Synopses & Reviews
For the first time ever, the complete poetry collection spanning three decades from Nikki Giovanni, renowned poet and one of America's national treasures.
When her poems first emerged during the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s, Nikki Giovanni immediately took her place among the most celebrated, controversial, and influential poets of the era. Now, more than thirty years later, Giovanni still stands as one of the most commanding, luminous voices to grace America's political and poetic landscape.
The first of its kind, this omnibus collection covers Nikki Giovanni's complete work of poetry from three decades, 1968 1998. The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni contains Giovanni's first seven volumes of poetry: Black Feeling Black Talk, Black Judgement, Re: Creation, My House, The Women and the Men, Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day, and Those Who Ride the Night Winds. Arranged chronologically with a biographical timeline and introduction, a new afterword from the author, title and first-line indexes, and extensive notes to the poems, this collection is the testimony of a life's work -- from one of America's most beloved daughters and powerful poets.
Known for their iconic revolutionary phrases, Black Feeling Black Talk (1968), Black Judgement (1968), and Re: Creation (1970) are heralded as being among the most important volumes of contemporary poetry. My House (1972) marks a new dimension in tone and philosophy -- it signifies a new self-confidence and maturity as Giovanni artfully connects the private and the public, the personal and the political. In The Women and the Men (1975), Giovanni displays her compassion for the people, things, and places she has encountered-- she reveres the ordinary and is in search of the extraordinary. Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day (1978) is one of the most poignant and introspective. These poems chronicle the drastic change that took place during the 1970s -- in both the consciousness of the nation and in the soul of the poet -- when the dreams of the Civil Rights era seemed to have evaporated. Those Who Ride the Night Winds (1983) is devoted to the day trippers and midnight cowboys, the ones who have devoted their lives to pushing the limits of the human condition and shattering the constraints of the status quo.
Each volume reflects the changes Giovanni has endured as a Black woman, lover, mother, teacher, and poet. A timeless classic, The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni is the evocation of a nation's past and present -- intensely personal and fiercely political -- from one of our most compassionate, vibrant observers.
Review
“One of the finest poets of our time. . . Her work still resonates.” Ebony
Review
“Wise and mischievous, Giovanni is a must-read at every stage if her happily, still growing oeuvre.” Booklist
Review
“Fiery yet personal . . . an ample and diligent introduction, chronology and notes to individual works.” Publishers Weekly
Review
“What a powerful first impression she made. This collection of early work is an excellent reminder.” Library Journal
Review
"[New and Selected] offers readers the chance to experience and reassess one of the more unique voices in contemporary literature. . . Wandering the tangled byways of [Simics] imagination, we discover in our own workaday streets a phantasmagoria of the ordinary. . . Playful, sly [and] thrilling."—Washington Post
Synopsis
Representing three decades of work, an omnibus of poetry by the author of the award-winning Blues and Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea features pieces written between 1968 and 1998 and includes the contents of five previously published volumes. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.
Synopsis
The complete early work of the renowned poet--available for the first time is a Harper Perennial Modern Classic. "Nikki Giovanni is one of our national treasures."--Gloria Naylor
Acknowledged by Oprah WInfrey as "one of the 25 women who changed her life," Nikki Giovanni is a living legend. When her poems first emerged during the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s, Giovanni immediately became one of the most celebrated, controversial, and influential poets of the era. Today, Giovanni remains one of the most commanding and luminous voices to grace our political and poetic landscape.
This omnibus includes her first seven volumes of poetry from her early years, 1967 to 1983: Black Feeling Black Talk; Black Judgement; Re: Creation; My House; The Women and the Men; Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day; and Those Who Ride the Night Winds. A timeless classic, it is both a reflection of the changes in her own life and an evocation of a nation's past and its present.
Synopsis
The complete early work of the renowned African-American poet.
"Nikki Giovanni is one of our national treasures."--Gloria Naylor
This omnibus includes her first seven volumes of poetry from her early years, 1967 to 1983: Black Feeling Black Talk; Black Judgement; Re: Creation; My House; The Women and the Men; Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day; and Those Who Ride the Night Winds. A timeless classic, it is both a reflection of the changes in her own life and an evocation of a nation's past and its present.
Synopsis
From one of America's most cherished and celebrated poets, a landmark collection of Nikki Giovanni's early work
"Nikki Giovanni is one of our national treasures."--Gloria Naylor
For more than fifty years, Nikki Giovanni's poetry has inspired, enlightened, and dazzled readers. This timeless classic combines the poems of Nikki Giovanni from 1967 to 1983, from her books Black Feeling Black Talk; Black Judgement; Re: Creation; My House; The Women and the Men; Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day; and Those Who Ride the Night Winds.
Stirring, provocative, and resonant, these poems heralded the arrival of an indelible literary voice.
Synopsis
This omnibus covers Nikki Giovanni's complete work of poetry from 1967–1983. THE COLLECTED POETRY OF NIKKI GIOVANNI will include the complete volumes of five adult books of poetry: Black Feeling Black Talk/Black Judgement, My House, The Women and the Men, Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day, and Those Who Ride the Night Winds.
Nikki self–published her first book Black Feeling, Black Talk/BlackJudgement in 1969, selling 10,000 copies; William Morrow published in 1970. Know for its iconic revolutionary phrases, it is heralded as one of the most important volumes of modern African–American poetry and is considered the seminal volume of Nikki's body of work.
My House (Morrow 1972) marks a new dimension in tone and philosphy––This is Giovanni's first foray into the autobiographical.
In The Women and the Men (Morrow 1975), Nikki displays her compassion for the people, things and places she has encountered––She reveres the ordinary and is in search of the extraordinary.
Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day (Morrow 1978) is one of the most poignant and introspective of all Giovanni's collections. These poems chronicle the drastic change that took place during the 1970s––when the dreams of the Civil Rights era seemed to have evaporated.
Those Who Ride the Night Winds (Morrow 1983) is devoted to "the day trippers and midnight cowboys," the ones who have devoted their lives to pushing the limits of the human condition and shattered the constraints of the stautus quo.
Synopsis
The first ever volume of new and selected poetry from one of our most celebrated and acclaimed poets, Charles Simic.
Synopsis
“It takes just one glimpse of Charles Simic’s work to establish that he is a master, ruler of his own eccentric kingdom of jittery syntax and signature insight.” -
Los Angeles Times For over fifty years, Charles Simic has been widely celebrated for his brilliant and innovative poetic imagery, his sardonic wit, and a voice all his own. He has been awarded nearly every major literary prize for his poetry, including a Pulitzer and a MacArthur grant, in addition to serving as the poet laureate of the United States in 2007 and 2008.
In this new volume, he distills his life’s work, combining for the first time the best of his early poems with his later works—including nearly three dozen revisions—along with seventeen new, never-before-published poems. Simic’s body of work draws inspiration from a range of topics, from the inscrutability of ordinary life to American blues, from folktales to marriage and war.
Consistently exciting and unexpected, the nearly four hundred poems in this volume represent the best of one of America’s most distinguished and original poets.
About the Author
Nikki Giovanni, poet, activist, mother, and professor, is a seven-time NAACP Image Award winner and the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award, and holds the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry, among many other honors. The author of twenty-eight books and a Grammy nominee for The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection, she is the University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Table of Contents
from
Selected Early PoemsButcher Shop 3
Cockroach 3
Tapestry 4
Evening 5
The Inner Man 5
Fear 7
Summer Morning 7
Dismantling the Silence 9
Bestiary for the Fingers of My Right Hand 9
Fork 11
Spoon 11
Knife 12
My Shoes 14
Stone 14
Poem Without a Title 15
Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites 16
Invention of Nothing 19
errata 19
The Bird 20
Two Riddles 22
Brooms 23
Watermelons 25
The Place 26
Breasts 26
Charles Simic 28
Solitude 29
The Chicken Without a Head 30
White 32
What the White Had to Say 41
The Partial Explanation 42
The Lesson 43
A Landscape with Crutches 45
Help Wanted 46
Animal Acts 47
Charons Cosmology 47
The Ballad of the Wheel 48
A Wall 50
The Terms 50
Eyes Fastened with Pins 51
The Prisoner 52
Empire of Dreams 52
Prodigy 53
Baby Pictures of Famous Dictators 54
Shirt 55
Begotten of the Spleen 56
Toy Factory 57
The Little Tear Gland That Says 58
The Stream 59
Furniture Mover 61
Elegy 64
Note Slipped Under a Door 66
Grocery 67
Classic Ballroom Dances 68
Progress Report 69
Winter Night 69
The Cold 70
Devotions 70
Cold Blue Tinge 71
The Writings of the Mystics 72
Window Washer 73
Gallows Etiquette 74
In Midsummer Quiet 74
Peaceful Trees 75
My Beloved 77
Hurricane Season 78
Note 79
History 79
Strictly Bucolic 80
Crows 81
February 82
Punch Minus Judy 82
Austerities 83
Eastern European Cooking 84
My Weariness of Epic Proportions 85
Madonnas Touched Up with Goatees 85
Midpoint 86
from Unending Blues
December 91
Toward Nightfall 91
Early Evening Algebra 94
Ever So Tragic 94
For the Sake of Amelia 95
At the Night Court 96
Dark Farmhouses 97
Popular Mechanics 98
The Fly 98
Outside a Dirtroad Trailer 99
Dear Helen 100
Trees in the Open Country 100
October Arriving 101
Ancient Autumn 102
Against Whatever It Is Thats Encroaching 103
First Frost 103
Without a Sough of Wind 104
from The World Doesnt End
My mother was . . . 109
I was stolen . . . 109
Shes pressing me . . . 109
We were so poor . . . 109
I am the last . . . 110
Everybody knows the . . . 110
He held the Beast . . . 110
It was the epoch . . . 110
Ghost stories written . . . 111
The city had fallen . . . 111
The stone is . . . 111
Lover of endless . . . 111
The hundred-year-old . . . 112
Margaret was copying . . . 112
A poem about . . . 112
Tropical luxuriance . . . 112
Are Russian cannibals . . . 113
My guardian angel . . . 113
The old farmer . . . 113
O witches, O poverty! . . . 113
Once I knew . . . 114
Thousands of old . . . 114
A century of gathering . . . 114
The time of minor . . . 115
Lots of people . . . 115
My father loved . . . 115
Someone shuffles by . . . 116
My Secret Identity Is 115
from The Book of Gods and Devils
The Little Pins of Memory 119
St. Thomas Aquinas 119
A Letter 121
Factory 122
Shelley 123
The Devils 125
Crepuscule with Nellie 126
Two Dogs 128
Evening Talk 128
The Betrothal 129
Frightening Toys 130
The Big War 131
Death, the Philosopher 132
First Thing in the Morning 132
The White Room 133
Winter Sunset 134
The Pieces of the Clock Lie Scattered 135
The Immortal 135
At the Corner 137
Cabbage 137
The Initiate 138
Paradise 141
In the Library 142
The Wail 143
The Scarecrow 143
Windy Evening 144
from Hotel Insomnia
Evening Chess 147
The City 147
Stub of a Red Pencil 148
The Prodigal 148
Hotel Insomnia 149
The Inanimate Object 150
Outside Biaggis Funeral Home 151
The Tiger 151
Clouds Gathering 153
Folk Songs 154
War 154
A Book Full of Pictures 155
Evening Walk 155
Hotel Starry Sky 156
To Think Clearly 157
The Chair 157
Missing Child 158
Marinas Epic 158
Lost Glove 160
Romantic Sonnet 161
Beauty 161
My Quarrel with the Infinite 162
The Old World 163
Country Fair 163
from A Wedding in Hell
Miracle Glass Co. 167
Late Arrival 167
Tattooed City 168
Dream Avenue 169
Haunted Mind 169
Paradise Motel 170
A Wedding in Hell 171
The Dead in Photographs 171
Madame Thebes 172
Evening Visitor 173
The Massacre of the Innocents 173
Pascals Idea 174
The Clocks of the Dead 175
Wanted Poster 175
Explaining a Few Things 176
The Supreme Moment 176
Crazy About Her Shrimp 177
Transport 178
Love Flea 178
What I Overheard 179
Leaves 180
Paper Dolls Cut Out of a Newspaper 180
Reading History 181
Psalm 182
Empires 183
Romantic Landscape 183
Mystics 184
Imported Novelties 185
Via del Tritone 186
Shaving 187
Trailer Park 187
The Tower 188
The Secret 189
from Walking the Black Cat
Mirrors at 4 a.m. 193
Relaxing in a Madhouse 193
Emilys Theme 194
Cameo Appearance 195
The Friends of Heraclitus 196
An Address with Exclamation Points 197
What the Gypsies Told My Grandmother While She Was Still a Young Girl 197
Little Unwritten Book 198
Have You Met Miss Jones? 199
Charm School 200
Ghosts 201
Café Paradiso 202
At the Cookout 203
Pastoral Harpsichord 204
Entertaining the Canary 205
Slaughterhouse Flies 206
Blood Orange 206
October Light 207
Sunsets Coloring Book 207
Late Train 208
Club Midnight 208
Late Call 209
Against Winter 210
The Emperor 211
from Jackstraws
The Voice at 3 a.m. 215
The Soul Has Many Brides 215
The Common Insects of America 216
De Occulta Philosophia 216
Mother Tongue 217
El libro de la sexualidad 218
Mummys Curse 218
In the Street 219
Filthy Landscape 220
Prison Guards Silhouetted Against the Sky 220
Jackstraws 221
School for Visionaries 222
Ambiguitys Wedding 222
Ancient Divinities 223
Obscurely Occupied 224
Head of a Doll 224
On the Meadow 225
Empty Rocking Chair 226
Three Photographs 226
The Toy 227
Talking to the Ceiling 229
Mystic Life 232
from Night Picnic
Past-Lives Therapy 237
Couple at Coney Island 237
Unmade Beds 238
Sunday Papers 239
Cherry Blossom Time 240
People Eating Lunch 240
The One to Worry About 241
The Improbable 242
My Father Attributed Immortality to Waiters 243
The Altar 243
And Then I Think 244
Views from a Train 244
Icaruss Dog 245
Book Lice 246
Three Doors 246
For the Very Soul of Me 247
Car Graveyard 248
Wooden Church 249
In Praise of Worms 250
The Lives of the Alchemists 250
from My Noiseless Entourage
Description of a Lost Thing 255
Self-Portrait in Bed 255
To Dreams 256
My Noiseless Entourage 257
Used Clothing Store 258
Voyage to Cythera 258
Used Book Store 259
Battling Grays 260
Sunlight 260
Minds Roaming 261
Talk Radio 261
My Turn to Confess 262
On the Farm 262
Snowy Morning Blues 263
To Fate 264
Sweetest 264
The Tragic Sense of Life 265
In the Planetarium 266
The Absentee Landlord 266
My Wife Lifts a Finger to Her Lips 267
Pigeons at Dawn 268
from That Little Something
Walking 271
That Little Something 271
Night Clerk in a Roach Hotel 272
Waiting for the Sun to Set 273
House of Cards 273
Aunt Dinah Sailed to China 274
To Laziness 275
Listen 275
Encyclopedia of Horror 276
Dance of the Macabre Mice 277
The Lights Are On Everywhere 278
Memories of the Future 278
In the Junk Store 279
Madmen Are Running the World 279
In the Afternoon 280
Prophesy 280
A Row of High Windows 281
Secret History 281
Wire Hangers 282
Labor and Capital 283
The Bather 283
Eternities 284
Eternitys Orphans 287
from Master of Disguises
Master of Disguises 291
Nineteen Thirty-eight 291
Preachers Warn 292
Old Man 293
Nancy Jane 294
Carrying On Like a Crow 295
Driving Home 295
Sightseeing in the Capital 296
Daughters of Memory 296
In That Big House 297
Puppet Maker 298
Summer Storm 298
The Melon 299
The Lovers 299
The Empress 300
The Toad 301
Summer Light 302
The Invisible 302
from The Voice at 3:00 a.m.
Postcard from S. 311
Empty Barbershop 311
Grayheaded Schoolchildren 312
Serving Time 313
Autumn Sky 314
Separate Truths 314
Late September 315
New Poems
Im Charles 319
Things Need Me 319
One-Man Circus 320
Lingering Ghosts 320
Ventriloquist Convention 321
The Future 322
Softly 323
The Starry Sky 323
Solitude in Hotels 324
In the Egyptian Wing of the Museum 325
Grandpas Spells 325
Trouble Coming 326
Nothing Else 327
The Foundlings 327
Strange Feast 328
In a Dark House 328