Giovanni By Coretta Scott King: Poem Analysis

Yolande ¨Nikki” Giovanni is an about a poet written by Coretta Scott King. In this biography, it tells about a challenging poet with a strong social message to all. Nikki was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 7, 1943. Nikki is a poet and writer who first caught the public's attention as part of the Black Arts movement of the late 1960s. Nikki is 74 years old and is still living.

Nikki’s father, Jones ¨Gus¨ Giovanni, worked as a probation officer, and her mother, Yolande Watson Giovanni, was a social worker. When she was 14, Nikki moved a book to Knoxville to attend high school, living with her mother’s parents, John and Louvenia Watson. Nikki was an excellent student at Knoxville’s Austin High School, and at the age of 17, she entered Fisk University in Nashville. Although, when she decided to go back to Knoxville for Thanksgiving without asking permission, she came into conflict with the dean of women, who promptly suspended her. She finally returned to Fisk in 1964, when the university appointed a new dean, Blanche M. Cowan, who became both a friend

Even though Nikki is best known as a poet, Nikki’s career has many other sides. In 1971, she published her first collection of essays, Gemini: An Extended Autobiographical Statement on My First Twenty-five Years of Being a Black Poet. In Gemini, she took a look at the roots of her art, starting from childhood to the birth of her son. The book impressed readers with its freshness and honesty and was nominated for a National Book Award. Nikki taught and studied literature, she was always seriously aware of the debt she owed to African American writers of earlier generations. In A Dialogue: James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni (1973) and A Poetic Equation: Conversations Between Nikki Giovanni and Margaret Walker (1974), she paid tribute to two of the writers who had most influenced