#58: Nikki Giovanni on Taking Full Poetic License of Your Life

This week, THE IDEALISTS. podcast host and entrepreneur Melissa Kiguwa speaks with world-renowned poet Nikki Giovanni—one of the foremost authors of the Black Arts Movement. Giovanni’s notable collections of poetry are Black Judgment (1968) and Those Who Ride the Night Winds (1983), which were influenced by her participation in the Black Arts and Black Power movements of the 1960s. She has published numerous books of poetry—from her first volume, Black Feeling Black Talk (1968), to New York Times bestseller Bicycles: Love Poems (2009). She has written several works of nonfiction and children’s literature and made multiple recordings, including the Emmy-award nominated The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection (2004). Her most recent publications include Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose (2020); Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid (2013); and, as editor, The 100 Best African American Poems (2010). With more than two dozen volumes of poetry, essays, and anthologies, she has also published 11 illustrated children’s books, including Rosa, an award-winning biography of Rosa Parks. 

 Among her numerous awards, are the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the inaugural Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award, the American Book Award, the Langston Hughes Award, the Virginia Governor’s Award for the Arts, and the Emily Couric Leadership Award. She is a seven-time recipient of the NAACP Image Award. Her autobiography, Gemini, was a finalist for the 1973 National Book Award. Her album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection, also netted her a Grammy nomination for Best Spoken Word Album.

 In this frank, yet revelatory episode, Nikki is unabashedly herself. When she says she wants to produce a history series where “librarians sit around and drink champagne… other people may say it should be coffee, but it's my show and they'll drink champagne… not bitchin’ and moanin’, just talking,” it’s clear she knows what she wants. Listening to her speak in an Afro tradition of loosely aligned parables feels not unlike listening to jazz—the music of surprise—with tangential, non-linear explorations that loop back to something greater.

About the episode:

– Nikki leads off the episode by explaining that poetry was probably something you learned in the womb from your mother—that it was and is something created by women and passed down in the oral folk culture and traditions of something as simple as cooking and recipes.

 – Next, she admits that while she wants African Americans to be seen and recognized for playing major roles in literature, poetry, architecture, and athletics, she feels hope in witnessing the staunch progress of younger generations—as evidenced by the Serenas, the Venuses, and the Beyonces.

 – Building on that, she recounts moments from a lifetime of illustrious friendships with the likes of Nina Simone, Muhammad Ali, Lena Horne, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Javon Jackson from

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