Tribute to Nikki Giovanni with Edwidge Danticat, Mahogany L. Browne, Renée Watson & Rebecca Carroll

BPL Presents welcomes Edwidge Danticat, Mahogany L. Browne & Renée Watson, who lead this tribute to a true American original: the poet Nikki Giovanni. The conversation will be led by Rebecca Carroll. 

Nikki Giovanni’s extraordinary final collection—The New Book—is 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.”

A world-renowned poet and a key member of the Black Arts Movement who died in December, Giovanni's many previous books of poetry include Black Judgment (1968), Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day (1978) and Those Who Ride the Night Winds (1983). Her works were influenced by her participation in the Black Arts Movement and Black Power movement in the 1960s. 

In this tribute reading and panel, Edwidge Danticat, Mahogany L. Browne & Renée Watson will read from and discuss Giovanni's work, The New Book, and help our audience fathom and commemorate a unique literary legacy.

The New Book and others will be available for purchase courtesy of Greenlight Bookstore.

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PARTICIPANTS

Renée Watson is a #1 New York Times Bestselling author. Her books have sold over one million copies.  Her young adult novel, Piecing Me Together, received a Coretta Scott King Award and Newbery Honor. Her children's picture books and novels for teens have received several awards and international recognition. Many of her books are inspired by her experiences growing up as a Black girl in the Pacific Northwest. Her poetry and fiction center around the experiences of Black girls and explore themes of home, identity, body image, and the intersections of race, class, and gender. For more information, find her here: https://www.reneewatson.net/ Photo credit Shawnte Sims

 

 

 

 

 

Mahogany L. Browne, a MacDowell Arts Advocacy Awardee, is a writer, playwright, organizer, & educator. Browne received fellowships from All Arts, Arts for Justice, Air Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Hawthornden, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, Wesleyan University, & UCross. Browne’s books include Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky (optioned for a play by Steppenwolf Theater), Black Girl Magic, and banned books Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne's poetry collection, Chrome Valley (highlighted in Publishers Weekly and The New York Times), is the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize winner, and she is most excited to tour her newest YA Novel in Story A Bird in the Air. Mahogany L. Browne holds an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree awarded by Marymount Manhattan College, and is the inaugural poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center.

 

 

Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Brother, I’m Dying, Create Dangerously, Claire of the Sea Light, The Art of Death, Everything Inside, a Reese’s Book Club selection and National Book Critics Circle Awards winner. She is also the editor of The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays 2011, Haiti Noir, and Haiti Noir 2. She has written seven books for children and young adults: Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou, Mama's Nightingale, Untwine, My Mommy Medicine, and a travel narrative, After the Dance. Her memoir, Brother, I'm Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a  2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography.  She is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow, a 2018 Ford Foundation “Art of Change” fellow, the winner of the 2018 Neustadt International Prize, the 2019 St. Louis Literary Award, the 2011 Bocas Nonfiction Prize and 2020 Bocas Fiction Prize, the 2020 Vilcek Prize for Literature, a 2020 United States Artists Fellow, a two-time winner of The Story Prize, and the 2023 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.  Her essay collection, We’re Alone, was published in 2024. She teaches at Columbia University.

Rebecca Carroll is a writer, cultural critic, and host of the podcasts Come Through with Rebecca Carroll: 15 Essential Conversations about Race in a Pivotal Year for America, and the award-winning Billie Was a Black Woman. Her first book, which features an original interview with Nikki Giovanni from 1994, was recently re-released as a 30th anniversary updated edition: I Know What the Red Clay Looks Like: The Voice and Vision of Black Women Writers. Rebecca’s writing has been published in The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, Essence, New York magazine, and the Washington Post, among other national publications. Her critically acclaimed memoir, Surviving the White Gaze, was called “gorgeous and powerful” by the New York Times Book Review. She currently serves as editor-at-large for The Meteor media collective.