Working with Nikki Giovanni

I nervously asked her to write a poem. She said yes.

My beloved Sorority sister, Black Arts Movement poet extraordinaire and genius-level writer Nikki Giovanni has gone on to become an ancestor. In the short hours since reports of her death, I’ve read dozens of tributes to her life and her poetic lineage. But here’s a story you haven’t heard yet.

I once commissioned a piece by Giovanni, for a special edition collector’s edition magazine. The collector’s edition was about President Barack Obama and his ground-breaking wins. As senior editor, it was my job to reach out to writers, artists or celebrities and then to commission works or set up shoots or interviews. So that’s what I did! I found her email, I found her phone number, and I asked. (Well, it was more than that — I had to carefully craft an email. I had to edit said email. I deleted and rewrote that email like 15 times because THIS IS NIKKI GIOVANNI AND IT HAD TO BE A PERFECT EMAIL.) Perhaps I did obsess over the inquiry but eventually I sent it. That’s it. And she immediately said yes.

We had to work through some (very minor) contract issues, but that’s par for the course and to be expected. To be honest, we asked more of her than she did of us.

Working with Giovanni wasn’t difficult. She wasn’t one of those divas who you have to cajole and make ultra promises to in order to get things done. She made her deadline for the magazine and she didn’t ask for extensions or try to negotiate additional money for her contribution. She understood the assignment. This was EBONY, asking for some of her precious work so that we could share it with the masses and also commemorate this moment. And she, in her pro-Black way, emphatically said yes.

I was thrilled. This was 2016. I was a young editor commissioning work and talking to and emailing with and texting with THEE Nikki Giovanni, and her assistant. I was a Chicagoan, a South Sider, a Black woman writer working with the literal Blueprint. Again. Thrilling. I was very protective over the piece in layout, which in retrospect I’m sure had to have made our (very experienced) designer chuckle. (Don’t change it! Don’t move one period. Don’t delete one space. She wrote it how she wrote it.) Over the years, when I wanted to set up a profile of her in the magazine with a corresponding home visit and photos, she responded with an affirmative. I’ve worked with a lot of writers and celebs and politicians and honestly, Giovanni was just super chill. She valued Black media. She understood her quiet power on us all. She “got” it. She told me to keep writing.

Giovanni wrote a poem about and for President Barack Obama in a special presidential edition of Ebony, where I had the good fortune to be a senior team member. I would later go on to do similar books for First Lady Michelle Obama, Whitney Houston and Prince – albeit none of them had newly-commissioned poems.

Giovanni was happy to write for Obama and for Ebony. It was simple and beautiful.

Giovanni died December 9, 2024 at the age of 81.

A watermarked version of a poem by Nikki Giovanni, which published in Ebony magazine.