WORLD-RENOWNED POET NIKKI GIOVANNI TO SPEAK AT BMC

"You're not here for yourself, but to keep these doors open." That's how Nikki Giovanni challenges her students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, where she is a professor of English and the Gloria D. Smith Professor of Black Studies. On Wednesday, Feb. 25, at 7 p.m., Giovanni will challenge the Bryn Mawr community as she delivers the keynote address for Black History Month at Thomas Great Hall.

Because she "never veers away from truth," says author Jan McDaniels, Giovanni's "words are meant to last." Over the past 30 years, Giovanni's outspokenness, in her writing and in person, has affirmed the power of individuals to make a difference in themselves and in the lives of others. "I was reading poetry and speaking poetry when people didn't care about what black people had to say. I know people are better than we think we are," Giovanni has said.

Born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in Ohio, Giovanni received her bachelor's degree from Nashville 's historically black Fisk University. After organizing the first Black Arts Festival in Cincinnati, she entered graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. Her first two collections of poetry, Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968) and Black Judgement (1969) gave voice to black consciousness and revolutionary impulses and established her as a major figure in the Black Arts Movement, a loose coalition of African-American intellectuals who produced politically and artistically radical work. Her lifelong determination to tell the truth as she sees it and her prolific output in a variety of genres have ensured her enduring prominence in the world of letters as well as the black consciousness movement. In addition to poetry, she has published children's books, essays and conversations, including her provocative essay collection Racism 101.

Even though Giovanni's literary career has spanned 30 years and averaged a book per year, she believes that her work has not changed all that much. "My early work was … I think the term was incendiary, but I don't trust people who make big changes. What you say has been said. You keep trying to say what you're learning and keep sharing it with your audience."

Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Literature in 1998 and the Langston Hughes Award for Distinguished Contributions to Arts and Letters in 1996, Giovanni characterizes herself as "just a poet looking at the world," and prides herself on being "a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English." For more information and links to related interviews and sites, visit www.nikki-giovanni.com.

Giovanni's keynote address is part of a series of events celebrating Black History Month at Bryn Mawr College, sponsored by Sisterhood, the Office for Institutional Diversity, the Center for Ethnicities, Communities and Social Policy, the Arts Program, the Dean's Office, and the Creative Writing Program.

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