One of the most famous American poets, Nikki Giovanni, died Monday at the age of 81. She taught at Virginia Tech for 35 years, and was a prominent figure in the Black Arts and Civil Rights Movements.
Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni was born in Knoxville in 1943. She published dozens of books, including children’s books, and was a jazz musician. This year, she was awarded an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking for “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.”
“I really can’t think of another faculty member from the entire university that has left such an impact on the world,” said Laura Belmonte, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. She said many students have told her, Giovanni was their most influential teacher.
“She did a lot of different mentoring for athletes, and was instrumental in helping some of them think about their lives, beyond the playing field or the basketball court,” Belmonte said.
One of those she mentored at Virginia Tech is author and Emmy Award-winning producer, Kwame Alexander. “The poet Adrienne Rich wrote ‘…somehow, each of us will help the other live, and somewhere, each of us must help the other die.’ Renée [Watson] and I sat by her side, with Ginney, along with family and close friends, chatting about how much we learned about living from her, about how lucky we have been to have Nikki guide us, teach us, love us,” Alexander told NPR’s Michel Martin.
Renée Watson, another fellow writer, said "in so many ways Nikki has mothered me. First, I was nurtured by her poems as a young girl growing up reading her work, then her poetry served as a mentor to me and my students when I taught her poetry. But the greatest gift has been knowing her as a friend. After my mother passed away, Nikki’s love anchored me. I am forever changed by the gift of her wisdom and her care,” Watson said.
In her writing, interviews and teaching, Giovanni did not shy away from sharing her views with the world.
“And she was fiercely courageous in speaking out against any type, and many types, of injustice,” Belmonte said.
“I really think the poet’s role is truth,” Giovanni told RadioIQ in an interview in 2022, just after her retirement at Virginia Tech. “I think they’ll say, ‘she always told the truth.’ I have. I’ve not been afraid of truth, and I’ve not been afraid to say it.”
“One of the first things I say to my class, when I was teaching, is that, ‘if you want to be a poet, you must know one thing, nobody will know who you are until after you’re dead,’” Giovanni said.
“We don’t do art to be known. We do art for the art.”
According to a statement from her friend and fellow writer, Renee Watson, Giovanni passed away with her partner, Virginia Fowler, by her side, after a third battle with cancer. Giovanni was 81.
Nikki Giovanni’s final book, “The New Book: Poems, Letters, Blurbs, and Things,” which is about the current political climate in America, as well as her early life, is set to be published next February.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
