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Nikki Giovanni, a transcendent American poet, knew her life was quickly coming to an end when she visited Minnesota in September to deliver the keynote speech for an annual gala sponsored by the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP.
On her third stint battling cancer, a noticeably weakened Giovanni almost casually announced the approach of her inevitable demise. Only she didn’t say she was dying as much as state that she was aware of an impending transition.
“You don’t die until you’re forgotten,” she told the sold-out Freedom Fund gala.
Giovanni, a storied civil rights activist, transitioned on Monday, Dec. 9, and accolades to her legacy are being heralded. But how do you eulogize someone who refuses to die? In the advancing age of artificial intelligence, as long as human poetry remains an art form and humanity continues, Giovanni will remain as immortal as Baldwin or Frost. Hyperbole be damned.
A university professor and author by trade, Giovanni was quoted saying her best audiences were college students and prison inmates. Her social reach was infinitely more expansive. The diversity of her audiences and fanbase attests to a towering intellectual range. As a writer, she fluently addressed issues of gender, race, politics, sex and love with startling aplomb. She was at once unapologetically full-frontal and surprisingly demure, whatever the occasion demanded.
The first time I saw her as a college freshman in 1984, I instantly fell in love. Her poem “Revolutionary Dreams” captivated me. It spoke about self-change and revolution — actual and metaphysical. But it was the audacity of “Ego Tripping,” perhaps her most famous poem, that sealed the deal for a teenager:
