“I wrote a good omelet…and ate a hot poem…after loving you.”
The author of those delightful words, poet and professor Nikki Giovanni, died on Monday. She was internationally known by her mid-twenties, thanks to her writing and public performances, including regular appearances on Soul!, where she interviewed the legendary James Baldwin.
Like Baldwin before her, Giovanni was fearless and outspoken, which made her a strident voice among the Black Arts Movement. She was also a critic of the sexist attitudes of all men. As a youth, Giovanni even admired Ayn Rand, the Atlas Shrugged author and conservative icon. Giovanni was truly unique.
(AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
She came to speak at my alma mater, Lenoir-Rhyne University, when I was a junior. This tiny woman impressed me with her dynamic presence and crackling intelligence. Later in my life, my wife gave me a collection of Giovanni’s love poems as a birthday gift, which included the lines I’ve quoted above. When we lived near Blacksburg, where Giovanni taught at Virginia Tech, I attended several of her readings, including one of her children’s books that reinterpreted Aesop’s fable about the grasshopper. Whether addressing a handful of folks in a bookstore or a sold-out auditorium, she shared a million-watt smile and a laugh that showered the room like confetti.
Giovanni’s moral courage was never more evident to me than during the vigil at Virginia Tech after the horrific mass shooting in 2007. Wearing a black suit and loosely knotted tie, she thundered from the stage, “We are Virginia Tech!” She knew that “no one deserves tragedy,” and yet suffering could unite us. We are bravest when we turn toward, not away from, each other. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). We are all Virginia Tech.
Rest in peace, faithful poet. May your words and witness richly inspire fearless love.
“I don’t think / I’m allowed / To kill something / Because I am / Frightened.”
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of “Little Big Moments,” a collection of mini-essays about parenting, and “Tigers, Mice & Strawberries: Poems.” Both titles are available most anywhere books are sold online. Taylor-Troutman lives in Chapel Hill where he serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church and occasionally stumbles upon the wondrous while in search of his next cup of coffee.
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