SOURCE: "A MELUS Interview: Nikki Giovanni," in MELUS, Vol. 9, No. 3, Winter, 1982, pp. 61-75.

In the following interview, Giovanni discusses her travels to Africa, the role of the writer in society, and writers she admires.

Throughout her career, Nikki Giovanni's poetry has been valued, at least in part, as a touchstone to the latest political and artistic ideas in Black American writing. She, however, never considered herself a spokesperson for any group. She says she is a "we" poet whose work might reflect the thoughts of others but judges it the height of "arrogance" to assume one is the "voice" of a people; people, she is confident, can speak perfectly well for themselves. She feels that her poetry is richer now because she understands more than she did when she was younger; as if to accommodate that fuller understanding, she is experimenting with longer pieces, some of 1200 to 1500 lines...