Nikki Giovanni’s poetry was a platform for truth-telling

There was a directness and urgency in her spoken and written voice but she could be mischievous and funny too

• Nikki Giovanni, acclaimed poet of the Black Arts Movement, dies aged 81

Nikki Giovanni was the epitome of what we Jamaicans call Talawa, small but mighty. I told her so when we spoke in February. She had a reputation for scolding interviewers when they strayed or said something stupid. I was nervous but needn’t have been. Giovanni had a slow-rising smile that emitted warmth, even as she told me, apparently to put me at ease, “Remember, the door is always open, if you don’t like what you’re hearing you can always walk away.”

Her poetry emerged from the fire and rage that fuelled the civil rights movement. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, her poem Reflections on 4 April 1968 asked:

What can I, a poor Black woman, do to destroy america?

And I knew my choice

Leave or kill him.

I’ve heard all the stories

‘bout how you don’t deserve me

When i die i hope no one who ever hurt me cries

and if they cry i hope their eyes fall out

and if ever i touched a life that life knows

that i know that touching was and still is and will always be the true

Topics

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