The Prosaic Soul of Nikki Giovanni [9780060541347]

Overview

From one of the most commanding, luminous voices to grace America’s political and poetic landscape comes a brilliant and searing collection of essays, articles, meditations and recollections.

This omnibus edition collects celebrated poet and activist Nikki Giovanni’s adult prose: Racism 101, Sacred Cows and Other Edibles and seven 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.

"If there was a need for poetry that galvanized and inspired, there was also a demand for poetry that comforted and unified — and Ms. Giovanni provided on both counts." — The Washington Post

This essential collection of Black feminist thought delivers:

• Cultural Criticism: Experience Giovanni’s incisive analysis on everything from the inequities of higher education to her surprising opinions on figures like Angela Davis and W.E.B. DuBois.
• The Black Power Movement: Journey back to the Black revolution of the sixties through the National Book Award-nominated essays of Gemini, a defining work of the era.
• Formative Personal History: From a childhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, to her emergence as a world-renowned poet, these essays explore the experiences that shaped a generation’s artistic voice.
• Three Classic Books in One: This omnibus edition brings together Giovanni’s most important prose: Racism 101, Sacred Cows and Other Edibles, and seminal selections from Gemini.