Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943) Dreams LINKS Nikki Giovanni http://athena.english.vt.edu/Giovanni/Nikki_Giovanni.html This page includes information on the author from her department's site at Virginia Tech. BIOGRAPHY Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943) Born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr. in Knoxville, Tennessee, daughter of a probation officer and a social worker, Giovanni graduated with honors from Fisk University in 1967. She attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work and Columbia School of the Arts, was assistant professor of black studies at Queens College (1968), and associate professor of English at Rutgers University (1968–1970). Giovanni's early work reflected her social activism as an African American college student in the 1960s, while her later works focused on the individual struggle for fulfillment rather than the collective struggle for black empowerment. Her books include Black Feeling, Black Talk (1970), My House (1972), and The Women and the Men (1975). She is also the author of a collection of essays, Sacred Cows ... and Other Edibles (1988), as well as poetry and fiction for children. The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni, 1968–1995 was published in 1996.