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Life In Nikki Giovanni's Poem Choices

1496 Words6 Pages

“Now, everything I do, I do because I want to. And I believe the best is yet to come.” (Giovanni,1). When one has finally reached the point in their life where they have achieved every goal and overcame every obstacle then they have earned a fulfilled life. Nikki Giovanni attests to being optimistic and aspiring. In Giovanni’s poem Choices, she expresses the choices that are to be made in everyones lives. The poem Choices was published shortly after her father’s death. In the period, Giovanni began to have an epiphany with her own life and choices. She discovered how one must sustain an optimistic attitude. Also, she extended on the idea that accepting one’s current situation will take one to greater lengths. Furthermore, when Giovanni wrote the poem she was experiencing a tragic shift in her adult life. The tragedy was unexpected and Giovanni was not aware how her preceding choices would impact the continuation of her life. Giovanni wrote the poem choices to emphasize the process of life’s unexpected and hated experiences. Giovanni discusses accepting the situations and growing …show more content…

In the third stanza, Giovanni states “If I can't have what I want . . . then my job is to want what I’ve got and be satisfied that at least there is something more to want.” (Givanni,1). After accepting the situation for what it is, Giovanni begins to compromise. Compromise “is a basic negotiation process in which both parties give up something that they want in order to get something else they want more. Compromises usually occur in win-lose situations -- when there is a fixed pie to be divided up, and whatever one side gets, the other side loses.” (Spangler,1). According to Spangler, compromising involves sacrificing one possession for another. Also, the reward for sacrificing will be greater than what was given up. In this case, compromise is negotiating between oneself and the decisions to be

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In Nikki Giovanni's poem, “Walking Down Park” Giovanni talks about things that used to be on the land of New York that is no longer there as well as, things that could have been there but didn’t have the chance. Giovanni begins the poem by saying “walking down park / amsterdam / or columbus,” these three names are streets located in New York, which is how the reader learns about the setting of this poem. Giovanni then asks “do you ever stop / to think what it looked like / before it was an avenue.” This is the first instance where Giovanni reflects on what things used to be like before New York became a large city. While Giovanni doesn’t dig deep into this first thought of the past, she makes it apparent that things have changed.

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Even though a culture has gone through drastic time should society be ashamed or willing to embrace? Nikki Giovanni, a poet and civil rights activists, wrote the poem Ego-Tripping which was published in 1972. The poem is about how the speaker speaks on her origin showing the readers her strength and power to embrace the culture she holds which is African-American. Nikki Giovanni establishes this by making herself a goddess who holds all these accomplishments. For example, conceiving a daughter named Nefertiti meaning beautiful woman, and Nikki is proud of how confident, and powerful she has become.

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