Yolanda Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni was born in Knoxville,
Tennessee on June 7, 1943, and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio.
In 1960, she entered Fisk University in Nashville,
Tennessee, where she worked with the school's Writer's
Workshop and edited the literary magazine. After receiving
her bachelor of arts degree in 1967, she organized the
Black Arts Festival in Cincinnati before entering graduate
school at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia
University.
In her first two collections, Black Feeling, Black Talk
(1968) and Black Judgement (1969), Giovanni reflects on the
African-American identity. Recently, she has published
Acolytes (HarperCollins, 2007), The Collected Poetry of
Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 (2003), Quilting the Black-Eyed
Pea: Poems and Not-Quite Poems (2002) Blues For All the
Changes: New Poems (1999), Love Poems (1997), and Selected
Poems of Nikki Giovanni (1996).
A lung cancer survivor, Giovanni has also contributed an
introduction to the anthology Breaking the Silence:
Inspirational Stories of Black Cancer Survivors (Hilton
Publishing, 2005).
Her honors include three NAACP Image Awards for Literature
in 1998, the Langston Hughes award for Distinguished
Contributions to Arts and Letters in 1996, as well as more
than twenty honorary degrees from national colleges and
universities. She has been given keys to more than a dozen
cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, and
New Orleans.
Several magazines have named Giovanni Woman of the Year,
including Essence, Mademoiselle, Ebony, and Ladies Home
Journal. She was the first recipient of the Rosa Parks
Woman of Courage Award. She has served as poetry judge for
the National Book Awards and was a finalist for a Grammy
Award in the category of Spoken Word.
She is currently Professor of English and Gloria D. Smith
Professor of Black Studies at Virginia Tech, where she has
taught since 1987.
(http://www.poets.org)
