New Releases by Nikki Giovanni

This omnibus edition collects celebrated poet and activist Nikki Giovanni’s adult prose: Racism 101, Sacred Cows and Other Edibles and seven (7) selections from Gemini: An Extended Autobiographical Statement on My First Twenty-Five Years of Being a Black Poet, which was nominated for the National Book Award in 1971. Racism 101 (1994) contains essays that indict higher education for the inequities it perpetuates and contemplates the legacy of the 1960s. Giovanni gives searing commentary on Spike Lee and the making of Malcolm X, W.E.B. DuBois, affirmative action, President JFK and the state of urban schools. Racism 101 adds an important chapter to the debate on American national values. Sacred Cows and Other Edibles (1988) received the Ohioana Library Award. In it Nikki’s esays and articles take on the loftiness of higher education and personal major life crises. In Gemini (1971), Giovanni explores one of the most tumultuous periods in our history. Her essays take us from her childhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, through her work in the Black revolution of the sixties, to her emergence as an acclaimed poet. Nikki interweaves warm recollections of her personal history with incisive vignettes of cultural and political history, including her often surprising opinions of Amiri Baraka, Angela Davis, Lena Horne, Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown and others.

“One of her best collections to date.” —Essence Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea is a tour de force from Nikki Giovanni, one of the most powerful voices in American poetry and African American literature today. From Black Feeling, Black Talk and Black Judgment in the 1960s to Bicycles in 2010, Giovanni’s poetry has influenced literary figures from James Baldwin to Blackalicious, and touched millions of readers worldwide. In Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea, Giovanni turns her gaze toward the state of the world around her, and offers a daring, resonant look inside her own self as well.

Intimate, edgy, and unapologetic, Blues: For All the Changes bears the mark of Nikki Giovanni''s unmistakable voice.In a career that has spanned three decades, Giovanni has created an indispensable body of work and earned a place amoung the nation''s most celebrated and controversial poets; Gloria Naylor calls her "one of our national treasures." Now, in these fifty-two new poems, Giovanni brings the passion, fearless wit, and intensely personal self that have defined her life''s work to a new front. Invoking the fates and exalting the rhythm of the everyday, Giovanni writes with might and majesty. From the environment to our reliance on manners, from sex and politics to love among Black folk, Blues is a masterwork with poems for every soul and every mood: The poignant "Stealing Home" pays tribute to Jackie Robinson, while "Road Rage Blues" jams on time and space; Giovanni celebrates love''s absolut power in "Train Rides" and laments life''s trasience in "Me and Mrs. Robin." With the tenderness that has made her on of our most accessible and beloved poets, Giovanni evokes a world that is not only just but also happy. Her powerful stand engages the world with a truth telling that is as eloquent as it is elegant. Intimate, edgy, and unapologetic, Blues For All the Changes bears the mark of Nikki Giovanni''s unmistakable voice. At once political and intensely personal, this long-awaited volume embodies the fearless passion and wit that have made Nikki Giovanni one of our most accessible poets; her audience defies all boundaries of race, class, age, and style. From the poignant "Stealing Home," Ms. Giovanni''s tribute to Jackie Robinson, to the defiant "Road Rage Blues," a jam on time and space, these fifty-one poems challenge the fates and invoke the precarious state of our environment, Giovanni''s battle with illness, manners, and other topics seminal to one of our most compassionate, outspoken observers. With a reverence for the power of language, Blues For All the Changes will once again enchant Nikki Giovanni''s extensive following and inspire those who are newly discovering her work.

Vacation Time has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

With the passion of a poet and the knowledge of a historian, Giovanni tells the story of Africans in America through the glorious words of 46 spirituals, which celebrate a people who overcame enslavement and found a way to survive, to worship, and to build.

In a career that has earned her accolades, honorary degrees, and awards from both fellow poets and everyday poetry lovers, Nikki Giovanni has established herself as a writer who can entertain and challenge, inform and inspire. Sometimes controversial, sometimes ethereal, but always beautiful, her poems move readers of all hues and generations. With Bicycles, she''s collected poems that serve as a companion to her 1997 Love Poems. An instant classic, that book—romantic, bold, and erotic—expressed notions of love in ways that were delightfully unexpected. In the years that followed, Giovanni experienced losses both public and private. A mother''s passing, a sister''s, too. A massacre on the campus at which she teaches. And just when it seemed life was spinning out of control, Giovanni redis-covered love—what she calls the antidote. Here romantic love—and all its manifestations, the physical touch, the emotional pull, the hungry heart—is distilled as never before by one of our most talented poets.

A collection of eighty all new poems, Acolytes is distinctly Nikki Giovanni, but different. Not softened, but more inspired by love, celebration, memories and even nostalgia. She aims her intimate and sparing words at family and friends, the deaths of heroes and friends, favorite meals and candy, nature, libraries, and theatre. But in between, the deep and edgy conscience that has defined her for decades shines through when she writes about Rosa Parks, hurricane Katrina, and Emmett Till''s disappearance, leaving no doubt that Nikki has not traded one approach for another, but simply made room for both.

Angry that his singing is unappreciated by the Ants who relied on his music to make their summer work easier, Jimmy Grasshopper decides to sue them for lacking respect and not acknowledging his usefulness in their lives. 35,000 first printing.

"Giovanni tells the story of Africans in America through the words of 46 spirituals."--From source other than the Library of Congress

A biography of the African American woman whose refusal to give up her seat on a bus helped established the civil rights movement.

Three girls have fun playing dress-up at their grandmother''s house, even painting their toenails, but then they have nowhere to go. Includes activity ideas for parents and children.

Protected by her mother''s strong arms and the bonds of her community, a happy black girl carries her dreams as high as the sky.

In this "dazzling anthology" (Publishers Weekly), Daryl Cumber Dance has collected the often hard-hitting, sometimes risqué, always dramatic humor that arises from the depth of black women''s souls and the breadth of their lives. The eloquent wit and laughter of African American women are presented here in all their written and spoken manifestations: autobiographies, novels, essays, poems, speeches, comic routines, proverbial sayings, cartoons, mimeographed sheets, and folk tales. The chapters proceed thematically, covering the church, love, civil rights, motherly advice, and much more.

A collection of poems primarily about nature and the seaons but also concerned with chocolate and scary movies.

A remarkable collection of poetry from the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, stitched together with commentary from Giovanni.... An important resource for those interested in poetry and in understanding the African American experience.

When Nikki Giovanni''s poems first emerged from the Black Rights Movement in the late 1960s, she immediately took a place among the most celebrated and controversial poets of the era. Finally, here is the first compilation of Nikki Giovanni''s poetry. It is the testimony of a life''s work from one of the commanding voices to grace America''s political and poetic landscape at the end of the twentieth century. From the revolutionary "The Great Pax Whitie" and "Poem for Aretha" to the sublime "Ego Tripping" and the tender "My House," these 150 mind-speaking, truth-telling poems are at once powerful yet sensual, angry yet affirming. Arranged chronologically, they reflect the changes Giovanni has endured as a Black woman, lover, mother, teacher, and poet. Here is the evocation of a nation''s past and present -- intensely personal and fiercely political -- from one of our most compassionate, outspoken observers.

A collection of sharp and clean essays that cut to the bone of racism, by one of America''s best writers. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Describes the joys of summer spent with family in Knoxville: eating vegetables right from the garden, going to church picnics, and walking in the mountains.

From her conversation with James Baldwin, an interview that first aired on the television program Soul!, later published as A Dialogue. Also included is an excerpt from A Poetic Equation, her lengthy talk with the poet Margaret Walker. In this exchange of ideas and opinions with Walker a young poet new to the literary world assumes the role of spokesperson for a generation.

Autobiographical essays and articles.

A poetry collection which recounts the feelings of Black children about their neighborhoods, American society, and themselves.

Nikki Giovanni, long known as "the Princess of Black Poetry," dedicates Those Who Ride the Night Winds to "the day trippers and midnight cowboys," the ones who have devoted their lives to pushing the limits of the human condition and who have shattered the constraints of the status quo to live life as a "marvelous, transitory adventure."Included are poems about John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, as well as friends, lovers, mothers, and the poet herself. With reverence for the ordinary and in search of the extraordinary, Those Who Ride the Night Winds is Nikki Giovanni''s most accessible collection ever. She displays her passion for and connectedness to the people and places that touch her. The reissue of Nikki Giovanni''s seminal 1984 collection will once again enchant those who have always loved her poems--and those who are just getting to know her work. As a witness to three generations, Nikki Giovanni has perceptively and poetically recorded her observations of both the outside world and the gentle yet enigmatic territory of the self. When her poems first emerged from the civil rights and Black Power movements in the late 1960s, she immediately became a celebrated and controversial figure. Written in one of the most commanding voices to grace America''s political and poetic landscape at the end of the twentieth century, Nikki Giovanni''s poems embody the fearless passion and spirited wit for which she is beloved and revered. Nikki Giovanni is our most widely read living black poet, and in her most accessible collection to date, we become aware of the poet as a human being we can relate to, someone affected by and concerned with events. The title of this collection refers to people who have tried to make changes, people who have gone against the tide, people who were unafraid to test their wings. Included are poems about John Lennon, Billie Jean King, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. There are poems about friends, lovers, mothers, and about the poet herself. Long known as the "Princess of Black Poetry," Nikki Giovanni is as alive and vibrant as ever. Her many readers will find once again in this collection the warmth, wit, passion, and caring about people that have always distinguished her work. Strong, direct, tremendously energetic, visionary, vulnerable, and real, these poems reveal a great spirit among us; a woman in her human dimension; a person all readers can identify with and believe in.

Forty-two poems written between 1970 to 1975.

Profiles the founder of the "New Town" movement and discusses the development of British new towns, the Radburn Idea, Greenbelt Towns, and the American new towns such as Reston and Columbia.

Dialoog tussen de Amerikaanse negerschrijver en een vrouwelijke collega (dichteres) over hun zwart-zijn en de problemen van de zwarte bevolking in Amerika.

Thanks to the television program Soul!, a remarkable encounter between two of America''s foremost Black writers was aired on public TV. Here, the transcript of that meeting between James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni forms an engrossing document. Probing, searching, made dramatic by the recognition of sudden, subtle levels of confrontation, the Baldwin/Giovanni exchange is a freewheeling conversation ranging over many topics. A Dialogue explores problems facing Americans, black and white, as well as troubles besetting the world. Representing two different generations, the two writers discussed, argued, and communicated some painful truths. Addressing themselves particularly to the changing roles of men and women in modern society, they paid special attention to the consequences of these new modes of behavior on the already complex relationship between the Black man and the Black woman. The talk is stimulating, provocative, deeply felt, making this dialogue a rare, shared experience for the reader. --From publisher description.