Nikki Giovanni, the world-renowned American poet and a leading voice of the 1960s Black Arts movement, died on 9 December at the age of 81 after her third cancer diagnosis. A beloved poet and public intellectual for over 50 years, Giovanni wrote at the intersection of love, loneliness, gender, race, creativity and more.

Born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr in 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee, Giovanni was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and went on to attend Fisk University in Nashville, as well as studying poetry at New York’s Columbia. She published her first two books of poetry, Black Feeling, Black Talk and Black Judgement, in 1968 and rose to prominence as a politically engaged, emotionally attuned leader of the Black Arts movement along with such figures as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Thelonious Monk and Audre Lorde.

Her career was prodigious, with more than 30 books, including Those Who Ride the Night Winds and Bicycles: Love Poem. Her final book of poetry, The Last Book, will be published next year. Here are just some of her most prominent quotes:

On love:

We love … those who do … because we live in a world requiring light and Darkness … partnership and solitude … sameness and difference … the familiar and the unknown … We love because it’s the only true adventure.
– Love: Is A Human Condition, 1975

All we can do, I believe, is take the love and give the love and try to remember who dreamed dreams of us. And try to be faithful to that.
– Acolytes, 2007

On the African-American experience:

Childhood remembrances are always a drag / if you’re Black
/ you always remember things like living in Woodlawn / with no inside toilet / and if you become famous or something / they never talk about how happy you were to have / your mother / all to yourself and / how good the water felt when you got your bath.
– Nikki-Rosa, 1968

On civil rights, social change and progress:

We’ve got to live in the real world. If we don’t like the world we’re living in, change it. And if we can’t change it, we change ourselves. We can do something.
– as told to Claudia Tate in Black Women Writers at Work, Continuum, 1983

As the black-aesthetic criticism went, you were told that if you were a black writer or a black critic, you were told this is what you should do. That kind of prescription cuts off the question by defining parameters. I object to prescriptions of all kinds. In this case the prescription was a capsulized militant stance. What are we going to do with a stance? Literature is only as useful as it reflects reality.
– as told to Claudia Tate

If Black History Month is not / viable then wind does not / carry the seeds and drop them / on fertile ground / rain does not / dampen the land / and encourage the seeds / to root / sun does not / warm the earth / and kiss the seedlings / and tell them plain: / You’re As Good As Anybody Else / You’ve Got A Place Here, Too
– BLK History Month, 2002

I tell young people, ‘You have to do your job. Don’t sit around whining about what wasn’t done.’ My generation in America, we could fight segregation because we could beat segregation, and we did. We cannot beat racism. And so, somebody else is going to have to fight the battle of racism, because it’s not our battle. We got rid of segregation. We cleared it. We cleaned that window. You can look out now.
– to the Guardian, February 2024.

On self-love:

If you don’t understand yourself you don’t understand anybody else.
– in conversation with James Baldwin, 1971

I really hope no white person ever has cause / to write about me / because they never understand / Black love is Black wealth and they’ll / probably talk about my hard childhood / and never understand that / all the while I was quite happy.
– Nikki-Rosa, 1968

On ageing:

A lot of people resist transition and therefore never allow themselves to enjoy who they are. Embrace the change, no matter what it is; once you do, you can learn about the new world you’re in and take advantage of it. You still bring to bear all your prior experience, but you’re riding on another level. It’s completely liberating. Now, everything I do, I do because I want to. And I believe the best is yet to come.
– as told to Naomi Barr, 2007

A lot of people refuse to do things because they don’t want to go naked, don’t want to go without guarantee. But that’s what’s got to happen. You go naked until you die.
– as told to Claudia Tate in Black Women Writers at Work, Continuum, 1983

I used to think I’m mellowing. You know, getting to be an old lady and I’m really cool. And then I realised, no, there’s still quite a bit of anger.
– to the Guardian, February 2024

On the patriarchy:

The enemy is not men. The enemy is the concept of patriarchy, the concept of patriarchy as the way to run the world or do things is the enemy, patriarchy in medicine, patriarchy in schools, or in literature.
– as told to Toni Morrison in The Last Interview: And Other Conversations, 2020

On writing:

We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.
– Sacred Cows … And Other Edibles, 1988

I think you always write what you love. Whether it’s your grandmother or gourmet cooking or mountains and rivers. Sunsets kissing the tallest building or chipmunks scattering off to bed. I like the quiet. And I like the sound of the quiet. I’m a mountain girl. I listen and make lists of what I hear.
– Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid, 2013

We need poetry … We deserve poetry / We owe it to ourselves to re-create ourselves / and find a different if not better way to live.
– Acolytes, 2007