Nikki Giovanni at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA on Monday, April 24, 2023.
On the evening of December 9, I read about the death of legendary poet and educator Nikki Giovanni while searching for something on the Internet. What a tremendous loss. I thought I was going to cry.
On November 9, a month before her death, I watched Giovanni’s interview on iOne Digital. She wore a T-shirt that said, “I write banned books,” and she talked about getting old, finding joy, and, of course, banned books.
Related:
I LOVED Giovanni long before I LOVED Toni Morrison. During the Black Arts and Black Panther eras, I grew up listening and grooving to Giovanni’s voice on scratchy vinyl albums as she read her poems, my favorite being “Ego Trippin.”
Never Miss a Beat
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
I wanted to attend Fisk University because she did, and I hoped it would make me as smart as she was. At Wellesley, during my only appearance in a school theater production, I recited Giovanni’s poem, “All I Gotta Do.” I recited it with a Brooklyn Black girl sass, imagining she’d have been proud. I hear it in my head now and smile. The poem inspired my activism. Because of Giovanni, I fought my own revolution against homophobia in the Black Church.
In the 2000s, I was invited to deliver a talk on religion and homophobia at Virginia Tech. I was ecstatic beyond belief because Giovanni taught there. When I met her, I thought I’d faint. I meant to shake her hand, but instead, I said while bowing my head, “I’ve been a fan of yours, Ms. Giovanni, since high school.” She warmly smiled back.
In 2007, I wrote an article for Advocate shortly after the Virginia Tech shooting titled “Virginia Tech’s invisible gay angles.” Cho Seung-Hui, a student at the school, killed 32 people and wounded 17 others. I asked in the article, “Why did the LGBT community feel they had no part in the story of Cho Seung-Hui and the massacre he wrought?”
I wrote about how when Washington Blade reporter Lou Chibbaro inquired if there were any LGBTQ+ students or professors killed in the massacre, the president of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Alliance of Virginia Tech said, “Some were queer, and others were straight allies. The GLBT community at Tech grieves in the same way as others – deeply and as part of a greater whole… [the tragedy is] not a gay thing; it’s an everybody thing.”
And because it is an “everybody thing,” it is precisely why it is important to know.
Because I knew Giovanni was lauded for being a first responder during the shooting, I wrote, “As with our fallen LGBTQ sheroes and heroes of 9/11 and this never-ending war, many of us in the queer community, myself included, would like not only to celebrate our fallen in the Virginia Tech massacre for being courageously out of the closet but also to show America that we, too, are everywhere in the human drama of life.”
Where I blundered was with this sentence: “Case in point: Nikki Giovanni, a neglected and overlooked heroine in our queer community.”
The backlash was swift. I received this email: “I work at Virginia Tech and am openly gay. Your article on advocate.com caught my attention because it quoted my roommate, the president of the campus LGBTA. In the article, you write that Nikki Giovanni is an out lesbian. I do not think that is the case. I attended Virginia Tech as a student for four years and have worked here doing public relations for a year and have heard nothing of the sort. I was the president of the campus LGBTA in 2005 and can tell you that, if Nikki Giovanni is a lesbian, she is certainly not out. What is the source of your information?”
I cried throughout this incident. As an ardent fan of Giovanni’s, I chided myself for knowing well how LGBTQ+ people live bifurcated lives between professional and social, but I did not think at the time if it was possible she was not out. I wrote back, conveying my most profound apology for any harm my piece may have caused the community, especially Professor Nikki Giovanni. I asked for her email address because I wanted to send a note of apology.
The school reached out to Advocate. I worried I’d never be able to write a piece for the publication again. However, my editor was gracious and wrote, “I get so tired of people codependently padlocking other people’s closets, which is what happened in that instance with whoever called us from Virginia Tech. It’s also true that Nikki, when I met her some years ago, wasn’t exactly interested in confirming or denying. If not for that experience, I’d have let your piece stand online.”
I wrote Giovanni an apology letter. I also thought of sending her flowers, but I realized that would’ve been over the top. I never heard back.
Love is love, and I still possess her albums from childhood and have all her works — spoken and in print. From time to time, when I need a Giovanni fix, I’ll read some of her poems or listen to one of my scratchy albums to hear the lyricism in her voice.
I’m glad she leaves us as a revered LGBTQ+ icon.
May she rest in power!
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.
