Summary: The True Import Of Present Dialogue, Black Vs. Negro

Intrepid Nikki

Auriel Jones
AP Literature and Composition
Ms. Yarborough
10 February 2014 Nikki Giovanni, born as Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, is an extremely extraordinary poet whose writing style and themes of her literary works were very inspiring during the Civil Rights Movement. She is considered one of the greatest revolutionary writers in American history of all time. Giovanni was born June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Shortly after, her parents moved Giovanni and her older sister to Cincinnati, Ohio. From a very young age, Giovanni always had a confident, forceful, and independent personality, matching the qualities off her maternal grandmother. On numerous occasions, she
has credited her grandmother for instilling in her passion for civil rights, which explains some of her poetry and prose (Mitchell 1). Her attitude led her to be outspoken and prominent during the Black Power and Black Arts Movements (Bader). Giovanni, a strong activist for civil rights and equality, made great strides in literature by being courageous and outspoken in her writing. She uses a very blunt writing style in her literature, as well as having common themes of thwarted hopes and loneliness and love. Although Nikki Giovanni is viewed as a strong African American woman by most, some critics argued that she did nothing for the world of literature because her writing is too simplistic and inconsistent.
Giovanni displays a blunt writing style in a fair number of her poems. Being blunt means being uncompromisingly forthright. People who are blunt are often viewed as rude, seeing that they say whatever is on their mind at any given moment. For the most part, based on her poetry, Giovanni did not try to sugar coat things to make them sound any sweeter because that is just not the type of person she wanted to portray herself as. Through her use of this writing style, she showed that she was not afraid to go against what was common. The black power and black arts movement emerged right after the civil rights movement. "Black Power," in the 1960s civil rights context, advocated armed self-defense against and separation from racist America, as well as pride in African-American culture. Many critics have called the black arts movement racially exclusive. Some even admit that this movement inspired a great number of African Americans, such as Giovanni, to write and paved the way for other authors and artists to resist assimilation and celebrate their own history and culture. This movement was at its peak around the 1960’s. African American men and women, including Giovanni, organized and led the movement. They pursued their goals through legal means, negotiations, petitions, and nonviolent protest. This was one of the largest movements of the twentieth century and of all time (Wattley). Black Feeling Black Talk and Black Judgment were Giovanni’s first volumes of books that she published in 1968.
In these poems, Giovanni expressed her opinion of the revolution by supporting open violence and also by expressing her intolerant attitude for change and freedom (“Nikki Giovanni 181”). These novels were a compilation of many revolutionary poems. After Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Giovanni published these two works later in the same year. In her poem, “The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro”, Giovanni showed how she was not holding her tongue for anyone. According to the lyrics of the poem “The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro”, it would be logical to think that Giovanni was furious that Dr. King had been killed and how her own race was acting as cowards by following the commands of whites. She was also concerned that black men were being sent out of the country to fight other men, when they could not even fight for their freedom at home (Lee 182). In this poem she repeatedly says, “Can you kill a nigger/ can a nigger kill” and “We ain’t got to prove we can die/ we got to prove we can kill”. From these lyrics, one may believe that Giovanni is done with Dr. King’s nonviolent ways. She is now provoking violence and wishing for the death of white America through her lyrics (Harris 193). Although every American was supposed to have the freedom of speech, Giovanni’s blunt style of writing could have had her assassinated,
yet she was not worried. Sandra Juhasz, a pioneer in the study of American poetry, believes that in “The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro”, Giovanni was speaking straight to her fellow African Americans on all the issues of society that concern them (185). She was prepared to fight according to her poem titled, “For Saundra” (Harris 194). In this poem, Giovanni said, “Maybe I shouldn’t write at all/ but clean my gun/ and check my kerosene supply.” In short, she is saying that it is possible that there is no time to write poetry and she should be out in the world preparing to fight and defending herself (194). She is also saying that there is no need for sweet poems that do not support wars and revolutions (194). Giovanni’s harsh, but candid style is evident throughout almost all of her poetry.
In order to make life-long, positive impressions on the nation and certain individuals, one must possess a unique quality and a very special gift.
Nikki Giovanni’s gift is her bluntness and honesty. According to the critic David LLorens, Giovanni is growing everyday into a better poet because she is married to honesty (190). He once said “Enjoy the guts of Giovanni on her journey into Adulthood, a poem that acts like a fifth of iodine on an open wound with its raw power” (Llorens 190). LLorens was promoting Giovanni’s blunt poetry style with his positive criticism. He also was responding to her frank poetry. After reading his full criticism, one would think that he was in love with Giovanni and her work. This shows how her style had such a positive impact on society. Similar to Llorens’s criticism, Sarah Fabio also thought that Giovanni was a magnificent writer (190). She once said, “Nikki is a special poet for this special time-a revolutionary one.… She records in a special way evoking images largely through cataloguing (Fabio 190). Fabio was explaining how Giovanni’s works were exceptionally unique during the hectic time period that was occurring. She viewed the works as magic. Giovanni influenced others to speak their minds and to not be afraid of holding back. She constantly received reviews that proved what a strong, vigorous woman she actually was and still
is.
Giovanni, indisputably, has a unique writing style that showed her undeniable strength. Not only was her writing style blunt when it came to politics, but also when it came to more personal matters and sexual relations. During the 1970’s most writers did not openly talk about sex. It was a very secretive subject. Authors, such as Giovanni, who blatantly talked about sex and published their works for everyone to see were extremely bold. In the poem, “Seduction”, Giovanni explains how a male is talking about a revolution, but she is ignoring him and trying to seduce him (Mitchell 1). All while the male is talking she is getting undressed and preparing to expose herself and have sexual intercourse with him. The man fails to realize that he is being stripped by the woman because he is so wrapped up in talking about the revolution, until the last four lines of the poem. The last four lines of the poem reads, “then you’ll notice/ you state of undress/and knowing you you’ll just say/ “Nikki, isn’t this counterrevolutionary…?” The lyrics of this poem were jaw dropping to most seeing that there had not been much sexual content yet published during the 1970’s (Harris 194). Giovanni successfully gets her points across in her poems by speaking from the heart and by being firm.
While Nikki Giovanni had a frank writing style, she also had a common theme of thwarted hopes and extreme loneliness. She revealed a sad, yet real aspect of society with this theme. Giovanni’s Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day is a collection full of very emotional poems that were written in some of her more somber days. This book is a collection of mainly gloomy times that display how hopes and dreams were often prevented from coming true. Loneliness seems to be a motif throughout this collection of poems in which Giovanni sees no immediate solution. In the poem, “Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day”, Giovanni takes more time to get her point across than usual. This is one of Giovanni’s longer poems that needs to be broken down in greater depth than any of her other poems. Giovanni seems to address the issue she has in the very first stanza of the poem when she says “Don’t look now/ I am fading away into the gray of my mornings” (Giovanni 21). She is instructing someone to not watch her while she is at her worst and where she feels as though she is becoming nothing. She feels as if she is a useless piece trash. She continues on to the next stanza telling how her nails are constantly breaking. This is significant because Giovanni is showing that the pieces of her life keep falling apart and how her hopes are also falling apart. The poem continues on with Giovanni somewhat “venting” all of her problems out to anyone that will listen. She implies in stanza three that it seems as though no matter how hard she tries to pretend like she is worth having, no one acts like she is special at all (21). This goes hand in hand with the common theme of loneliness that is displayed in various other poems in Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day. In stanza five, the metaphor of cotton candy in which reminded her of the possibility of life is introduced, as well as the fluctuating of Giovanni’s emotions (22). Knowing that cotton candy can appear to be solid but eventually melts away, readers can infer that this “possibility” that the Giovanni talks about comes and goes. The cotton candy is sweet at first and then it simply disappears, just like thwarted hopes. Giovanni concludes her poem with stating that she wants to share the dream with a vivid and graphic picture of the world to analyze on a flat surface. This poem, as well as the rest of the poems have in the novel shows emotional fatigue and a sense of dislocation (Giddings 191-92). Giovanni knows that she needs to affection in her world to be happy again and to try to get pass this somber time.
While the poem, “Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day” does an excellent job displaying a theme of loneliness and prevented hopes, there are also many other poems in the compilation that display this theme. In “Life Cycles”, Giovanni further shows a theme of isolation. It speaks on what a woman living a difficult life goes through. This poem seems to describe depression in a woman that feels she should never been on this Earth in the first place. This is inferred by the first stanza where the speakers says she feels like an unwanted child too late for an abortion (Giovanni 52). The next three stanzas speak on the bad habits of this woman dwelling deeper into the claim of depression. The woman shows her fear of being around a man who may be her husband by saying she is anxious when he is around. The fact that the woman had to sneak drinks shows that she had no business consuming any alcohol or beverage in the first place. Giovanni creates a metaphor at the end of the poem saying that everything that happened to her are emotional seeds that will only grow to strangle her. Eventually, the strangling will be the death of her. The purpose of the poem is to show what a woman goes through when society denies her natural right to feel certain emotions. Similarly, in the poem, “Crutches”, the speaker uses the metaphoric view of being disabled to show the reader the impact of the world being impaired rather than just one. The speaker begins in stanza one with stating that it is not the help that we criticize, but it is the motivation to move on that makes everything so difficult (Giovanni 32). Throughout this poem, the speaker addresses the sexist point of view that states that a woman is to stay in her place. Stanza two addresses what it is that a woman should and should not do, as if the speaker was the maker of the cult of sensibility. She implies that society has shaped the world into believing that a woman is not needed for anything. There is also the comparison of man versus woman throughout the poem where woman cannot be strong like men so they hide their anger with smiles and alcohol. On the contrary, men can be strong and it drives them emotionally insane. Giovanni addresses the emotional strength versus the physical strength that has shaped the thoughts of both men and women. Giovanni also uses the themes of weakness and hurt to help portray how the human mind works. Both men and women work to prove a point implying that crutches are irrelevant, but in truth crutches are something that everyone needs. William J. Harris believes that this is Giovanni’s bleakest books of all time, which the details of the poems greatly support (195). In the second to last stanza, Giovanni begins to sum up her message by implying that although one may feel guilty about asking someone for help, having no one to help you in life with the annoyances that bother you can lead to some sort of massive destruction.

Works Cited

Fabio, Sarah. “Nikki Giovanni” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Sharon Gunton. Vol. 19 Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1981. 190-191. Print.
Giddings, Paula. “Nikki Giovanni” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz. Vol. 64. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991. 191-192. Print.
Giovanni, Nikki. "Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day." Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day: Poems. New York: Morrow, 1978. 21-23. Print.
Giovanni, Nikki. "Crutches." Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day: Poems. New York: Morrow, 1978. 32-33. Print.
Giovanni, Nikki. "Life Cycles." Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day: Poems. New York: Morrow, 1978. 52-53. Print.
Giovanni, Nikki. "Make Up." The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1996. 224-225. Print.
Giovanni, Nikki. "Seduction." The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1996. 37. Print.
Harris, William J. “Nikki Giovanni” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz. Vol. 64. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991. 193-195. Print.
Juhasz, Suzanne. “Nikki Giovanni” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz. Vol. 64. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991. 185-187. Print.
Lee, Don L. “Nikki Giovanni” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz. Vol. 64. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991. 182-183. Print.

Llorens, David. “Nikki Giovanni” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Sharon Gunton. Vol. 19. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1981. 190. Print.
"Nikki Giovanni Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2014.
“Nikki Giovanni” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz. Vol. 64. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991. 181-182. Print.