Category: Nikki Giovanni

Poetry is a way of expressing many emotions in a short amount of words. The poems are mostly about strong emotions in society and everyone lives. Past generations have grown up with a cruel society. Events have occurred that too innocent of eyes have experienced. The lives of racism may not as often occurs, but it is in spirit. Racism lives on as elders tell their experiences through their culture and the equality they believe was absent. Nikki Giovanni’s, poems “Ego-Tripping’, “Nikki-Rosa’, and “Black History Month’; her poems show the racism and inequality among mankind for their culture. As a young girl, experiencing racism gave Nikki Giovanni a different perspective on life. Not only was it a vexatious task as a young black girl, but she was poor as well.

Although she was poor, to one of her most famous poems, “I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me because they will never understand black love is black wealth and they’ll most likely observe about my childhood and never understand that all whereas I was quite happy”. This quote represented that even though people may have viewed their culture as not having the power to be treated equally, they will always prove that love is greater than wealth entire. In an article, Margaret McDowell had explained that “Giovanni saw that not only her work, but it affected her personal life”. Giovanni might have struggled with the inequality in her life, but poetry showed her that there is more to life than how others view life. Nikki Giovanni always had the strong urge to fight racism and sexualism, but through powerful, shortened words. Nikki Giovanni expressed African-American history through a view no one could have viewed before.

In addition, an article that had brought the attention to the history of African-Americans, “her poems help explore issues and also concerns specifically to young children”. Including one of her poems, “Black History Month,” this poem will strengthen adolescents minds on how strong past generations felt about their culture and equality. It is very important to inform early generations about previous events so that no one will have to live through the terrible lives elder adults have. In the article written, one explains that “A longstanding mage of culture and joy in the black community, she will continue to explore the idea that even though people of color had many challenges to face in the past”. The poem Nikki Giovanni has written will help younger minds to think bigger and better doing.

Even though she has gone through a hard life, she is always joyful knowing who she truly is deep down as should all African-Americans. Nikki Giovanni knows more about her culture and history through the past experiences she went through and also her grandparent’s stories that were told to her. As Nikki’s grandparents lived, they had to do whatever anyone else said or they will receive consequences. As they grew up, they must obey the white persons’ words. In addition, she decided to tell one about her grandparent’s story. “She tells us the story of how her maternal grandparents were forced to leave Georgia because they had refused to submit to white donation”. Nikki explains through many of her poems that her culture has been disrespected more than she had ever wanted to experience. Coming from that story, Nikki decided to further look into her heritage as an African-American. The people who had promoted her poem “Ego-Tripping”, have implied that the ego-tripper stereotype has complained that her poems are irrelevant. She explains that she is “so swift that you cannot catch me”. Through those small five words, she is proving that she is capable of doing anything she sets her mind to. Equality, racism, and culture prove how society views the world. Through Giovanni’s words, she can help change that. As Nikki Giovanni has stated multiple times, it was hard growing up in her shoes. She had mentioned stories that affected her family’s name in words so deep, it made people think about their actions and how they view the world.

Everyone of mankind deserves the same equality no matter what race, culture or religion you are. The world is meant for everyone to live their own lives. Nikki Giovanni is very strong on equality, not just by race but sexualism as well. Women have been doubted with the things they could do and Nikki proved them wrong. Her poems represent the way she believes everyone should be treated; peacefully and with kindness. Through the poems, “Ego-Tripping”, “Black History Month”, and “Nikki-Rosa”, she has brought out her full emotions on racism, culture, and equality; with the powerful words, people are afraid to say.

Would you ever want to be kidnapped by a poet? Nikki Giovanni addresses this question throughout her lyric and extended metaphor poem, which is called “Kidnap poem”. This poem’s message is to grasp love or to seduce an adored individual. Giovanni shares her personal passion, showing it through sound devices like alliteration and repetition to create a distinct rhythm. Also, she plays with punctuation and capitalization; she has lines of varying length with just one stanza of 19 lines to show the reputation of her love towards the adored individual.

The first important part of this poem is that she plays with the punctuation and capitalization which makes it flow and seem informal. “kidnap poem” has only four capitalized letters which are “Ever/You/Play/Black”, and each outlines the importance of her life for example “wrap you in the Black, red green”, represents fighting against racism, promoting equal treatment toward all races, she mentions it in the love poem because love is as essential to her as equality, so she is trying to compare both these topics to each other. By using the lack of punctuation, Giovanni lets us know that to express your feelings, writing rules are not significant. Also, the lack of punctuation and capitalization makes the poem easy to understand the theme. Another critical aspect of the poem is how Giovanni uses alliteration and repetition to create a distinct rhythm; she includes those devices in the poem to make a steady rhythm.

For example, “lyric you in lilacs”, is a metaphor and alliteration where she compares a lyric narrative poem to lilac flowers which represent love and innocence. Also, the words “kidnap you” are repeated throughout the whole free verse poem, which is the main point where an individual in love tries to “kidnap,” or seduce their loved one. Also, with the word “kidnap” the author tells us that she would do everything in order to be loved as she loves that person and gets whom she admires. At last, Nikki Giovanni uses a unique technique to address the lines of varying length and just on stanza to emphasize main ideas; and usually, poets have same or similar line lengths, but she doesn’t.

For example, “blend into the beach” is shorter verse, but the next line “complement my see” is longer. Adding to that, she shows her excitement. She compliments him, hoping to make a perfect pair of lovers. In the making, the poem becomes an extended metaphor because the speaker isn’t trying to kidnap her lover and blend them into the beach. Giovanni’s verse has 19 lines which are stretched out to one stanza. Since it is free verse, the poem’s structure is designed uniquely.

In conclusion, Nikki Giovanni’s free verse contains soothing words that emphasize love forms towards someone is uncontrollable. I think she tried to make her poem different from other poets by adding particular elements which makes it attractive for the audience to read and listen. She describes her love and warmth to a person by structuring it in a way to understand the message of the poem. Overall, this poem is all about affection.

Poetry has many legs that take readers places and forces them to see things in different perspectives. Nikki Giovanni’s poem “Allowables” articulates subliminal meanings that revolve around the death of a spider. This poem illustrates someone admitting to having killed a spider out of fear and then reflecting on their actions. Nikki Giovanni’s “Allowables” poetically develops the unequivocal theme that humans should be kind and not harm any living thing through the demonstration of various literary elements. The speaker/narrator of “Allowables” is an anonymous entity using first-person narration to establish a personable, yet relatable connection with audiences. The speaker incorporates repetition of the word “I” by using this pronoun on six separate occasions throughout this 16-line poem.

Audiences can assume that a human, either male or female, is the voice of the poem. The forthright first line of the poem, “I killed a spider” evokes a confessional voice of the story. Audiences reading the poem’s first line can make the assumption that the speaker has important information to share surrounding the death of this spider. By admitting the wrong violent act, the speaker can now have peace with their decisions and no longer have to internally struggle – the perfect poetic justice. The speaker’s role in this poem is very significant to the evolution of the poem’s plot. The insight and information audiences gain towards the spider’s qualities are through the narrator’s characterization using literary devices and techniques such as symbolism, metaphors, imagery, and personification in the poem. Spiders, in an outlook, are a symbolic representation of human fragility and the enticement of evil and the narrator supports this idea in the poem.

The speaker affirms readers that the spider is not a “murderous brown recluse” or “black widow. The poem’s spider, among other diverse spiders, references diversity as a metaphor that all living things should live symbiotically with one another. Mentioning different species of spiders alludes to the poem’s theme that humans should not harm others, no matter who/what they are; diversity is something to embrace, not something to fear. Imagery and personification are later incorporated in the poem’s plot when audiences learn the spider was, “only a small / Sort of papery spider”. Visual images such as these explicate the spider’s vulnerability. This small spider is described as “papery” which possesses the etymology of being thin, flimsy, weak, or vulnerable (OED). When audiences are reminded of the spider’s weakness, it generates an empathetic tone for the spider’s unfortunate death.

Finally, the speaker of the poem declares the spider’s sex to be female through the incorporation of gender pronouns “she” and “her” on lines 9-11. Since the spider is a female, this characterization further illustrates the spider’s prejudicial weakness. Therefore, the spider’s vulnerability demonstrates to audiences that the spider was an unwilling and undeserving victim of the Tone and rhythm both play a significant role in constructing the audience’s attitude towards the poem’s main subject matter. There is no specific meter, rhyme, or form in this free-verse poem. The first stanza starts fast and long (11 lines). This stanza begins with the confession, “I killed a spider” and ends with another revelation, “And I smashed her” which indicate a violentfeeling to the first stanza based on the actions verbs of “killed” and “smashed”. This stanza really displays the narrator’s external actions. Yet, after the eleventh line, there is a line break that indicates a shift in tone from violent to fearful. The rhythm is also impacted by the speaker’s decision to break up the poem into multiple stanzas.

From lines 12 – 16, there are 3 separate line breaks emphasizing the speaker’s realization of their actions. Line 13 states, “I don’t think” and line 16 says, “Frightened” which are both clearly more emotion-based verbs than action-based verbs. Lines 13-16 act as one unit, one main idea that results in developing the rest of the theme for “Allowables”; not harming one another based on fear. The speaker believes that they should not kill something based solely out of fear when they say, “I don’t think / I’m allowed // To kill something // Because I am // Frightened”. This section of the poem rebukes what the audience read on lines 1-11. These lines, now, are more spaced out and broken up to reveal and reflect on the speaker’s internal actions of fear.

Just like in everyday life, “Allowables” resembles instances where people act first and think second instead of the opposite. Nikki Giovanni’s poem incorporates various elements of irony that reflect the poem’s overall message. To start, the title “Allowables” means “worthy of praise; praiseworthy, laudable.” Yet, the speaker is not praising their actions, but contemplating them instead. The speaker wants death-by-fear to not be allowable. This makes for an ironic title for a piece centered mainly on retrospection. “Allowables” ironic title could be seen as a commentary, or maybe even a mockery of human’s behavior of doing one thing, but saying another.

Meanwhile, there is another instance where irony is thrust into the poem for effect. When the narrator, “picked up the book,” to smash the spider, the book acts as an ironic symbol of human wisdom. This wisdom the speaker held in their hands was the knowledge that humans should not kill/harm something based off fear. The irony in “Allowables” is not by coincidence, but by consciousness.

The literary elements present in “Allowables” promote the mindset to not harm other beings/things, especially when fear gets in the way of rationality. While spiders can evoke fear, audiences must remind themselves that spiders, like all living things, do not deserve harm. The poem “Allowables” serves as a daily reminder to anyone that poetry, kindness, and emotional cautiousness can take someone farther than their own two legs can.