Nikki Giovanni is a world-renowned poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Over the past thirty years, her outspokenness, in her writing and in lectures, has brought the eyes of the world upon her. One of the most widely-read American poets, she prides herself on being "a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English." Early in her career she was dubbed the "Princess of Black Poetry," and over the course of more than three decades of publishing and lecturing she has come to be called both a "National Treasure" and, most recently, one of Oprah Winfrey's twenty-five "Living Legends."
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsRnYv4VwhZA0__jut8VlO_W2KiBs1-Xx8WODyzvFRTr7cB2gmIvg72YzkXEMdgylT5Zot6voscXm1EvnfmYQsk__D3lvWyBHyShVC9JRbBvfEdVgpFd3YL6_drbUjiuOcXSoMwj6AV_4/s400/nikki-giovanni.jpg)
Let me share one of her poems that I like:
CHOICES
if i can't do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don't want
to do
it's not the same thing
but it's the best i can
do
if i can't have
what i want . . . then
my job is to want
what i've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want
since i can't go
where i need
to go . . . then i must . . . go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral
when i can't express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal
i know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry
1 comment:
Hadn't heard of her. Thanks for profiling her.
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