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Biography
American

Nikki Giovanni

1943 — 2023

Nikki Giovanni was an American poet, essayist, and activist who was one of the most important voices of the Black Arts Movement. Her poetry — including Black Feeling Black Talk (1968), Ego-Tripping and Other Poems for Young People (1973), and Bicycles (2009) — spans five decades and addresses race, love, music, and the African American experience with directness, humor, and lyrical power.

Past sales0
PeriodModern
NationalityAmerican
1. Biography

A short life of the author

Nikki Giovanni (1943–2023) was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr. on 7 June 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee. She studied at Fisk University.

Life and Career

Giovanni self-published Black Feeling Black Talk (1968) and Black Judgement (1968), which together sold thousands of copies and made her one of the most visible poets of the Black Arts Movement. Her poetry readings drew large audiences and were released as spoken-word albums.

Ego-Tripping and Other Poems for Young People (1973) — including the celebrated title poem (“I was born in the congo / I walked to the fertile crescent and built the sphinx”) — is her most anthologized work. She published over thirty books of poetry, essays, and children’s literature over a career spanning more than fifty years.

Major Works and Themes

Giovanni wrote about Black identity, family, music, love, and resistance. Her voice is warm, conversational, and politically engaged without being doctrinaire.

Key Works

  • Black Feeling Black Talk (1968)
  • Ego-Tripping and Other Poems for Young People (1973)

Collecting Giovanni

Self-published first editions of Black Feeling Black Talk (1968) are rare and bring $200–$500. Broadside Press editions are also collected. Giovanni died in 2023.

2. Works

Bibliography

2 on file
TitleYearPublisherLanguage
Black Feeling Black Talk
Giovanni's debut poetry collection — self-published at twenty-four and then picked up by Broadside Press — announced one of the most distinctive voices of the Black Arts Movement: urgent, personal, politically radical, and capable of moving between revolutionary anger and intimate tenderness within a single poem, selling thousands of copies and establishing Giovanni as a major American poet.
 1968 Broadside Press English
Black Judgement
Giovanni's second collection — published the same year as her debut — includes 'Nikki-Rosa,' one of the most anthologized poems of the Black Arts Movement, along with elegies for assassinated leaders and declarations of Black pride, solidifying her reputation as the 'Princess of Black Poetry' and demonstrating her range between public manifesto and intimate autobiography.
 1968 Broadside Press English