Nikki Giovanni Annotated Bibliography Fowler, Virginia C. Nikki Giovanni: a literary biography. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Praeger, 2013. Print. This book provides an in-depth scrutiny of the work and life of Nikki Giovanni. Apparently, Giovanni cut an edge as one of the most famous and prolific poets that emerged in the wake of the Black Arts Movement. Fowler takes her readers through the poet’s life and works and gives a comprehensive analysis of how Giovanni’s life influenced her works. This source will be critical for the paper as it contains a rich background of the author. Fowler, Virginia C. Nikki Giovanni. Michigan: Twayne Publishers, 1992. Print. In this book, Virginia C. Fowler offers a ground-breaking interpretation and survey of …show more content…
Conversations with Nikki Giovanni. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992. Print. This book contains a collection of 22 interviews that Nikki Giovanni conducted over a span of twenty years. Although each of the interviews reveals much about the poet, one of them remains distinct. It is “the princess of black poetry.” It details the contributions of the poet during the Black Arts Movement era. The fact that her poetry managed to penetrate the literary world at this point in time gives her an edge as an unprecedented and phenomenal artist. These conversations are excellent sources for the paper. Giovanni, Nikki. Bicycles: love poems. [Place of publication not identified]: HarperCollins e-Books, 2014. Print. This book is a collection of several love poems that reveal the author’s boldness and romantic side. She expresses love notions in delightful and instantly classic fashion that many do not expect of her. Apparently, Giovanni had been through a lot in her life. She lost her mother and sister in addition to the massacre that occurred on the campus she was teaching at. Amidst these situations, she realized that love was the antidote, the only way to rediscover herself. This source is crucial as it offers first-hand experiences of the
In the poem “Legacies” by Nikki Giovanni is an example of a free verse and lyric poem. Meaning it expresses strong feeling and does not contain a regular rhyme or rhythm pattern. This poem shared how the grandmother wants to pass down a generational take of making rolls. The grandmother was afraid the making of bread would end there and would no longer continue to be made. Legacy is something wanted to be remembered by or passed down through generational time.
2nd ed. of the book. Detroit: Thomson-Gale, 2004. Print.
This piece of auto biographical works is one of the greatest pieces of literature and will continue to inspire young and old black Americans to this day be cause of her hard and racially tense background is what produced an eloquent piece of work that feels at times more fiction than non fiction
The structure of “Nikki-rosa” is distinctive yet strong. The lack of punctuation helps to tell the story; blunt thoughts about her childhood, a special moment for the author viewed as a negative by another. T...
of the book. Ed. Charles Bohner and Lyman Grant. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006. Fitzgerald, F. Scott.
Washington, Mary Helen. "The Darkened Eye Restored: Notes Toward a Literary History of Black Women". Angelyn Mitchell, ed. Within the Circle: An Anthology of African-American Literature, Criticism From the Present. Durham: Duke, 1994. 442-53.
Langston Hughes was probably the most well-known literary force during the Harlem Renaissance. He was one of the first known black artists to stress a need for his contemporaries to embrace the black jazz culture of the 1920s, as well as the cultural roots in Africa and not-so-distant memory of enslavement in the United States. In formal aspects, Hughes was innovative in that other writers of the Harlem Renaissance stuck with existing literary conventions, while Hughes wrote several poems and stories inspired by the improvised, oral traditions of black culture (Baym, 2221). Proud of his cultural identity, but saddened and angry about racial injustice, the content of much of Hughes’ work is filled with conflict between simply doing as one is told as a black member of society and standing up for injustice and being proud of one’s identity. This relates to a common theme in many of Hughes’ poems: that dignity is something that has to be fought for by those who are held back by segregation, poverty, and racial bigotry.
Nikki Giovanni is a very expressive poet. Her writing is complex and sometimes hard to understand at first. She uses words to help her readers picture what she is saying. I think she does a great job of helping you get her point. I read several of Nikki Giovanni’s poems. I decided to analyze three of them. I chose ‘Poetry”, “I Am Glass’, and ”Fish Out of Water.” I found these three to be fantastic examples of Giovanni’s use of figurative and specific language, imagery, and vivid world. It seems to me that her poems almost come alive and force you to put yourself inside.
The Tenth edition. Edited by Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman Publishers, pp. 113-117. 371-377.
David A. Galens. Vol. 17. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
8th ed. of the book. Boston: Wadsworth, 2013. 505 - 16. Print.
Smith, David Lionel. “The Black Arts Movement and Its Critics.” American Literary History. 3.1 (Spring 1991): 94-109.
Tom Quirk and Gary Scharnhorst. Vol. 1. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. 380-386. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. Niles North High School. 3 Mar. 2008.
Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.
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