Poet, writer, activist died aged 81

Nikki Giovanni speaks during the 61st New York Film Festival – Deep Focus at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center on October 1, 2023 in New York City. | Source: Jason Mendez/Getty

Nikki Giovanni, the lidiosyncratic and award-winning poet, author and activist whose career spanned nearly 60 years, died on Monday. She was 81. The cause of death was cancer, according to WDBJwho first reported Giovanni’s passing.

Giovanni was working as a professor of English at Virginia Tech University at the time of her death.

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Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni, born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 7, 1943, served as University Distinguished Professor in the English Department at Virginia Tech. Giovanni, an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., is the recipient of hundreds of awards and honors. She was most recently awarded a 2024 Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Film for Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.

A prominent figure in the Black Arts and Civil Rights Movements, she befriended Rosa Parks, Aretha Franklin, James Baldwin, Nina Simone and Muhammad Ali and inspired generations of students, artists, activists, musicians, scholars and people young and old.

The author of nearly two dozen poetry collections, including children’s books, was celebrated during his lifetime for his revolutionary approach to his craft, particularly in the context of black liberation.

In the biography section of her website, Giovanni described herself as “a dreamer” whose career path was the consequence of a coincidence.

“My dream was not to publish or even to be a writer: my dream was to discover something no one else had thought of,” Giovanni wrote in part. “I guess that’s why I’m a poet. We put things together in ways that no one else does.”

One of the central themes in Giovanni’s works was the Black family, something she drew on from her own upbringing. Giovanni debated in a 2013 interview with NPR how much her mother would have enjoyed “Acolytes,” one of her more recent books of poetry, published in 2005 — the year her mother died.

“Mom was a storyteller and so, yes, Mom would have enjoyed this book,” Giovanni said. “And one of the things about this book—and I realized that I’m also working toward some of the darker sides of my upbringing, because when Mom was here, there were things that I didn’t think I had the right to talk about because they were her story not mine. But now that she’s not here, I think some of my story can come out in a different way.”

Giovanni summed up his career and life quite nicely in his biography:

I have been awarded an unprecedented 7 NAACP Image Awards, which makes me very very proud. I’ve been nominated for a Grammy; was a finalist for the National Book Award. I am very proud to have authored 3 New York Times and Los Angeles Times Best Sellers, very unusual for a poet. I am a university professor at Virginia Tech. I don’t have many friends, but I have good ones. I have a son and a grandson. My father, mother, sister and middle aunt are all dead, literally, making me go from being the baby of the family to getting older. I like to cook, travel and dream. I am a writer. I am happy.

This is a developing story that will be updated.

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‘I’m not that Christian’: Nikki Giovanni sounds off about Kyle Rittenhouse

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