At 65 years old, Nikki Giovanni, the author of 27 books, a three-time NAACP Image Award winner and a Grammy award nominee, is a proud Oprah Living Legend. Earlier this year, Giovanni delivered her latest poetry book, Bicycles: Love Poems, with the perfect
At 65 years old, Nikki Giovanni, the author of 27 books, a three-time NAACP Image Award winner and a Grammy award nominee, is a proud Oprah Living Legend. Earlier this year, Giovanni delivered her latest poetry book, Bicycles: Love Poems, with the perfect mix of tragedy, triumph, love, lovesickness and youthful curiosity.
As a University Distinguished Professor of Virginia Tech, it is no surprise that she tackled the Virginia Tech shooting in "We Are Virginia Tech," a poem about a student who snapped, tired of being teased. The gunman was one of her former students. But Giovanni also mentions that while students suffered losing their friends and being exposed to the violence, so do others—the African child dying of AIDS, the Invisible Children scared of being kidnapped, the baby elephant hunted for its ivory tusks and Iraqi teenagers dodging bombs. There’s also an intriguing poem about Huey Newton called "Free Huey" about this Black Panther leader.
While these poems splash the coldest water on readers, the majority of the book leaves readers daydreaming about current love interests or ones loved and lost––or never gotten.
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