Analysis Of Virginia Tech Poem By Nikki Giovanni

Christina Tartini
Mrs. Kuehlke
Writing Workshop March 2015
The Virginia Tech Massacre
"I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy." (Giovanni). Nikki Giovanni was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni on June 7, 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee (“Nikki”). Nikki Giovanni, professor at Virginia Tech and writer, was involved in a tragic event in 2007. Giovanni helped Virginia Tech move forward from the massacre that took place at the college. Nikki Giovanni has impacted our world through her poems, speeches, and books.
Nikki Giovanni had an interview with Scholastic in 2002. In her interview with Scholastic, she talked about what inspires her to write. For Giovanni,

The voice of the “We are Virginia Tech” poem is Nikki Giovanni and the point of view of the poem is the student body of Virginia Tech. From reading her poem it shows us that she can be trusted and believes that they can get through this hard time. The time period that she wrote this poem was April 2007 and the place was at the Virginia Tech Convocation. The Virginia Tech massacre influenced her to write “We are Virginia Tech” and they wanted her to write it for the memorial ceremony. The poem she shared would be heard all around the world. The audience of the poem is angry and sad about the awful event. People who are open to hear her message need hope and encouragement to move forward from the shooting. The purpose of her poem was to show Virginia Tech that they can move on while still mourning about their classmates. Overall, the main purpose was to show how strong they all are. The Virginia Tech massacre is the subject of the poem. The tone of the poem is encouraging, hopeful, and selfless. Giovanni compares their massacre to other terrible events going on every day in our world. To prove the idea that they do not understand their tragedy, Giovanni compares their own tragedy to other problems in our world. To prove the idea they did not deserve this she says, “Neither does a child in Africa dying of AID’s, neither do the invisible

When the president of Virginia Tech asked Giovanni to speak at the memorial convocation on April 17, 2007, he had no idea that the words Giovanni said was going to complete a tragic circle (Bowers). Nearly ten thousand people at the convocation and thousands on worldwide TV more heard Giovanni’s words (Bowers). Her poem lifted all the students to their feet and they all applauded (Bowers). The poem Giovanni wrote was quickly put together just hours after the massacre. After she shared her poem at the convocation, she said, “I just think everybody needed to know that we were going to be all right. And I think that, probably, what I, what I had to say helped them see