Yolanda Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni (b. June 7, 1943, Knoxville, Tennessee) is an American poet and author.
She has been teaching writing and literature at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, VA since 1987, and is a Distinguished Professor. On April 17, 2007, at the Virginia Tech Convocation commemorating the April 16 Virginia Tech massacre, Giovanni closed the ceremony with a chant poem, intoning, "We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech... We do not understand this tragedy... No one deserves a tragedy." Giovanni taught the Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-hui in a poetry class. She described him as troubled and downright "mean" and, when she approached the department chair to have Cho taken out of her class, said she was willing to resign rather than continue teaching him. She also claimed that she immediately suspected that Cho might be the shooter when she heard about the shooting, and would have been shocked otherwise.
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Giovanni has had a successful career as a poet, earning her the nickname "The Princess of Black Poetry" in the late 60s and early 70s. The civil rights and black power movements inspired her early poetry that was collected in Black Feeling, Black Talk (1967), Black Judgement (1968), and Re: Creation (1970). She has since written more than two dozen books including volumes of poetry, illustrated children's books, and three collections of essays.
Giovanni's writing has been heavily inspired by African American activists and artists. She has a tattoo with the words "Thug life" to honor Tupac Shakur, whom she admired.[5][6] Her book Love Poems (1997) was written in memory of him, and she has stated that she would "rather be with the thugs than the people who are complaining about them."[7]
