NIKKI GIOVANNI

Giovanni brings a voice of discernment and solidity to our disquiet times.

- NATHAN ERWIN

QUARANTINED AT HER HOME in Christiansburg, Virginia, Nikki Giovanni listens to Dizzy Gillespie and chats on the phone over her morning coffee and grits “like grandmother used to make.” The poet is always “trying to get a little work done.” This October she published her 28th book, Make Me Rain. It’s the latest offering in a career that took off in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and has included co-writing a book with James Baldwin and earning a Grammy nomination for best-spoken word album.

Giovanni brings a voice of discernment and solidity to our disquiet times. She sees the pandemic as carving out a spiritual space within us: “We are Zooming each other. We are talking to each other more. People are writing who haven’t written before. I think a lot of this is moving toward the spiritual, a being-in-touch with each other. This virus that is making us stay in has brought out another part of our hearts.”