EPISODE · Mar 12, 2020 · 29 MIN
Nikki Giovanni: Road Tripping
from Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives · host Toronto Public Library
Works by Nikki GiovanniThe Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1969 - 1998The Sun Is So Quiet: PoemsRosa (a short video)Rosa (a kids biography)I Am Loved Other Related Books or MaterialsNikki Giovanni: In her Revolutionary Dream (link opens Los Angeles Review of Book article) About the HostNovelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.Music is by YukaFrom the ArchivesWriters Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.
What this episode covers
In this monologue performed on stage in 1991, American poet, Nikki Giovanni, shows us her associative mind in action, flitting around from current affair to current affair: the shameful way American society treats young Black men, the challenges and struggles of a young rapper called Tupac Shakur (several years before his untimely death), her dream of traveling to space even if only to open a beer and smoke a cigarette - and she’s just getting started. This series of soliloquies leads us everywhere and nowhere, but certain thoughts she expresses may linger in your mind: the fear that she feels for an instant when pulled over by a police officer during a long road trip with a friend - you think you know where the story is going and then she surprises you.
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Nikki Giovanni: Road Tripping
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