Nikki Giovanni, born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on 7 June 1943, was a critically acclaimed poet, educator and activist whose work was pivotal to the Black Arts movement and the Black Power movement. Giovanni attended her grandfather’s alma mater, Fisk University, graduating with honors in history and becoming a member of Delta Sigma Theta. Later, she returned to academia as a university professor at Virginia Tech. Her influential body of work includes her self-published book Black Feeling, Black Talk/Black Judgement (1968), the New York Times bestseller Bicycles: Love Poems (2009), the Emmy-award nominated The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (1968-1998) and, most recently, The Last Book, scheduled to publish in fall 2025. Giovanni passed away on 9 December 2024 of cancer
