My first introduction to Nikki Giovanni came in the fall of my sixth-grade year in my school’s library.
Not unfamiliar with public libraries, I was a library kid through and through and read vivaciously since learning how to read and being able to do so on my own. My middle years are the years that really started to define the reader, writer, and Black woman that I would grow up to be.
I fondly remember discovering a plethora of Black women writers including the plays of Lorraine Hansberry and Ntozake Shange, the novels of Toni Morrison and so much poetry. Lucille Clifton, Sonia Sanchez, yet it was Nikki Giovanni’s poetry that spoke to me the most at the time in my young life.
I remember most that her poetry felt alive, mystic, humorous, weighty and so timely for a Black girl stumbling upon her words while walking through the well-stocked and well-loved library of her public school in the late 90’s and figuring out her Blackness and her ever changing body thanks to poetry. The place Giovanni’s poetry and her Black women contemporaries touched is sacred and a cornerstone of my understanding of literature and the written word.
Nikki Giovanni — poet, writer, critic, editor, orator, teacher, mother, ancestor, and more — died on December 9, 2024.
I’ll spare you the usual “the news left me speechless” reactions that we hear and read so often when someone we admire passes on. I was scrolling Bluesky on my desktop and came across a post announcing her death, and I stopped and just closed out the whole tab. Unwilling to confront the news head on and process my oncoming heartbreak, I just refused to see it, refused to accept it, and went to go grab the mail or something frivolous and meaningless around the house.
This year had taken so much from us, from me, from us as a country. Why accept more bad news? I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I went to bed that night and did have a heavy heart because one of my heroes was gone, and I was tired. Just bone tired and not wanting to sleep with sorrow at my pillow.
Who Said Never Meet Your Heroes?
Back in 2010, while at the graduation ceremony for my childhood bestie and favorite cousin Mary, I learned that we would be graced with Nikki’s presence. Sitting outside in the humid weather, I opened up the graduation ceremony program for Dillard University for the year 2010 to find her name on the program for the commencement speech! Pestering the hell out of my mom next to me, I whispered up a storm almost even forgetting why I was actually there–to celebrate my cousin, of course. (Mary, if you see this, I’m sorry, cousin!)
My cousin did look amazing walking the stage, all smiles and confidently walking as we cheered her on for her academic achievements. And Nikki Giovanni gave us a hell of a commencement speech with burst of humor throughout, shaking up the crowd and waking up those whose sleepy eyes closed for a moment’s rest. There was even a clever dig at Christopher Columbus that earned more than a few noises of amusement and the energy was just right for the middle of the program.
We often say some variation of the phrase, “Never meet your heroes” in life as a way to remind us that all of us are human and err. But mostly to prep ourselves that placing people on pedestals is dangerous and to pace our expectations accordingly to those we deem heroic and look up to–in the likelihood that they fall and become awful, former shells of themselves or become new persons–strikingly awful and less like the heroes you once held in such high esteem.
I laugh at that phrase now because in 2010 when I met Nikki I chuckled. I’d say never meet your heroes cause you’ll be shocked that as fiery and inspiring that they are, there’s a chance that these larger than life heroes will be shorter than you. That’s how I remember her: so full of grace for young me who stumbled over my words in speaking to her but nearly ran across campus to see if there was a chance to see her before she left.
My Hero was a Black Woman, First and Foremost
Yet, it is her poetry that always spoke to me the loudest. Some years ago, I fought in what then I figured was an epic bidding battle on eBay for an original issue of Giovanni’s spoken word recording, Truth Is On Its Way (1971). The album, on which she reads her poetry against a background of gospel music, feels so blessedly Black and whole and just complete that I would throw it on some days in my college years where I had nothing. Other days where the record was played, it was to be background music in my cleaning Saturday mornings sessions or when I just wanted to feel closer to God, Black people, or all those who came before me.
Across the social media, people everywhere are sharing bits and pieces of her poetry in screenshots and links to poetry websites and archives and photos of well-worn books. It has been fun rediscovering old faves and stanzas I don’t quite remember at all. I think of a quote by the poet herself that makes me laugh as it is quite on brand for her sense of humor and outlook: “Favorite poems are like favorite children. We definitely have them but we never tell as the others would have their feelings hurt.”
When reading her biography on her website this week, I was reminded of the fact that she too, as a kid, placed a lot of adoration into libraries.
As a child she was often sickly so she stayed home from school and reveled in her mother’s library which included books by Black writers including Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. She mentions in his biography, that she wrote when she was seventy-one years old, that as a child she was amused but not deterred by a nun, an adult who tried to be dismissive with Black Boy by Richard Wright.
I love that Nikki was finding her voice then as a child with Black books, Black authors, and the world that attempted to be dismissive about them to young impressionable Black children. As I was–all those many years ago in the library of my middle school in Los Angeles.
Saying Goodbye to Nikki
Saying Goodbye to Nikki, feels final, in some way. When thinking of goodbyes, I remember her spirit. I think of this rallying, short poem piece she gave at the Virginia Tech Memorial Convocation on April 17, 2007 after the mass shooting tragedy.
Her spirit is also invoked when I think about the sometimes militant, sometimes spicy, and sometimes hilarious but always valid views on whiteness, on the power of the creative, her admiration of fellow Black women and her love of Black youth–forever and always.
(The clip of her being demanding–and rightfully so- of James Baldwin, thee James Baldwin in an interview at a brilliant age 28 goes viral every few months or so, for a reason. Part one and two of that recorded interview here and here.)
But most of all, I remember how she treated me and how she spoke to me and asked me about my life and my college life. I remember how gracious she was to little old me and saw how timid I was. I remember the way she smiled with a full-toothed smile and made me feel welcomed and seen and feel like another loved person on this planet.
I remember that even though I didn’t have the words to tell her back then how much her work meant to me and how she helped change my life with her words as a Black woman creative, she treated me kindly and warmly and openly. Maybe she knew, deep down due to that uncanny intuition she seemed to have when talking and connecting with others. Maybe she didn’t. Either way, that thought doesn’t erase what her life’s work did or me and will remain for me for the rest of my days.
So as a people, as a country, as a society we say goodbye to Nikki Giovanni– a poet, writer, critic, editor, orator, teacher, mother, ancestor, and more.
Goodbye, Nikki. I’ll write a good omelet for you in the morning while ego tripping into 2025.
Cover Photo: Photo: Robin Holland
Want to get Black Nerd Problems updates sent directly to you?
Sign up here! Follow us on BlueSky ,Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and Instagram!
Show Comments