While reading Giovanni’s bio, the idea of individualism struck out. She asked the question, “I write what I see and I take responsibility for it. Why should thirty million people have to have me as a spokesman?”(Par 3, pg 879), it is stated that this question, this idea, this thought [of individualism] is what stamped and certified her standard of purity within her writing, “Nikki-Rosa”. Her poem was based on what she sees, and after knowing that and reading the poem, it’s easy for one to think that she has indeed seen an outside toilet, felt the goodness of the water in one of those chicago barbeque bathtub, and that she has a sister. Her poem screams her individual silent thoughts that are heard by her audience and felt by those who can relate. While thinking about the fact that this poem has her individualistic memories and experiences, there’s the line that implies that she and her family went through redlining, as we have talked about in previous classes, while reading and discussing ‘A Raisin In The Sun’. “As the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale”(line 13, pg 882), while in the description, it stated that Hollydale was a all-black neighbourhood in Cincinnati, OH, where Giovanni and her family hoped to build a home, yet could not because of loan discrimination in the housing industry. In ‘A Raisin in the Sun’, the Young family was trying to be bought out of a house that they bought in a dominantly white neighbourhood. ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ took place in the 1950’s in the south side of Chicago, Giovanni’s family was denied access from obtaining a loan for the all-black housing district around 1952 in Cincinnati, OH.
Another thought that jumped out at me was the idea of perspective. She ended her poem stating that she hopes that no white person ever has cause to write about her because they will never understand that Black Love is Black Wealth, though they were poor and went through so much, there was still love and that love was wealth itself, yet, a person only can tell what they see on the outside, from their perspective, and she doesn’t want her story to be misinterpreted into what society would consider the truth, though truly, it’s the outsider’s perspective truth. An outsider would only see loss, poverty, arguments and drinking and write/talk about that, but not the fact that everyone is together, that there is still love, and like every family, there will be bad times, as much as there will be good times. The idea of perspective also brings us back to the idea of individualism. Giovanni only writes what she sees and not nobody else’s, cause it seems, just as how she don’t want others writing her story from their perspective, she don’t want to be writing other’s stories from her perspective, and she can’t be the spokesman for thirty million people, everyone should share their own story from their own individualistic perspective of their own lives. She concludes her poem, “they’ll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy.”(lines 26-28, pg 882), which supports the idea that there is so much more and it’s much better to speak from your own perspective of your own life than to speak of someone else’s, cause there’s always the greater a chance of misinterpretation speaking of someone else’s story, which is what Giovanni seems to avoid. She states in her poem, “if you become famous our something they never talk about how happy you were…” (lines 5-6, pg 882), which it gives the idea that the last line was to counter the fact that they would not talk about how happy she was, while she was indeed “quite happy’.
To conclude, Giovanni wrote with perspective and individualism. She wrote her own perspective of her own life and not no one else’s. She wrote her perspective of a black childhood, and what it actually means to have Black Love, and that not all black childhoods are a drag and that there is indeed happiness. She is a woman who knows that she alone does not represent the black community, that she can’t be a spokesman for such a large community. She does not seem to care for an outsider’s perspective on her life, but her own. She used her intimate poetry to create and cause an audience to stop and listen to what she has to say, for you know that the words she is speaking is of her own and not nobody else’s, it’s true and authentically her story, words, and feelings. ‘Nikki-Rosa’ was a well written poem that expresses Giovanni’s childhood as a black person and expresses the fact that she was quite happy.
Discussion Questions
- What is your take on Giovanni’s method of writing her poetry, that it was an expression of her own individual experience and not the black community as a whole?
- What other examples are in Giovanni’s poem that expresses the idea of individualism, perspective or both and how does it relate to those ideas?
Citations
Giovanni, Nikki, ‘Nikki-Rosa‘ Google Drive, https://drive.google.com/file/d/101A5ylyw9XbgUH5Rh-jEj6znoDIeNqBJ/view. March, 2024
Hi Michelle! I really enjoyed reading your analysis of Giovanni’s poem, Nikki Rosa. To answer your first question, I believe that Giovanni’s method of writing her poetry, where she expresses her own individual experience, and not the black community as a whole delivers a deeper level of emotion to her audience. With this she can depict her own personal experiences, memories and perspectives to highlight her authentic feelings. Her tone of writing is so powerful and eye opening, specifically when she says, “I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me
because they never understand Black love is Black wealth” (Lines 23 – 24). These lines come straight from Giovanni’s personal experiences. She highlights throughout her poem that although she did not have an amazing childhood with tons of money and a “white picket fence home”, she was surrounded by love and support and with those things alone, she grew up happy and satisfied. She may not have grew up in riches of money, but she grew up in riches of love.
Hello Michelle! I really enjoyed reading your blog post. It had a lot of good insight into the poem, and I like how you tied in her biography to your analysis of the poem. One thing I particularly liked that you pointed out was how perspective influenced Giovanni’s writing. In particular, throughout the poem ‘Nikki-Rosa’, I felt that Giovanni was sharing her own story and her own perspective, which really influenced the way we interpret and read the poem. It makes you put yourself in not only the authors shoes, but makes you critically reflect on your own experiences related to the author’s words. In the beginning lines, for example, “You always remember things like living in Woodlawn with no inside toilet and if you become famous or something they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother all to yourself and how good the water felt when you got your bath from one of those big tubs that folk in Chicago…” (Lines 3-9). Not only did these lines create imagery, but it also made me think about her perspectives and where they may have come from. It really makes you view the importance of individual experiences and how each person has a unique life and can make unique interpretations from those experiences.
Hey Michelle, I think this was an amazing interpretation of this writing and also the political backgrounds at the time. You did a great job at tying the book to what we have discussed in class and read in “A Raisin In The Sun.” Redlining was such a social issue during the 1950’s and hundreds of African Americans were brutalized and harassed due to societal and political issues. I really liked what you concluded from the reading about perspective. In her writing she didn’t want people to try and draw conclusions of her life without knowing the true detail, which portrays a sense of perspective. Perspective was a large part of her wiring and was illustrated multiple times within the writing. Within the writing it says that when she accepted an award that was given to her from an organization run by mostly white people, she was shamed by other black artists. This is stated by saying, “Giovanni was fulfilling the Black Arts aim of bringing the new black poetry to the people, yet she was often accused of compromising her integrity for the sake of fame, suffering particularly harsh criticism among fellow Black’ Arts writers for accepting a Woman of the Year Award from the Ladies’ Home Journal in 1973. In reply, Giovanni insisted that her selection for the award by a white organization was an indication of progress in race relations.” (880) This was a large opinionated topic when she accepted this award, and the conclusions people came to were mostly from their perspective of the “issue”. To others it was as if she was only after fame and they figured once she got that she would not continue to lead within black communities and organizations. Although this was far off from what Giovanni thought about it herself, she saw this as a new gateway within the issues of racism, perspectives change how people interpret information and I think that is why other poets and writers bashed her for accepting the award.
1. What other examples are in Giovanni’s poem that expresses the idea of individualism, perspective or both and how does it relate to those ideas?
Giovanni’s poem/ document expresses the idea of perspective in a third person point of view and some individualism as well. Talks about her life and where she was born and how she became who she was. Some things mentioned about Nikki Giovani mentioned in the poem is her background, and some of the things she achieved. In the poem it says, “Born in Knoxville, Tennessee and given the name Yolande Cornelia Giovanna Jr.” (2). The individualism side of things come in late in the poem when she talks about living in Woodlawn and what it was like, Nikki states “you always remember things like living in Woodlawn with no inside toilet and if you become famous or something they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother all to your self and how good the water felt when you got your bath” (4). That statement from Nikki seems very individual and personal which would relate to the individualism side of things.
Hi Michelle! Great blog post. You’re absolutely right, it is clear to see Giovanni wrote with perspective and individualism. I think that she had the dedication and motivation to speak the truth and she engages her audience to listen to what it is she has to say. Like you said she does not hold back and really expresses herself through her writing. To answer the first question, I think that by expressing her own experience instead of the black community as a whole creates a more emotional and powerful response from her audience. It allows them to make that connection that what she is saying, she lived through. This strategy gives her the opportunity to explore issues on a personal level. It is seen as self expression allowing the audience to connect with Giovanni. She says “I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me because they never understand Black love is Black wealth and they’ll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy”(Line 23-27). This part of the poem stood out to me because it emphasizes the idea of Giovanni speaking from individual experience. It shows the importance of listening to someone first hand, which overall expresses the desire Giovanni has to share her story and for her audience to understand.
Hi Michelle! I loved your blog post of your analysis of Nikki Giovanni’s biography and her poems, especially how extensively you discussed her individualism. I believe that this quality of content in her poetry really helped define her as an artist and gain her voice. Not to mention her aggressive ideas of violence in fighting back racism. To answer your first question Michelle, I do think Giovanni’s method of writing her poetry as being individualized is a unique method for its purpose in the Black Arts Movement. But I also think it is quite effective. In the section dedicated to Nikki Giovanni in The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, it spoke of Giovanni’s works having a “tension between expansive collectivity and personal intimacy…” (879) I think this was a very smart and very effective way of her writing because it was made more easily relatable for the African American community. It also brought the harsh reality of African Americans to white Americans, and assisted in creating different perspectives.
Hi Michelle! I really enjoyed your blog post and your own perspective on the poem “Nikki-Rosa”. To answer one of your discussion questions, I agree that Giovanni used this poem as a direct explanation to what she was going through, and her life experiences. For example, throughout the poem she is very specific and detailed with certain scenes that seem to come from a place she had witnessed once before. In the poem she writes, “you always remember things like living in Woodlawn, with no inside toilet,” (lines 3-4). I think that this was a good method to have, because it gave readers a chance to read the poem without knowing it was going to be based off her life (giving a sense of being open minded), but it also made the poem’s readers more sympathetic. Another example that led me to believe this was a more detailed poem about Giovanni’s life was with the last two lines. She writes “probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy,” (lines 26-27). She again speaks, this time not so subtly, of her own experience and her own things she has gone through. By implying that she is talking of her own childhood, we, as readers, are now given a better understanding of this poem and how it represents her main ideas of perspective and individualism.
Hi Michelle, I enjoyed reading your blog post, and two more words I would like to add to your words to describe Nikki Giovanni as empowering and persistent. These words fit her well because as she grew older, she became a strong voice that would have a response ready to every comment and law white oppressor made towards the African American community. In the text, it states “She led the re-establishment of Fisk’s chapter of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)in 1964 after the university’s previous banning of the group.”) (Page 879) In addition, the word persistent holds because after her grandmother passed, she decided to push the movement of empowering African Americans even further through her works of poetry to express her emotions. Between 1967 and 1970, Nikki Giovanni wrote three pieces of poetry Black Talk (1967), Black Judgment (1968), and Re: Creation (1970). All of these shared the purpose of making African Americans love their lifestyle and who they are because they weren’t in control of the racist legislation but of how they responded to it. I agree with her take that her word doesn’t speak for the millions of other African Americans because each African American went through their trauma whether it was physical or mental abuse and racism differently. Some might have wanted to respond violently, and some African Americans would’ve wanted to respond in a more peaceful protest type of manner as opposed to riots. One example to prove her individualism is a quote on page 880, stating “Giovanni was fulfilling the Black Arts aim of bringing the new black poetry to the people, yet she was often accused of compromising her integrity for the sake of fame, suffering particularly harsh criticism among fellow Black’ Arts writers for accepting a Woman of the Year Award from the Ladies’ Home Journal in 1973.” This quote proves despite her success, she was questioned by peers and critics. She stated that this acceptance could’ve been seen as white voters and African American award recipients creating a better relationship which shows her perspective.
Hi Michelle, I loved reading your post on this poem and Nikki Giovanni. I wanted to answer your second question about other examples in the poem that show perspective or individualism. One part of this poem that stands out to me is
Hi Michelle, I loved reading your post on this poem and Nikki Giovanni. I wanted to answer your second question about other examples in the poem that show perspective or individualism. One part of this poem that stands out to me is “and though they fought a lot/ it isn’t your father’s drinking that makes any difference/ but only that everybody is together and you/ and your sister have happy birthdays and very good christmasses.” (20-23). I think this is a very good example of the perspective that she puts into this poem. Like you mentioned, she wrote about her own life and didn’t try to generalize her experiences to fit with other people’s. Just like when she mentions not wanting a white person to write about her, this part of the poem is talking about how people can look at someone and only focus on what seems to be hardships in their life or negative parts. But even though there are some hardships, she was still happy and has great memories from her childhood. She is getting at the idea that you can’t talk about someone by just looking at the publicized parts of their lives. There is so much that happens, and people’s lives are miscategorized just like people themselves.
Hello Michelle, your blog was great! To answer your first question, writing poems is usually a way to express how one is feeling. To be quite honest, writing from everyone’s perspective is not right because Giovanni realizes that everyone has different experiences. This reminds me of when Martin Luther King Jr said he did not want to be seen as a spokesman but rather as a man who worships God. In Nikki-Rosa, in lines 5-6, it says, “If you become famous or something, they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother all to yourself” (Giovanni). This line stood out to me a lot especially to answer question 2. The reason is that she mentions how she had no experience of having quality time with her mother while growing up. These lines are expressions about her feelings on how she felt, not how the world feels.
I found Giovanni’s poem and bio very interesting. And you made a great point in your blog post that I wanted to touch on. Giovanni has the quote “they’ll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy”. I viewed this quote similar to you in the sense that it’s true, it’s better to write about your own experience rather than others as you don’t know how someone’s experience with certain things differs from yours. You don’t know how people may view life and things differently.
Hi Michelle, I really loved your intake on Giovanni’s poem. To answer your question: What is your take on Giovanni’s method of writing her poetry, that it was an expression of her own individual experience and not the black community as a whole? My take was that some people reading her story may feel as though she had to struggle or her life was hard but in reality she was happy in her home. She didn’t mind it. In the poem Giovanni stated “ They’ll (white people) probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy” (882) (lines 25). This tells me that Giovann didn’t see her life as a struggle and didn’t want no one misinterpreting her story wrong as a sob story. In some cases in the black community they have had a bad childhood experience but everyone’s childhood is going to be different no matter the race. Another statement that stood out to me was when Giovanni stated “ childhood remembrance is always a drag if you’re black” she then goes on to say “ they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother to yourself” (Lines 6) (882). I interpreted these statements as we are so use to reading and watching sob and violent movies and books about black people and their struggle to be where they are today that we barely see the good that could have been like Gio said she had a drunk father but enjoyed christmas together, so obviously there were some wrongs and sadness but overall her childhood she felt like was amazing.