Award-winning poet Giovanni to speak

As Virginia Tech was reeling from the actions of a lone gunman on April 16, 2007, a small woman stepped up to the podium the next morning in Cassel Coliseum. Nikki Giovanni became the voice that helped unify and heal.

“We are Virginia Tech. We will prevail.”

The power of her words stuck a chord with people — Hokie or not — around the world.

But it seems Giovanni always has understood the power of poetry. She loves to teach others the power of words. And people have responded.

Giovanni has won countless awards and critical praise over a long and distinguished career. She was Ebony Magazine’s Woman of the Year in 1970. She just won her seventh NAACP Image Award.

In between she has earned medals, keys to cities, honorary degrees, a Grammy nomination and an American Book Award. She also was named one of Oprah Winfrey’s 25 Living Legends.

Giovanni has written more than 30 books, all told, and spent the past 24 years in Blacksburg, teaching Hokies the power of poetry.

Today and Saturday, she will be back for another visit in Charlottesville to participate in the Virginia Festival of the Book.

“I am always excited to come to Charlottesville.” Giovanni said. “They have some nice restaurants.”

“My friend Ashley Bryan is coming, so we are doing something together,” she said. “And I will be at St. Anne’s [-Belfiield School]. I work in the children’s field, so I am pleased about that.”

This morning she will be discussing poetry with the STAB community. On Saturday, she will be at CitySpace for a joint art-and-poetry session that is open to the public.

Sure to be mentioned this weekend are poems from her latest children’s books. “Rosa,” published in 2005, was a Caldecott winner. “Hip-Hop Speaks to Children” was a New York Times best seller.

While she may be more well known for her adult poetry, she says she also has penned 11 children’s books.

“It’s a field I enjoy a lot,” she said. “Children are not just little grownups. They have their own way of looking at the world. I enjoy bringing new ideas to them.”

She also enjoys promoting the works of young writers. Her latest collection garnered her seventh Image Award.

“I have been very fortunate,” she said. “ ‘One Hundred African-American-Poems’ should be an asterisk, because I cheated. There are actually 220 poems in that book.”

It features works by Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks and Amiri Baraka. But the book of the best also includes 10 writers who have never been published.

“I am so proud of it because we wanted to get youngsters in that book,” she said. “I determined that one-fourth of the book would be for new voices.”

To select the best, she enlisted her friends — Joanne Gabbin from the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University; poet Mari Evans; a former student and award-winning writer, Kwame Alexander; and actress Val Ward.

“You are taking a chance, because how do you know that they are the best?” Giovanni said. “If it turns out to be the best, then I am ahead of the curve, but it if isn’t, nobody will read the book.”

Her board helped in the selection process.

“What Mari Evan and Val did was send me 30 poems that we must include, and I made my list,” Giovanni said. “It was pretty easy. If it made all three lists, it was included.

“Kwame, of course, knew more of the young people than any of us. So he had a ‘must’ list of these people.”

They were looking for up-and-coming voices. They found one in Terrance Hayes, who just won the National Book Award for Poetry for “Lighthead.”

“I was so pleased that we had Terrance before he won the National Book Award,” she said with a laugh. “Of course, you are not going to have that level of success with all of your writers, but it is important that you reach out to the young people.

“We also have a couple of spoken-word artists. Again, we listened to the CDs. We just wanted to make sure we got those 20- to 30-year-olds.”

“One Hundred” also comes with its own CD. You can hear Giovanni and others reading their own powerful words. Other poems are recited by the likes of actress Ruby Dee and Virginia Tech president Charles W. Steger.

This festival, Giovanni will be focused on the youngest of writers.

“There is a reason the church has Sunday school,” Giovanni said. “If you are not reaching out to young people, where is the next generation coming from?”

It’s a skill that just came naturally for Giovanni.

“I am Appalachian by birth,” she said. “I was born in Tennessee and, of course, we are storytellers. Poetry probably does that as well as anything.

“Dolly Parton reminds us that song does storytelling the best. But poetry is right there in how you get a point across.”