American poet Yolande Cornelia (Nikki) Giovanni, Jr. (born 1943), initially wrote poetry from a revolutionary African American standpoint in the 1960s, but later moved to more traditional themes and softer attitudes.

Nikki Giovanni, née Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Jr., was born on June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Gus and Yolande Giovanni. When she was still an infant, the family moved to a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, where both her parents worked as social workers. In 1957 Giovanni moved to Knoxville to live with her grandparents--the southern influence of Tennessee and her grandmother, Louvenia Terrell Watson, were strong factors in Giovanni's development.

Giovanni attended an Episcopal school as a child and was a voracious reader of literature from T. S. Eliot to Richard Wright. In September 1960 she was an early entrant into the freshman class at Fisk University in Tennessee. At the time a conservative in her political views, she...