The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni Read Online Free Page B

print media, including publications such as Jet, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and Ebony. Appears frequently on Soul! and is a guest on The Tonight Show. Plays an active role in a new publication undertaken by her friend Ida Lewis, Encore, later renamed Encore American & Worldwide News, a Black newsmagazine. Until 1980 Giovanni acts as consultant, contributes a regular column, and helps finance the magazine. Puts on a free Father’s Day concert with La Belle at Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem. Performs at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center with the New York Community Choir and La Belle. Receives key to Lincoln Heights, Ohio. Reads at the Paul Laurence Dunbar Centennial in Dayton, Ohio, where she andPaula Giddings, then an editor at Howard University Press, conceive the idea of a book composed of a conversation between Giovanni and Margaret Walker (1915–98). Travels to Walker’s home in Jackson, Mississippi, in November to begin taping.
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    Â 1973 Giovanni publishes Ego-Tripping and Other Poems for Young People and A Dialogue: James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni, an edited transcription of the videotaping she did with Baldwin for two episodes of Soul! Releases the album Like A Ripple On A Pond. The American Library Association names My House one of the best books of 1973. Gemini is nominated for a National Book Award. Meets Margaret Walker in Washington, D.C., to complete the tapings for their book. On May 14 receives a Woman of the Year Award from the Ladies’ Home Journal; the ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, airs nationwide, and Giovanni is criticized for accepting the award. Throws a thirtieth birthday party for herself on June 21 at New York’s Philharmonic Hall; the recital includes an introduction by Reverend Ike and guest appearances by Wilson Pickett and Melba Moore. Is initiated as an honorary member into Delta Sigma Theta, Inc., at its convention in Atlanta in August. Takes her sister to Paris to celebrate Gary’s graduation from Xavier University (Cincinnati). Receives Life Membership and Scroll from the National Council of Negro Women. Goes on an African lecture tour sponsored by USIA; brings her son and his nanny, Deborah Russell, a former student of hers at Rutgers. They visit Ghana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, and Nigeria.
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    Â 1974–77 Giovanni publishes A Poetic Equation: Conversations Between Nikki Giovanni and Margaret Walker (1974) and The Women and the Men (1975). Releases the albums The Way I Feel (1975), Legacies (1976), and The Reason I Like Chocolate (1976). Receives honorary doctorates from Ripon University; the University of Maryland, Princess Anne Campus; and Smith College. Continues to write essays for Encore American & Worldwide News. Lectures extensively at colleges anduniversities across the country. Travels to Rome for the United Nations’ First World Food Conference (1974).
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    Â 1978–82 Giovanni publishes Cotton Candy On A Rainy Day and releases album with the same title (1978). Publishes Vacation Time in 1979. In 1978 her father has a stroke and is subsequently diagnosed with cancer. Giovanni moves with her son back to her parents’ home in Lincoln Heights. Primary responsibility for her parents and her son, including steep medical bills, increases her speaking schedule and she has less time to devote to writing. Named an honorary commissioner for the President’s Commission on the International Year of the Child. Father dies on June 8, 1982, one day after her thirty-ninth birthday.
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    Â 1983–87 Giovanni publishes Those Who Ride the Night Winds (1983). Continues a heavy schedule of speaking engagements. Named Woman of the Year by the Cincinnati YWCA (1983). Teaches as a visiting professor at Ohio State University (1984–85) and as professor of creative writing at Mount Saint Joseph’s College (1985–87). Receives honorary doctorates from Mount Saint