it’s not the crutches we decry / it’s the need to move forward / though we haven’t the
strength. This opening line from “Crutches” often plays in my head in a grainy voice with a
syrupy sweet pitch. There was a time when this voice would play in the speakers of my 2004
Lexus as I drove from another bratty two year old’s greyly decorated home. These lines were my
play, my comfort, and although the speakers of my 2004 Lexus were my favorite place to access
them, they squatted themselves into my being the very first time I heard them. Wherever I am,
engaging with Nikki Giovanni’s work makes me feel at home.

When I was introduced to Nikki Giovanni’s album, Cotton Candy On A Rainy Day, I was
in a lover’s room. Although it wasn’t my own, her voice came on and solidified an intimate
familiarity I felt in the space. A prior knowledge of the spirit rather than the mind emerged as I
asked about Nikki Giovanni’s life and writing. There was twinkling in my chest, a wash of an
oceanic breeze tingling over my body. Because of this auditory introduction to Nikki Giovanni’s
work, I am mostly drawn to her voice as well as her words. When reading poems, I often feel
like someone is standing over my shoulder and whispering the words onto the page in front of
me, particularly when I can relate to what is being drawn up through the crosses and curves.
Miss Nikki is who I have this feeling most viscerally with.

After hearing them over and over, mostly in my room and in my car, I read “Crutches”
and other poems from Cotton Candy On A Rainy Day aloud to myself. “Crutches” speaks to the
emotional bandwidth we all have as humans, the pain that comes with feeling, and the even
greater pain that comes with asking for help outside of ourselves to handle the rumblings of the
heart. Any person intent on expressing and experiencing their deep feeling will feel seen by
Giovanni’s words:

i really want to say something about all of us
am i shouting i want you to hear me
emotional falls always are
the worst
and there are no crutches
to swing back on

Here she takes the time to scream loudly about something that is usually experienced in
quiet, in solitude. She takes the time to place herself amongst “all of us,” declaring that although
our pains may be unique, this intensity of feeling is universal. It is within her own comfort in
naming the depths of her soul and honoring its rough edges that I am able to feel at home. I am
able to feel comfort in feeling.

As a child, I was resistant to feeling emotions like sadness, anxiety, disappointment, rage.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve been intentional about letting myself feel these feelings, allowing themto course through my blood with gratitude for the heat. Hearing “Crutches” gives the little girl in
me a warm embrace, telling her something she could never quite understand: It is okay to feel.
Through this poem and many others, Nikki Giovanni allows me to regain a closeness with
myself through her own interiority that serves as a mirror for what we must all face. Her comfort
in herself became a place for me to lay a pallet down.

Love, in its ever evolving expansiveness, is a central theme in my work. In diving deeper
into Miss Giovanni, I was drawn to poems where she overtly expressed her sexuality, eroticism,
and desire, most notably in her collection of Love Poems. It was through poems like “That Day”
where she declares: “we can do it on the floor / we can do it on the stair / we can do it on the
couch / we can do it in the air” and “Seduction,” where she imagines a scene of her using the
power of the erotic to seduce a fellow revolutionary, that I was able to see more possibilities
within myself and my own writing. Before Nikki Giovanni’s work, I hadn’t engaged with erotic
poems. It was particularly surprising for me to come across erotic poetry by a Black woman
writer. With dually sexist and racist figures like Sarah Baartman constantly swirling around my
psyche, it took time for me to come to a place of feeling comfort in my sexuality rather than
shame. Nikki Giovanni’s firmness in being forthcoming about her sexuality, amidst these
negative stereotypes surrounding us, was a sprinkle of encouragement as I went on my own
journey to embrace my eroticism rather than hide it. To do so in an artistic medium such as
poetry—a practice that is often seen as highbrow—is even more of a statement. She laid a
foundation for Black women like me to be in touch with their sexual selves and not allow that
embrace to take away from their intellect and active dreams towards the revolution.

Seduction by Nikki Giovanni and untitled (reading with you) by me.
Her consciousness is always in my subconscious.

I have a great appreciation for the wandering essence of Nikki Giovanni’s work. Many of
her poems feel like a journey. Take “Fascination” for example, where she starts off saying:

finding myself still fascinated
by the falls and rapids
i nonetheless prefer the streams
contained within the bountiful brown shorelines

Giovanni shows us her awe at the natural world, the simple beauties that capture her eye.
Within two stanzas, she turns her attention to an unnamed person saying:

my head is always down
for i no longer look for you

The awe of the world around her takes her mind to the awe of a special person in her life,
an unexpected yet natural curve in the journey of the poem. At the start, one would assume that
the poem will continue in the space of nature, but the wires of Giovanni’s mind always want to
take us on a wild ride. She continues to speak to her lover while weaving in the atmospheric
condition:

i wade from the quiet
of your presence into the turbulence
of your emotions
i have now understood a calm day
does not preclude a stormy evening

We are able to see the connections sparking in her mind and go on the ride with her. She
gives us room to expand the bounds of what can transpire in a poetic journey. At the end,
Giovanni takes us right where we began saying:

if you were a pure bolt
of fire cutting the skies
i’d touch you risking my life
not because i’m brave or strong
but because i’m fascinated
by what the outcome will be

I love the direct usage of the word “fascinated” in both the beginning and ending of the
poem. The middle of the poem zigzags in a way, taking us from one idea and quickly veering
into the next, but that word “fascinated” grounds us back into the awe and wonder that we were
introduced to from the start. Where the words in the middle of Giovanni’s poems go is usually a
mystery to me, but by the end I can feel her palm covering the back of my hand knowing that we
have walked along an unforeseen path and transformed together.

The journey she takes us on in a poem almost acts as a mirror for the journey of her life,
with many unexpected twists and turns that are still logical within her grand plan. Miss Nikki
started her career showing us her anger, her truth, and her allegiance to her people. While that
energy certainly didn’t leave her bones, she allowed it to take new shapes. She showed us her
rage, but she also showed us her love. Miss Nikki’s work took on many forms—poetry, essays,
children’s books, albums—and she lent her knowledge to students directly by becoming an
educator. It’s as if she had a few different dialects to choose from when asserting her aliveness
and in turn, asserting ours.

In the fall of 2023, I found myself meandering through stacks of poetry at the library:
another home for me. I scanned the rows for “G” and was delighted to find a first edition copy of Nikki Giovanni’s debut, Black Feeling Black Talk Black Judgement, asking to be placed in my
hands.

The squealing was as internal as I could make it, my twenty-four year old self suddenly
turning ten, my breath a wind we hear as we take in the still beauty of an oak from a bench. I
hurried to check it out, the corners of my mouth gleaming, my eyes a lake of admiration. Upon
cracking the cover open, I was met with the evidence of others’ exploration of Miss Nikki, dating
back to the eighties.

In her words, I was most struck by her audacity. At twenty-five—this time capsule of her
spirit at the time mirroring my present reality—she did not leave a word unsaid, particularly in
“The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro”:

can you kill?
a nigger can die
we ain’t got to prove we can die
we got to prove we can kill

Through her rage towards systems of oppression, she showed the love she had for her
community. There lays a pillowsoft beckoning in her words, an open invitation to feel at home in
our rightful anger. She knew from age twenty-five that these things had to be let out, written
down, and memorialized. This philosophy, which is a central characteristic in her work, is an
integral lesson for everyone in the community, especially revolutionary Black folks.

The evolution that comes between my two favorite works from Nikki Giovanni—Black
Feeling Black Talk Black Judgement and Cotton Candy on A Rainy Day—is stark. Her first work
was extremely militant, looking at the oppressive forces at work outside of her and interrogating
its effects. Cotton Candy On A Rainy Day turns her energy inward, interrogating how her own
actions/thoughts/beliefs affect her. The militancy is still there almost a decade later, but with a
new face. She is intent on confronting herself. Who are militants and activists but deep feeling
people unafraid to let their emotions show? The revolution requires changes outside of us, but it
also requires a revolutionizing of the self through knowledge and introspection. It was as if she
came to know, as she matured, that the revolution had to start with herself, deep feeling and the
expression of it the way to get there. She showed us herself so we could have the courage to look
at ourselves. She showed us herself so we could become partners in struggle. For Miss Nikki, it
was clear that she was always thinking about us as a people, and her “I” within her introspection
was one of community, one of oneness. It was important that people felt comfortable being their
Black selves alongside other Black people. This cultivation of community serves as another
manifestation of home.

As we mourn the recent loss of this poetic giant, lover, revolutionary, and teacher, I am
content with the knowledge that she will continue to be a beacon for the people. Nikki Giovanni
will continue to speak to us through whispers real and imagined. My everlasting connection to
her work will give way for me to feel a comfort in her, through her, and inch closer to an
understanding and mastery of the self. She did the hard work of finding home within the bonesshe lived in so we could do the same. I know that wherever her work is, wherever I can access
her, I am at home.

Bio: Nicole Alexander is a poetess and educator currently based in NYC.  She graduated from Syracuse University in 2020, earning a BA in English and textual studies with a concentration in creative writing. Her recently released, Why I Love Dreaming, is her debut collection of poems.