Tributes pour in for Nikki Giovanni, world-renowned poet and educator
Nikki Giovanni, a world-renowned poet and key figure of the Black Arts Movement, has died at 81.
Nikki Giovanni, a world-renowned poet, activist and key figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, has died. She was 81 years old.
She died due to complications of lung cancer, her wife, Virginia Fowler, told The New York Times. She was initially diagnosed with the disease in 1995.
“The acclaimed poet, Black Arts Movement icon whose poems of wit, wonder, and wisdom were celebrated in children’s books, on keynote stages and television shows, and in more than two dozen bestselling poetry collections, died peacefully on December 9, 2024, with her life-long partner, Virginia Fowler, by her side,” Renée Watson, author and close friend of Giovanni, said in a statement.
Born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr. in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 7, 1943, she became known as “Nikki” after her sister gave her the nickname. In 1960, Giovanni enrolled in Fisk University, an HBCU in Nashville and her grandfather's alma mater. Headstrong and independent, Giovanni did not conform to the norms asked of Fisk students and was later expelled.
Giovanni would eventually return to Fisk, where she edited the student literary journal, reestablished the school’s chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and ultimately cultivated her voice as a writer. She would soon meet other key figures of the Black Arts Movement, including fiction writer John O. Killens, author Margaret Walker and the poet Amiri Baraka.
After leaving the university, Giovanni would go on to publish a collection of poems, “Black Feeling, Black Talk,” “Black Judgement,” and “Re: Creation.” It was “Black Feeling, Black Talk,” her debut collection, that would put her on the map as a burgeoning figure in the Black Arts Movement.
Giovanni enjoyed a prolific career, authoring more than 30 books, appearing on the popular Black culture TV program “Soul!” where she notably held an interview with James Baldwin and earning multiple honors and awards. In 1987, Giovanni became a professor of English at Virginia Tech, where she taught over three decades.
It was at Virginia Tech where Giovanni taught New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander, who calls her his “literary mother.”
“I was that student who argued everything and pushed back on anything she offered,” Alexander told Virginia Tech News. “I thought I knew more than she did about poetry. Yet she kept letting me take her classes, kept teaching me, saw what was possible for me, and shaped me into who I am today.”
"We will forever be grateful for the unconditional time she gave to us, to all her literary children across the writerly world," Alexander said in a statement.
Giovanni was also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, which she cherished.
In 2017, Giovanni talked to writer Morgan Jenkins about her book, “A Good Cry,” in which she reflected on aging and the passage of time.
“I’m a big fan of the spirit. I don’t think that death is the end of us. I just think that there is a transition into another world. I happen to like diamonds, but I have a sapphire, and I was looking at it one day and realizing that this sapphire is somebody 1,000 years ago. At some point, it was somebody. He or she was put into the ground, and one day, he or she was dug up. Now this person has transferred into a stone, into something else. It was a realization that they can’t be gone. It’s just not possible. We make this change. I won’t be here in 1,000 years but hopefully someone will pick up a ruby or diamond and say, “Oh, look at this poet.” It’s the spirit.”
Giovanni’s final work, titled “The Last Book,” is set to be published in the fall of 2025. Read her poems at The Poetry Foundation.
Other authors and figures shared tributes to the late poet on social media:
Related: Author and poet
penned a letter thanking Nikki Giovanni for her impact on his life.
Thank you for sharing, Phil. I appreciate the work you do to preserve and honor Black media and voices.
thank u for the link to the interview w giovanni & baldwin!