Skip to main content

Nikki Giovanni

Biography

Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni, poet, activist, mother and professor, is a seven-time NAACP Image Award winner and the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award, and holds the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry, among many other honors. The author of 28 books and a Grammy nominee for THE NIKKI GIOVANNI POETRY COLLECTION, she is the University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Nikki Giovanni

Books by Nikki Giovanni

Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose
by Nikki Giovanni - Nonfiction, Poetry, Poetry Collection

For more than 50 years, Nikki Giovanni’s poetry has inspired, enlightened and dazzled readers. As sharp and outspoken as ever, this artist long hailed as a healer and a sage returns with this profound book of poetry in which she continues to call attention to injustice and give readers an unfiltered look into the most private parts of herself. In MAKE ME RAIN, she celebrates her loved ones and unapologetically declares her pride in her Black heritage, while exploring the enduring impact of the twin sins of racism and white nationalism.

Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid
by Nikki Giovanni - Essays, Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry

The poetry of Nikki Giovanni has spurred movements and inspired songs, turned hearts and informed generations. But if her reputation is writ large upon the national stage, her heart resides in the everyday where family and lovers gather, friends commune, and those no longer with us are remembered. And at every gathering there is food: food as sustenance, food as aphrodisiac, food as memory.

Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems from Writerscorps
by Nikki Giovanni - Poetry