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Poems are a wonderful type of literature, that a lot of people don’t understand. Most people think a poem is a childish form of literature that doesn’t have any purpose. Niki Giovanni puts a whole new perspective into what poems really are and the meaning behind poems. All my life I thought of poems to be childish, meaningless, and an informal piece of literature, until I read Nikki’s poems.
When I went to Nikki’s convocation, I really didn’t agree with a lot of the things she was stating.
Some of the things she stated didn’t seem appropriate to talk about in front of an enormous crowd in Cole Hall. Niki seems to be well respected by many people, but during the speech, I didn’t relate to others respecting her as much as they did. One thing that really concerned me was when she started talking about the differences of being African American and being white.
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The problem with what she stated was how she started to talk negatively about white people and how they “Can just wake up, look in the mirror and say I’m white and do whatever they want without trying” and how African Americans “Get up and look in the mirror and say they are going to prove somebody wrong today” (Giovanni). Once she said that I thought that I wasn’t going to agree with anything else she said, just because I strongly disagreed with that statement.
After I was angry and disagreed on what she stated, the speech increasingly got better, and I enjoyed the rest of what she had to say.
Even though I didn’t agree on some of the points she came across, I really liked the overview of her speech. I was still very concerned with what she had to say about white people, but I was still searching for a way not to be too upset with her comments. I decided to pick the poem “BLK History Month” and try to listen more to the point she was trying to get across. While reading this poem things started to become clearer to me and I felt like a complete imbecile for thinking the way I did.
In the poem, Giovanni writes “If Black History Month is not viable then wind does not carry the seeds and drop them on fertile ground” (Giovanni 1-4). At first, I didn’t realize the enormous importance of “Black History Month” to the African Americans until I read the first couple lines of the poem. These lines made me think of how important the month of January is to them and, how during this month, they get to celebrate the lives of great people before them that made a pathway to where they are today. The month gives them a purpose to wake up and be proud of whom they are and who they represent every single day.
Upon reading further into this wonderful poem Giovanni states “Rain does not dampen the land and encourage the seeds to root” (Giovanni 5-8). When Giovanni stated this, I had to read it twice because it was such a powerful statement. It made me think, without “Black History Month”, African Americans don’t have many things to celebrate and use as a drive to succeed. If they didn’t celebrate this month, they wouldn’t carry the legacy of what Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, and the Little Rock Nine did for them to be free, like they are today.
After reading Niki’s poem “BLK History Month”, I wanted to pick another one of her poems that portrayed the message she was trying to get through to everyone in her speech. The poem that stood out the most to me, and really presented the overall view of her speech and poems is “Dreams”. Some of the points she came across in her speech talking about African American’s rights, didn’t sink too deep into my thoughts. She stated in her younger years, she lived with her grandparents and had a rough young adulthood having to work minimum wage just to be able to take care of her nephew. Niki said during her young adulthood that she couldn’t even begin to think of her dreams.
In this poem Niki states “in my younger years before I learned black people aren’t supposed to dream, I wanted to be a raelet” (Giovanni 1-6). When I read this quote, I finally realized that African American’s, back in the day, didn’t think they had hope for a future and they couldn’t strive for their dream even if they tried their best and were talented. All my life, I thought African Americans were just exaggerating when they spoke about how they couldn’t dream big and pursue their passion because they will just get shut down every time for the color of their skin or their background. Niki’s speech, and this quote alone change my whole perspective of how African American children really lived their lives in fear of not having a purpose in the 1900s.
As I read the rest of the poem, it really made me feel like I was being insensitive by not listening more in depth of what these great African American’s had to say. Towards the end of this poem, the last six lines really caught my attention. Niki writes “then as I grew and matured, I became more sensible and decided I would settle down and just become a sweet inspiration” (Giovanni 14-19). This quote was by far my favorite and the most heartfelt quote I read in both wonderful poems, simply because it puts everything she has talked about together in six lines of poetry. Niki’s purpose for putting these lines in this poem, is to state that even though your dreams don’t work out like you wanted them to because of your childhood and how you were raised, doesn’t mean there isn’t always going to be something you can do with your life to inspire others in so many positive ways.
In conclusion, when attending her speech talking about the history of African Americans and the way they were treated back then is somewhat like how they are treated nowadays, I didn’t comprehend her words into too much depth until I read her poems. When reading her poems, I started to realize more in depth of what she was presenting in her speech. Her poems made me recognize the importance of “Black History Month” and what it really means to African Americans to this day. During her speech, it reminded me of a modern-day Martin Luther King Jr and his “I Have A Dream” speech in so many ways. From all that I have heard in Nikki’s speech and read in both of her poems, I conclude her overall point is that even if you are African American and your dreams might not come true, there is still a purpose for you to be on this earth and inspire people with what you have been given. With all that being said, I think Nikki Giovanni is a very powerful woman that needs to be heard by many others with her talented work and change their speculation on the hard-fought lives of African Americans the same way my speculation has been changed.
Works Cited
Niki Giovanni’s Poem about Black History Month. (2021, Dec 17). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/niki-giovanni-s-poem-about-black-history-month-essay
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