This is a collection of some of Nikki Giovanni’s last writings before her death. She remarks on the current political climate, reflects on her past, and drops words of wisdom. It is not strictly a poetry collection. It also contains letters in which she endearingly signs “Poetically Nikki”. There are blurbs and dedications as well as addresses to universities. So much wisdom is packed into this collection.

One of the collection pieces that stuck out to me was a poem about Serena Williams. The poem reflects on the love a listening younger sister has for an older sister. Being an older sister, this poem really touched me. There is also a love poem entitled, Floating that reminded me of her Bicycle collection and Kidnap poem. Many of the poems will feel familiar to those who have read Giovanni’s works over the years.

One surprise for me in the collection was a fairy tale, The Three Riders. Giovanni imagines the Easter Bunny, Mrs. Claus and Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer delivering Easter eggs. The imagery in the story made me smile.

This is a collection I will return to over and over again.

I

I have loved Nikki Giovanni's words for as long as I can remember. These are words I will long remember:
“As a poet all I have are words. I think words are the most powerful weapons on Earth because words battle ignorance.”
Thank you for The New Book. It is a treasure.

With icon Nikki Giovanni having died last December, we all know what the title of The New Book is a euphemism for. I have loved Giovanni since at least graduate school in the mid-1980s and maybe before. I loved this book, as well, although the experience was, understandably, bittersweet. I loved “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”, a caustic riposte to bigotry; “Raise Your Hand (In Favor of Immigrants),” “A Recipe for the New York Times (Sent to Elizabeth A. Harris),” “Fisk A Song of Freedom” and so many, many more.

Nothing I could ever write would come close to the beauty of Giovanni’s words, so I will close with two quotations:
From “Some Christmas Questions and One Answer”:
“It is time to move on to the twenty-first century. Who needs to be brave enough to go forward and save our Democracy? We are. Maybe. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

From “Not Encourage You”:
“As a poet all I have are words. I think words are the most powerful weapons on Earth because words battle ignorance.”

Amen and amen. I cannot recommend this book enough.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and William Morrow in exchange for an honest review.

Nikki Giovanni is truly a poetic treasure.
She is one of my favorite poets.
This is a book that I would buy, reread and recommend.

There is a little bit of everything in this collection of poems.
You will walk through these poems feeling a variety of emotions.

I cannot wait for its official release to rave about again and reread.

Black Judgement, Nikki Giovanni’s second book of poems published in 1968, introduced the poem Nikki-Rosa, the first time Giovanni wrote of her girlhood. Throughout her career she would develop the voice of the young girl as persona, a voice given authority through the new black identity of the late 1960s and early 70s merged with the wisdom of the old women, the carriers of the legacy who constantly kept her in check, often with lessons, some of which she resisted, like the making of biscuits. There’s memory and regret in these poems as she as the old woman can’t share that piece of the legacy. The poet shares her regrets and losses with a smile, traversing terrain traveled a lifetime to a good place, domestic and psychological and spiritual.

In these final pieces of poems, letters and incidental pieces she wrote of her cancer, legacy, love, and injustice in her signature tone. The poems here aren’t her best and at first glance the beautiful simplicity appears to lack weight until they’re looked at closer and the strength of her personal line of connection is revealed.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, William Morrow, for an ARC.

Nikki Giovanni was a treasure. This book features her last writings ~ not just poems but letters to the editor, prose and more. She wrote candidly about her childhood, race, social issues, COVID, Trump, family trauma and much more. I enjoyed some writing more than others but I am so thankful that these were all compiled from her last years.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

A must read book for any lover of poetry. To have this book from Nikki Giovanni is truly a testament to her wisdom and brilliance. I hope all readers cherish this book..

Awh I love Nikki Giovanni
I enjoyed this as well I am forever a fan
Her collection of her poetry along with letters she written
She writes about covid, colleague speech gave to the graduating VT class I liked both of those and her life growing up I enjoyed those as well.

The thing about Nikki Giovanni is that sometimes she as a superb poet, full of spit and fire and snappy wordplay and smart writing, and other times you really wish someone had told her to keep some of her poems in drawers or something because they can be cringeworthy and awful. This collection is a mix of the two. It's also a mix of genres--poetry and addresses and letters--in which there is an awful lot of overlapping text. I think as an editor I'd have curated this a bit more carefully so as to avoid readers reading the same passages repeatedly, or with tiny and not very meaningful alterations. I found the strongest poems to come near the end, and these are some of her best. Others, especially ones written in the heat of a moment (and not revised or edited?) are weaker and come across too often as superficial and lacking in real thought. Unless you're a completist in terms of collecting her work, get this one from your library.

This was an incredible read! I enjoyed reading the poems, letters, and stories in this collection. It was interesting about her life and experiences. I plan to read more of her work.

A beautiful collection of some of Giovanni's last works. If you've enjoyed her work in the past or if you're brand new to her writing, this encapsulates her essence.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am a poet
All I really have
Are words

The New Book is Nikki Giovanni’s extraordinary final collection of poems, letters, blurbs, and things. They say you become less filtered, less patient, and more honest as you age, and I can tell from this collection that Auntie Nikki was fed up. She held no punches about her feelings toward Trump, “Find the courage/To help rid us all/Of the festering mold in the White House” (Vote 2024, It Matters). She emphasized the importance of voting, specifically calling out young people and Black men, “At sometime/There has to be Black/Men who step up recognizing/They are needed…Vote for Harris/We need you brother/Vote for the love we gave you last night”. I love the way she honored Toni Morrison, her friend Ashley Bryan, and her grandparents. In The Coal Cellar, she wrote about her precious inheritance, “Maybe not a big bank account or trust fund/ And certainly not any property but I inherited/ A morning and a great deal of knowledge/In a cold coal cellar/With my grandmother”. I enjoyed reading about the things that brought her joy, her love for poetry, her family history, and the small pleasures of her richly lived life. Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow Books!

Nikki Giovanni’s The New Book Poems, Letters, Blurbs, and Thing is a last read of a great poet in the American canon. Many of the poems continue her gentle but inquiring journey to associate the world with kindness and wonder. As is so often the case she uses nature to relate to our human condition, the condition of the world in which we live and understanding it.
An outhouse turned into a mailbox is genius of its own.
I think of her father beating her mother and her musing over whether he was just mean or a drunk. This is a child’s longing to understand at the same time it led her to her grandparents to get out of the house and listening to that kind of cruelty from those she loved.
Hoods over heads/badges over hearts which is just another iteration of white supremacy being more a change with the times to defy explanation of cruelty.
A letter to the nature conservancy group to save as many trees as possible.
Giovanni’s poems can easily be filed under pleas to save a world we have less and less respect for which is something put into us and is not normal
As Giovanni states, I am a poet…all I really have are words this is a complex line which reminds us how powerful and changing words can be.
The line it ain’t mine from Fathers is so hurting when you realize you’ve heard these words used against children who might learn their father isn’t their father. Or maybe he is the father and is divorcing his humanity with “it.”
Maybe it’s me, but I felt a sense of Giovanni working through some final memories of her life that had shaped the poet and her words. I did feel like I was missing a more coherent collection of poetry but am glad I got the honor of reviewing her final book.

I got to hear Nikki Giovanni speak back in 2018, I had to look up the year because I couldn’t remember. She spoke like she wrote. Honestly, fiercely, with a sharp wit, a touch of humor and a whole lot of heart. This is a beautiful collection that captures all of her. She will be missed.