EPISODE · Feb 13, 2020 · 25 MIN
Nikki Giovanni: Soothing the Longings
from Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives · host Toronto Public Library
Works by Nikki GiovanniA Good Cry: What We Learn from Tears and LaughterThe Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, 1969-1998Lincoln and Douglass: an American FriendshipBicycles: Love PoemsRosaVacation Time: Poems for ChildrenNikki Giovanni: “Martin Had Faith in People” (link opens article from The Atlantic) About Nikki GiovanniNikki Giovanni: a Literary BiographyPoet Nikki Giovanni on the Darker Side of Her Life (link opens an NPR 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
With her incomparable style and humour, in riff-inspired digressions that are both funny and moving, Nikki Giovanni shows us an associative poet’s mind at work as she blends details of a domestic life with touchstones on the culture that has influenced her. In between long dives into, among other subjects, the commissioning of a poem for Mother’s Day and her attempt at not writing anything “tacky,” to what happens when Black men are made into an enemy in the culture, Giovanni performs three pieces: “A Poem for Langston Hughes,” “Hands for Mother's Day,” and “Ego-Tripping.” This episode shows us why Nikki Giovanni is truly an original talent.
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Nikki Giovanni: Soothing the Longings
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