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Informationen zum Autor Nikki Giovanni (1943–2024), poet, activist, mother, grandmother, and educator, grew up in Tennessee and Ohio and graduated with honors from Fisk University in Nashville. The author of over thirty books, she was also the recipient of seven NAACP Image Awards, the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry, as well as thirty-one honorary degrees and an Emmy Award. She garnered her most unusual honor in 2007 when a South American bat species— Micronycteris giovanniae— was named in celebration of her. A devoted teacher and honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., she spent thirty-five years as University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. Klappentext For the first time, the collected prose of national treasure Nikki Giovanni Gemini: An Extended Autobiographical Statement on My First Twenty-Five Years of Being a Black Poet Nominated for the National Book Award, this is a journey -- both private and public -- through the trials and triumphs of 1960s America. Sacred Cows ... And Other Edibles Winner of the Ohioana Library Award, these fresh and wryly humorous essays explore some of America's lofty institutions and the poet's pivotal life experiences. Racism 101 This collection of essays contributes a vital and critical chapter to the debate on American national values. Zusammenfassung 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 ...
