Remembering Poet Nikki Giovanni (1943-2024)

      I much admire the work of Nikki Giovanni -- a poet who spoke both fearlessly and eloquently.  As she deserved, her life was big news in the Washington Post  -- I learned of her passing (on December 9) in a front-page article that celebrated her work and her person.  Another informative Post  tribute to Giovanni is available here -- and a rich sampling of her poetry is available here at PoetryFoundation.org.

     Giovanni has not included math ideas in many of her poems but I did find some counting in "The Way I Feel" -- sampled in this blog at this link -- and I offer below a few lines from "Balances";  Giovaanni's complete poem is available here. 

Going to Mars -- film profile of poet Nikki Giovanni

     Poet Nikki Giovanni is someone I much admire -- for her poetry and for her activism -- and recently I had had a chance to see the documentary film "Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project."  I valued learning more about Giovanni's life and was reminded to revisit her poetry.   In her 1975 collection, The Woman and the Men (of which I have an autographed copy), I re-found her poem "The Way I Feel" and I offer below its mathy final stanza during this 2024 leap year.   

from  THE WAY I FEEL   by Nikki Giovanni

            in my mind you're a clock
            and i'm the second hand sweeping
            around you sixty times an hour
            twenty-four hours a day
            three-hundred-sixty-five days a year
            and an extra day
            in leap year
            cause that's the way
            that's the way
            that's the way i feel
            about you

from The Women and the Men (William Morrow & Company, New York, 1975)