Nikki Giovanni - Nominee

“Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.” and “If now isn't a good time for the truth I don't see when we'll get to it.”

– Nikki Giovanni

World renowned poet, commentator, activist, educator, and hip-hop champion Nikki Giovanni was one of the leading authors of the Black Arts Movement of the late 1960s. She became famous at age 25 after her first poetry collection, Black Feeling, Black Talk, was published in 1968 and her second poetry collection, Black Judgement, in 1969. Giovanni graduated with honors in history from her grandfather’s alma mater, the historically Black liberal arts Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she helped reestablish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, edited the student literary journal Élan, and published an essay that focused on gender question in Negro Digest. Her writing focused on gender, race, politics, love and sex. She published more than 30 books during her lifetime including her first memoir, Gemini: An Extended Autobiographical Statement on My First Twenty-Five Years of Being a Black Poet. Giovanni also co-founded the NikTom Ltd. publishing company focused on Black women writers works. Her fame as a writer resulted in numerous television appearances including as a guest on the WNET Black arts and culture show Soul! In one Soul! episode recorded in London, UK in 1971, Giovanni had a two-hour conversation with celebrated writer James Baldwin where they talked about Black life in America. Defying the conventional norms of the time, Giovanni gave birth as a single mother to her only child, a son named Thomas, in 1969 at age 25 for which she was accused of setting a bad example. Becoming a mother made Giovanni realize that children had different interests than adults and needed their own literature. This led Giovanni to write eleven children’s books. In 1969, Giovanni began her teaching career at Queen’s College. She also taught at Rutgers University’s Livingston College, Ohio State and was a Virginia Tech Distinguished Professor from 1987 until her retirement in 2022. Giovanni was recruited to teach creative writing and literature at Virginia Tech by Virginia Fowler who would later become her wife. At the memorial following the tragic Virginia Tech mass shooting in 2007, Giovanni delivered a chant-poem to honor the victims. Giovanni performed at many venues in front of sold-out crowds and said college students and prison inmates were her best audiences. During Giovanni’s lifetime she received many accolades including 30 honorary degrees from numerous colleges and universities; the keys to over two dozen cities; Ebony, Essence, Ladies Home Journal and Mademoiselle magazine’s Woman of the Year honors, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1970, the Langston Hughes Medal for Distinguished Contributions to Arts and Letters in 1996; a seven-time NAACP Image Award for Literature winner; a 2004 Grammy Award nominee for her The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection, in 2007 had a South American bat species, Micronycteris giovanniae named after her, in 2009 she received the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Award for Dedication and Commitment to Service, was chosen as the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award, and in 2025 she received the Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry. She was also the subject of the 2023 prize-winning documentary Going to Mars and served as a National Book Awards poetry judge. Giovanni died at age 81 on Dec. 9, 2024, due to complications from lung cancer. At the time of her death, she was working on her last poetry book, The Last Book, and her second memoir called A Street Called Mulvaney which will soon be published.