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Ego-Tripping Poem Techniques

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Poetry Poetry is a type of literature that uses writing aesthetically to create a certain feel or emotion towards a topic. Nikki Giovanni, the poet of ‘The World is Not a Pleasant Place to Be’ and ‘Ego-Tripping’, uses these special techniques of writing to make her poetry speak to her readers. The two poems are connected with showing what the almighty power love has on your decisions but also on your life in general. At the same time, they are teaching you to be humble about your privileged accomplishments.

Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville on June 7, 1943. Raised in Cincinnati, she now works at Virginia Tech University. Giovanni spoke of having lived through very gut-wrenching events. “Having lived through one of the most tumultuous …show more content…

While reading this poem, you notice that she uses a great deal of not so much information, and more of inspiration from events that occurred long before the author’s actual time on Earth. The ‘main character’ is incredibly egocentric, saying that they are “so perfect/so divine/so ethereal” (Giovanni 47). The literary devices used were allusion and hyperbole. An allusion is an indirect reference to something well-known. Almost the entire poem is an allusion, referencing back to long before the author’s life. Speaking of being born near the Congo River (1) and being present when the prophet Noah built the ark (27) happened thousands of years ago. A hyperbole is an exaggeration. The poem reads, “The tears from my birth pains/created the Nile” (Giovanni 13-14). Truly, no human being has the strength nor the supernatural power to cry enough tears one time to fill a riverbed. The main theme of the poem talks about how pride shouldn’t be able to give you a big head. Be proud of who you are, but not so much that you become conceited. With the title being “Ego-Tripping” it’s quite an easy concept to understand before you even read the poem. It would seem that the so-called ‘main character’ was tripping over her

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Nikki Giovanni is marked down as one of the 25 most influential poets in history. She is wise, strong, and a fierce black woman who used her experiences with segregation to pilot her success. Even though she isn’t currently well known by the youth, she impacted the entire nation through her poetry, books, music and attitude throughout the black revolution. Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr. was born on June,7 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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Her writings include the poems “Legacies” and “Choices”. “Legacies” written in 1976 is one of Giovanni's famous pieces of work. Legacies express Giovanni’s knowledge passed down from her generation (Applebee 418). Her knowledge was passed by her grandmother a great teacher to her. She influenced her granddaughter in many ways, such as her informal speech/slang (PoetryFoundation 1).

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In the poem “Ego-Tripping” by Nikki Giovanni, she normalizes her worth by continuing to royalist herself as a black woman who is essential to mankind. Giovanni creates a vision throughout the poem, which leaves a thought in mind of how woman should look at themselves with much confidence as Giovanni does. “Ego Tripping” was written by Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni, Jr. who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on June 7, 1943. G9iovanni is a writer, poet, activist, and educator whose work was influenced during the Black Power Movements and the Civil Rights Movement. The poem was released in 2002.

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Another portion of the text that is worth analyzing is whether or not the poet is a real person or a generalization about all or most poets. All of the lines in the poem use general text and never label a specific person. What’s interesting about the text is that without the title it would be nearly impossible to distinguish whether or not the person the poem is about is a poet or not. The way the text allows the reader to find a figurative meaning to the poem is by being vague enough and

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