Nikki Giovanni
Nikki Giovanni
Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni, Jr.is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children's literature. She has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal, the NAACP Image Award, and has been nominated for a Grammy Award, for her Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she has recently been named as one of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth7 June 1943
CityKnoxville, TN
CountryUnited States of America
She knows who she is, because she knows who she isn't.
I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.
A white face goes with a white mind. Occasionally a black face goes with a white mind. Very seldom a white face will have a black mind.
We have a world to conquer...one person at a time...starting with ourselves.
We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.
Everybody that loves freedom loves Harriet Tubman because she was determined not only to be free, but to make free as many people as she could.
Hip-hop is a cultural expression - it's embracing.
I would put books on par with chocolate, because a good book is delicious.
go barefoot and be warm all the time not only when you go to bed and sleep
If you are sitting there waiting for someone to tell you how wonderful you are, you'll never get anything done. Women need to get over being women. I'm tired of that socialization of women; that we are always supposed to be sitting around pleasing somebody.
Who I really am keeps surprising me.
I am of the generation of segregation. Black Lives Matter is post. I said today, and I will say all the time, "If Nina [Simone] were here, she'd have her Black Lives Matter [T-shirt] on." I think they're great kids. They don't need me or anybody else to tell them what to do.
We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.
It's not a ladder we're climbing, it's literature we're producing. . . . We cannot possibly leave it to history as a discipline nor to sociology nor science nor economics to tell the story of our people.