Nikki Giovanni’s Final Collection Released

Celebrated poet Nikki Giovanni published more than 30 books during her lifetime, and nearly a year after her death, her final collection has been released.

A Legacy Continued: The New Book

The New Book, out now, serves as both an elegy and a continuation of her decadeslong career. Completed before she died last year and guided to print by her wife, Virginia “Ginney” Fowler, this collection carries Giovanni’s work into a future she knew she would not live to see due to her declining health, Fowler said.

“All the poems were written before the election,” Fowler said. “Nikki wanted to get people to vote.”

The book blends wisdom with instruction, addressing the political landscape, her childhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, and stories of her great-grandmother, who was a slave. Each poem calls for accountability, intention, and action.

Insight from Jericho Brown

Jericho Brown, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and mentee of Giovanni’s, said the new collection reveals “even more of who she always was.”

Brown recalled first encountering Giovanni not as a mentor, but as a celebrity whose poems he could recite by heart.

“Her work was close to me,” Brown said. Over time, admiration turned into friendship. “She was first an inspiration, and then she was my friend and my mentor,” he added.

Brown said The New Book stands out among Giovanni’s works because she softened the boundaries that once concealed aspects of her life.

“Much more of her life is bleeding forth” in this book, he said. Along with sharing letters to loved ones — even mentioning Brown and Fowler — she writes about the men in her life in “Fathers.” Brown described it as “the most that Nikki Giovanni has ever said in a poem that is about her son’s father and, at the same time, about her own father.”

“Fathers” flows like her 1972 poem “Mothers,” which focuses on the women in her family and their relationships.

Themes and Style Throughout Her Career

Fearlessness and conviction were hallmarks of Giovanni’s writing for over six decades, from reflections on Black childhood in “Nikki-Rosa” (1971) to later works about Black resilience, like “Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea (We’re Going to Mars)” from 2002.

Thematically, The New Book offers readers a familiar feeling found in her earlier works, while deepening the understanding of who she was.

Personal Reflections from Virginia Fowler

Fowler said Giovanni “lived as she wrote,” describing her as authentic both in life and in her work. “It’s what drew people to her,” Fowler said. “I have never seen another poet draw together so many different types of people. To me, that says something about the universality of her writing.”

They met in the fall of 1986 when Fowler nominated Giovanni for a position at Virginia Tech. At the time, Fowler was an associate professor and associate head of the English department.

Fowler didn’t think Giovanni would accept because she believed Giovanni was too famous to want to work there. But eventually, Giovanni joined the department and they worked together.

Fowler recalled some faculty resisted working with Giovanni. “I had a colleague that said, ‘I will not teach at a department that Nikki Giovanni is in,’ and he left,” she said. “I know that was racism.”

Despite that, Giovanni remained undeterred and unapologetically herself. Fowler said Giovanni’s sharp humor became legendary among their colleagues. Once, when asked to take minutes at a committee meeting, she filled them with observations like, “Peter had on really beautiful socks,” ensuring she was never asked again.

Final Years and Timely Poetry

Giovanni taught at Virginia Tech for 35 years while writing more than a dozen books. She retired in 2022 to focus on her final collection. Having written most of it after retirement, many poems are timely, reflecting current events such as the Covid-19 pandemic in works like “30 May 2023” and “For the 2020 ‘Celebration of Youth’ Essay Contest.”

She used modern themes to continue her lifelong dialogue, urging readers to stay politically engaged and morally awake.

“She always understood that presence, like poetry, endures beyond the moment,” Brown said. “This book carries that truth forward.”