The New Book
Poems, Letters, Blurbs, and Things
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- $27.99
Publisher Description
Nikki Giovanni’s extraordinary final collection—a landmark of American literature which speaks to the fury and upheaval of our time, as well as the triumphs and delights of her remarkable creative life.
For decades, Nikki Giovanni’s poetry has been at the forefront of American culture. The New Book is a towering work of protest against the divisions of our time, leavened with moments of joy and reflection about her indelible legacy, her family history, and the small pleasures of her richly lived life.
In The New Book, Nikki Giovanni slashes at the ridiculousness of our cultural and political climate: “We have no secrets/since the world shrunk/and the icebergs melted/and all the year books/are digitized./… and we press Like/or No Like/as if it mattered.”
She remembers 2020 and its cataclysmic reckoning with police brutality and white supremacy: “I do understand that republicans/Are cowards and so are those nazis/Cheering/And those kkk we now call police killing/Not to mention father and sons chasing unarmed Black men/and running their cars into crowds/Pretending they are brave or something/They are not only cowards/And nazis but evil fools/And who go to bed white/Wake up American/And hate themselves for having/To share this earth/They will not overcome/And we will not love them.”
But also in the same poem: “But what does 2020 mean to me/A chance to learn to open oysters/Talk to my friends/Catch up on my reading/Tell myself I am going to dust the house/Lie about it/...Enjoy my own company not to mention football/And remember there will be tomorrow/Because there will be/And evil will go and good will come/I am Black/We have seen much worse.”
With this collection, which includes brief letters and short prose from her life as well as poetry, Giovanni reaffirms her place as a giant of literature, a canny truth-teller, an indispensable radical orator, and one of America’s preeminent cultural critics. It is a book to be savored, and shared.
"If there was a need for poetry that galvanized and inspired, there was also a demand for poetry that comforted and unified — and Ms. Giovanni provided on both counts." — The Washington Post
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This life-affirming posthumous collection from Giovanni (Make Me Rain) features her recent poems as well as letters, lists, excerpts from interviews, and other prose pieces which run the gamut from mini-essays to diaristic writing. Throughout, Giovanni sifts through culture to identify flash points that illuminate deeper truths. "We are born/ We will die// Sometimes/ That's a good/ Idea/ To Understand," she writes in the poem "Yes," which showcases her knack for getting to the heart of shared human experience. Elsewhere, she remarks with her trademark wisdom and clarity, "Hatred is a bad idea. Which is why it's cheap and available anywhere you look." Other pieces eulogize and celebrate her contemporaries; in a remembrance of Toni Morrison, Giovanni recounts how she turned to Morrison in the aftermath of two deaths in her family: "One afternoon I was sitting at my desk just sort of being dismayed when I decided to call Toni. I probably talked more than ever and she was kind enough to listen. She finally said Nikki, Write. That's all you can do. Write." Full of Giovanni's righteous vision and serene belief in the power of words, this is a gift.
