Tayari Jones was a 33-year-old writer, fresh off her first book when she went to the mailbox and retrieved a letter that would change her life.
It was a handwritten note from Nikki Giovanni.
The celebrated poet and activist had already invited Jones to speak at Virginia Tech about her debut novel, “Leaving Atlanta.” Jones would later call it an audition and Giovanni paid her $400, enough to cover her $344 rent.
In the letter, Giovanni, who was friends with leading Black female writers like Toni Morrison, invited Jones to a weekend stay at her Virginia home. Jones remembers an unassuming ranch house, beautifully appointed with mementos and gifts from Langston Hughes and the many writers Giovanni befriended in her years.
She sat Jones down and made her breakfast, told and listened to stories, and served bourbon from an elaborate velvet box once owned by Maya Angelou.
“It was like she was passing me down a manual,” Jones recalled of the 2003 encounter. “She told me to always treat my readers with love and respect. She said publishers come and go; trends come and go. All these things come and go. But these Black women who are your readers, they’ll come to your funeral, they’ll be with you your whole life.”
The 81-year-old Giovanni, who influenced a generation of writers and poets while crafting a legacy as a gifted storyteller, died Monday in Blacksburg, Virginia.
“I’m heartbroken not as a writer or an artist,” Jones said. “I’m heartbroken as a person who’s lost a friend.”
In a statement, President Joe Biden said Giovanni “used her pen to advance racial and gender equality and confront violence, hate and injustice.” Vice President Kamala Harris called her “an unapologetic voice for justice and equality.”
“Nikki never stopped demanding, and fighting for, an America that lives up to our highest ideals of freedom, opportunity, fairness, and dignity for all,” Harris said.
Credit: Eli Johnson
Credit: Eli Johnson
Throughout Atlanta, writers and artists who knew her reflected not only on Giovanni’s legacy but also the impact she had on them.
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown recalled that Giovanni was “like an older homegirl” who provided “purposeful intellect” to the poetry community.
“She wanted us to know she was our grandmother,” he said. “She believed in us … she created opportunities for us to have a stage.”
Brown praised Giovanni for being one of his biggest supporters, and for advising him to secure financial autonomy as a creative writer by retaining the rights to his books and recordings. Giovanni, Brown said, felt poets should make a living doing what they love.
“[Nikki] believed that you should treat yourself and treat yourself right,” Brown remembered. “She said I could have whatever I want.”
Giovanni was central to the Black Arts Movement, which came out of the Civil Rights era, and was supported by the nationalist writings of Audre Lorde, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange and LeRoi Jones, among others.
Atlanta playwright Pearl Cleage first met in Giovanni in 1963 in Detroit, where Cleage’s father pastored a church that became involved with Black nationalism and played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement. Giovanni would often visit the church to read poetry.
Credit: Courtesy Susan Ross/Photogriot
Credit: Courtesy Susan Ross/Photogriot
“I was always very enthusiastic about meeting the poets that came through, and looking at how they were doing what they were doing,” said Cleage, the distinguished artist in residence at the Alliance Theatre. “She was not a poet that was ever removed from people. She was really trying to be a part of the movements that were changing the country and that is what we were being raised to do.”
Giovanni also distinguished herself as a well-regarded public intellectual, who in 1973 could sell out Philharmonic Hall in New York City.
Her poem “Ego-Tripping” became an anthem for Black girls and women. Reciting her poetry is a rite of passage for many children who grew up attending Black churches.
Credit: Courtesy Susan Ross/Photogriot
Credit: Courtesy Susan Ross/Photogriot
Brown recalled how Giovanni especially fought for Black writers and defended Black culture. “Nikki never kowtowed to what other people’s views of what Blackness was,” he said.
“Nikki Giovanni was that rare writer, that rare poet that was both critically acclaimed and beloved by the people,” Jones said, adding that Giovanni understood the meaning of creating poetry for humanity.
“This kept her going her whole life. She was doing events all the way up until just a few weeks before her passing because she loved the readers. She loved the people,” Jones said. “There is no one else like that now.”
Credit: Jason Getz
Credit: Jason Getz
“She was a free woman. She was not bound by anybody else’s morality, by anybody else’s idea about who she should be or how she should do what she was trying to do,” Cleage said.
“The thing I admired about her was her complete willingness to live her life on her own terms, and not to try to say the thing that was going to help her get ahead or say the thing that was gonna please whoever she was talking to. She was always very outspoken and very willing to be clear about what she thought about things.”
Jones remembers lacking confidence in her writing abilities after her first book, “Leaving Atlanta,” was not reviewed by The New York Times.
Then she met Giovanni.
“It boosted my confidence to be endorsed by her. She took interest in me as a writer before she knew me as a person,” Jones said.
Credit: Courtesy Tayari
Credit: Courtesy Tayari
Jones has gone on to write five highly acclaimed novels, including “An American Marriage,” which was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club and won the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction. The New York Times reviewed it.
“We often say that our writing is in conversation with other writers. In meeting her at that stage in my life, it broadened the actual conversation I was having with writers,” Jones said.
“She was a portal to a bygone era where the people who were writers were the people who would go into a profession with no expectation of success or money. So you would have to be in it for the love of it. She never let you forget that. It’s about the love of writing and it’s about the love of your people.”
Jones’ favorite poem, by Giovanni, which she recites by heart, is “Nikki-Rosa,” which was first published in 1968 and ended with the lines:
“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”
“That is her real legacy. That is her writing and her love, which in many ways are one and the same,” Jones said. “That is our generational wealth.”
A memorial service is scheduled for Giovanni on Saturday, but Cleage is looking at it more as a celebration of her life.
“I don’t think mourning was a part of what she would have wanted. She would have wanted us to celebrate her life, read her poems, drink wine, talk to each other, laugh and tell Nikki stories,” Cleage said. “That is a more fitting celebration for a wild, free life, lived exactly the way she chose — to dance, thinking about her, not to be crying.”
Become a member of UATL for more stories like this in our free newsletter and other membership benefits.
Follow UATL on Facebook, on X, TikTok and Instagram.
