Nikki Giovanni free essay sample

Nikki Giovanni has evolved as writer; naturalist and a modernist later. Naturalism was a literary movement that was taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character. Giovanni shows naturalism in her works Poem (No Name No. 2), and â€Å"[Untitled] (For Margaret Danner)†. Just to give a little background on modernism, Modernism is when writers proclaimed a new subject matter for literature and the writer feels that its new way of looking at life required a new form, a new way of writing. The writers of this period tend to pursue more experimental and usually more highly individualistic forms of writing. Yolande Cornelia Nikki Giovanni was born June 7, 1943. She is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Her primary focus is on the individual and the power one has to make a difference in oneself and in the lives of others. We will write a custom essay sample on Nikki Giovanni or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Nikki Giovanni is one of the best-known African-American poets who reached distinction during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her unique and insightful poetry testifies to her own evolving awareness and experiences: from child to young woman, from naive college freshman to seasoned civil rights activist, from daughter to mother. Frequently anthologized, Giovanni’s poetry expresses strong racial pride and respect for family. Her poems are easy to read and understand and her work is capable of reaching an audience regardless of age, race, gender, or social class. In these first works, her motives are clear: the importance of raising awareness about the rights of African-Americans: the first three collections of poems, Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), Black Judgment (1968), and Re: Creation (1970), her content was urgently revolutionary and suffused with deliberate interpretation of experience through a black consciousness. Giovanni’s first three volumes of poetry were enormously successful, answering a need for inspiration, anger, and solidarity in those who read them. She publicly expressed the feelings of people who had felt voiceless, finding new audiences beyond the usual poetry-reading public. Black Judgment sold six thousand copies in three months, almost six times the sales level expected of a poetry book. As she travelled to speaking engagements at colleges around the country, Giovanni was often hailed as one of the leading black poets of the new black renaissance. The prose poem â€Å"Nikki-Rosa,† Giovanni’s reminiscence of her childhood in a close-knit African-American home, was first published in Black Judgement. The poem expanded her appeal and became her most beloved and most anthologized work. During this time, she also made television appearances, later published as conversations with Margaret Walker and James Baldwin ( Giovanni 234) . She writes, If the Black Revolution passes you bye its damned/sure/the white reaction to it wont (Giovanni,33). Coming from her first book of poetry, this notion of a Black Revolution spreads throughout her early works. Also in her first book, Poem (No Name No. 2), she writes: Bitter Black Bitterness Black Bitter Bitterness Bitterness Black Brothers Bitter Black Get Blacker Get Bitter Get Black Bitterness NOW (Giovanni,32) Giovannis poetry shows awareness towards the mentality of an oppressed race, the anger, and the desire to break from oppression at all costs. Giovannis writings during this early period in the late sixties/early seventies were clearly centered on race and racial issues apparent in American society. But just as Giovanni says that an impersonal organization cannot define a revolution, her poetry takes a turn towards the personal. Her poetry is personal and political, often revolving around events that occur in her life. Poetry, she has written, is but a reflection of the moment. The universal comes from the particular (1). In this way, Giovanni expresses the world she sees around her by making single moment’s historic and personal feelings paramount to all. Her poetry also becomes more musical, working off of the definite alliteration of her early poetry as in Bitter Black Bitterness, but containing a lyrical style resembling famous singers like Aretha Franklin and Roberta Flack, both of whom she writes about. Giovanni, embracing sound and repetition in [Untitled] (For Margaret Danner), sings, one ounce of truth benefits like ripples on a pond one ounce of truth benefits like a ripple on a pond one ounce of truth benefits like ripples on a pond as things change remember my smile (Giovanni,137). Although Giovanni is still concerned with racial equality and similar political issues, in her later poetry, she shows a new emphasis on a universal struggle for truth, exchanging her earlier resentment, for the individual quest for beauty. She discovers a newfound statement towards reality and poetry. In the poem Poetry, found in The Women and the Men (1975), she writes: That life is precious which is all we poets wrapped in our loneliness are trying to say (Giovanni,176) Here she expresses, as she often does in her latter poetry, how lonely life is, especially a life of poetry. Giovanni says that writing poetry is a lonely profession. It is through her brutal honesty, experience, and wisdom that Nikki Giovanni is able to compile a collection of poetry that is moving and inspiring, as well as showing the vitality of all of her literary works. Giovanni came to Virginia Tech under the Commonwealth Visiting Professor program. Giovanna wanted to get away from everyone and start a new adventure. She had started her work at Warm Hearth and felt good about that. She had begun to help with the Women Artist Series. And she felt her particular skills could be of help in the areas to which Virginia Tech was committed to the humanities. For example, she accepted a permanent professorship in the Department of English. She continues her writing. Since coming to Virginia Tech, she has published a book of humorous essays titled Sacred Cows and Other Edibles. Another poem from Giovanni after her son graduated from high school , â€Å"The World Is Not a Pleasant Place to Be† has become an unfolding of events at Virginia Tech with shock and sadness. For college professors and students, it’s unnerving to think of a campus as unsafe. Also for a parent of college-age children, it’s even more terrifying. the world is not a pleasant place to be without someone a river would stop ts flow if only a stream were there to receive it an ocean would never laugh if clouds werent there to kiss her tears ( Giovanni 157 ) Even though Giovanni started doing children books, each book had a voluble lesson be hide it or to better yourself as a person. Giovanni quoted, â€Å"Writing is what I do to justify the air I breathe,† I have been considered a writer who writes from rage and it confuses me. What else do writers write from? A poem has to say something. It has to make some sort of sense; be lyrical; to the point; and still able to be read by whatever reader is kind enough to pick up the book† (Robison 2012 ) . The Grasshopper song â€Å"; which is moralistic story about working hard in order to reap rewards. In this version, Grasshopper finds himself shut out of a share of the harvest once again and decides to sue the Ants. After all, he serenaded them as they worked all summer long and it was the rhythm of his music that helped them stay on task and bring in a significant harvest. The Ants never actually asked him to play, though, did they? Lawyers take the case and the fables focus shifts from the value of hard work to the important place that art holds in our lives. Nikki Giovanni is a world-renowned poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Over the past thirty years, her outspokenness, in her writing and in lectures, has brought the eyes of the world upon her. One of the most widely-read American poets, she prides herself on being a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English. Giovanni remains as determined and committed as ever to the fight for civil rights and equality. Always insisting on presenting the truth as she sees it, she has maintained a prominent place as a strong voice of the Black community. Her focus is on the individual, specifically, on the power one has to make a difference in oneself, and thus, in the lives of others. With a rare and wonderful warmth, accessibility and wit, and a sharp observation of the human condition, Giovanni reveals herself to be a woman of vision and caring, a poet with whom universal audiences can empathize and identify ( Robison 212 ). No matter what Nikki Giovanni seems to put together, whether is harsh , realist , racism , or joyful ; she can always catch a readers eye. And that’s the beauty about writing and telling a story to people that’s willing to listen. When you can relate to the reader or you want the reader to get a better understanding on what point your trying to prove. This is a quote that she used in one of her interviews with a report, sometimes gentle, sometimes angry, and always moving