Poetry Off the ShelfNikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni is the author of more than 30 books for adults and children and is a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech. She published her first book of poetry, Black Feeling, Black Talk, in 1968. Her autobiography, Gemini, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and her work has received several NAACP Image Awards. Rosa, her best-selling children’s book about Rosa Parks, with illustrations by Bryan Collier, became a Caldecott Honors Book and won the Coretta Scott King Award for best illustration. One of Oprah Winfrey’s 25 “Living Legends,” Giovanni has received dozens of honorary degrees and the Langston Hughes Medal for Poetry, and has been named Woman of the Year by Mademoiselle magazine, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Ebony, and most recently edited the 100 Best African American Poems (Sourcebooks, 2010).

Co-sponsored with the Chicago Public Library as part of PoetryFest, a day of poetry programs beginning at 10:00 AM