cancer diagnosis, per a statement from her friend, author Renée Watson. Giovanni was 81.
“We will forever feel blessed to have shared a legacy and love with our dear cousin,” Giovanni’s relative, Allison “Pat” Ragan, said in a statement.
Giovanni was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr. in Knoxville, Tenn. on June 7, 1943. Her family moved to Ohio when she was 4, though Giovanni returned to Tennessee to attend college at historically Black university Fisk University in Nashville. While there, Giovanni joined the college’s Writer’s Workshop and was the editor of the school literary magazine.
In 1968, Giovanni self-published her debut poetry collection, Black Feeling Black Talk. Her work discussed topics like race, politics, sex, love and age. Giovanni published over 20 books throughout her career, including 1968’s Black Judgement and the prose work Gemini, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1973. She earned a Grammy nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection in 2004.
Giovanni was also a leading figure of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s that included writers like Imamu Amiri Baraka and Audre Lorde. In 1970, Giovanni founded Niktom Ltd., a publishing cooperative that highlighted Black female writers. She was a seven-time winner of the NAACP Image Award, and also received accolades like the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry.
Giovanni was also a renowned literary celebrity. She regularly appeared on the Black arts and culture show, Soul!, where she interviewed author James Baldwin in 1971. Giovanni also appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and read her poetry at a sold-out show at the Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in 1972.
Giovanni was a Professor Emerita in the English Department at Virginia Tech, where she taught for over 30 years. She was also the subject of the 2023 documentary Going to Mars, which recounted the writer’s influence.
“It’s incredibly comfortable and nice when you can look at your own work and say to yourself, ‘I did a good job.’ And then you let it go, because anything else is going to make you crazy, and anything else, you’re going to be trying to impress people who don’t even like you,” Giovanni said in a 2017 interview with The Creative Independent. “That’s the truth! You have to be very careful of letting people who not only don’t know you, but don’t understand you, don’t like you … you can’t let those people determine who you are.”
Source: People
