In memoriam: Nikki Giovanni

Hinton’s Debut author, Reagan E J Jackson reflects on the life, work, and Legacy of Nikki Giovanni.

I first became acquainted with Nikki Giovanni through a Christmas Gift from my mom. Since the time I turned 8 and came home and announced that I was a writer my family did their part to introduce me to other black women who were writers. I met the greats. Sat in an airport as my mom braided bell hooks’ hair, served champagne and fried chicken to Toni Morrison, felt the goosebumps of being bathed in the rich resonant voice of Audre Lorde reading her poetry. It wasn’t until college that I had the chance to meet Nikki Giovanni. She was visiting Seattle and had a performance at some church that I heard about last minute and derailed my plans to find. At the end there was a book signing so I waited in line mostly just to tell her that like her I was also a writer. I hoped that one day she would meet me through my words and feel the way I had been blessed to feel about her and the impact of her work. She was kind and gracious and wished me well, but what stood out the most is how incredibly human she was.

Sometimes when you read someone’s writing and it humbles you or makes you cry or dream bigger or wonder how they got it just right, it can be easy to put them on a pedestal. Nikki Giovanni was great, and she was also funny, brash, strong willed, culturally astute, and most important she was human. She lived her life embodied in the experiences of black womanhood and the times she lived in, the turmoil, the struggle, and the beauty. Revolution, joy and resistance shaped her work. She gave to us her perspective, her emotions, her teasing and her rage. And reading it changed us. That’s what it is to be a great writer, and she was one of the greats. 

I recently learned through Wikipedia that in 2007 a species of South African bat was named after her Micronycteris giovanniae. The reason cited for this distinction is because the scientists thought the big eared bat bore Giovanni some resemblance, but I prefer to think it was because she was a person who listened well, who heard this world and answered back through her words and being and was such a powerful witness that people began to see little pieces of her in everything. May this always continue. 

I’ve heard it said that everyone dies twice, once when our spirit separates from our physical body and then again when the last person who knew us dies taking with them our names and memory. My hope as we lay her to rest is that Nikki Giovanni never suffers the second death because we all continue to speak her name and remember her words in perpetuity. She earned that gift.  

I’ll leave you with one of her most popular (and my personal favorite) poems:

Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)

By Nikki Giovanni

I was born in the congo

I walked to the fertile crescent and built

    the sphinx

I designed a pyramid so tough that a star

    that only glows every one hundred years falls

    into the center giving divine perfect light

I am bad

I sat on the throne

    drinking nectar with allah

I got hot and sent an ice age to europe

    to cool my thirst

My oldest daughter is nefertiti

    the tears from my birth pains

    created the nile

I am a beautiful woman

I gazed on the forest and burned

    out the sahara desert

    with a packet of goat’s meat

    and a change of clothes

I crossed it in two hours

I am a gazelle so swift

    so swift you can’t catch me

    For a birthday present when he was three

I gave my son hannibal an elephant

    He gave me rome for mother’s day

My strength flows ever on

My son noah built new/ark and

I stood proudly at the helm

    as we sailed on a soft summer day

I turned myself into myself and was

    jesus

    men intone my loving name

    All praises All praises

I am the one who would save

I sowed diamonds in my back yard

My bowels deliver uranium

    the filings from my fingernails are

    semi-precious jewels

    On a trip north

I caught a cold and blew

My nose giving oil to the arab world

I am so hip even my errors are correct

I sailed west to reach east and had to round off

    the earth as I went

    The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid

    across three continents

I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal

I cannot be comprehended

    except by my permission

I mean . . . I . . . can fly

    like a bird in the sky . . .