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- The title, “Nikki-Rosa,” suggests the merging of the personal life with the public or political one and indicates the evolution of a radical, from the girl Nikki to the militant Rosa, the name alluding to Rosa Parks, a Civil Rights activist.
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“Nikki-Rosa” was written by the American poet Nikki Giovanni and first published in Giovanni's 1968 collection, Black Feeling, Black Talk/Black Judgement. The poem explores the speaker's memories of growing up in a predominantly Black suburb of Cincinnati, taking care to emphasize happy moments with family and the strong sense of community ...
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‘Nikki-Rosa’ by Nikki Giovanni is an autobiographical poem that chroniclesthe happy childhood memories of the poet. “Childhood remembrances,” indeed take us back to the days we hold dear to our hearts. According to the speaker, if one is “Black”, especially in their case, the world sympathizes with how painful their childhood days were. Indeed, the...
Lines 1-8
The title of Nikki Giovanni’s poem, ‘Nikki-Rosa,’ is a reference to the poet’s childhood self or a personashaped by the dominant “white” worldview. The nickname “Nikki” was given to her by her elder sister Gary when she was two or three. From the title itself, it can be assumed that the poem is about the poet’s childhood or something related to her childhood days. This autobiographical piece begins with an ironicstatement. According to the speaker, childhood memories always drag us back, espe...
Lines 9-19
In these lines, the speaker shares one good memory from her childhood. She used to take a bath in the big barbecue tubs that Chicago folk use in barbecue. They did not have a proper bathtub, yet the “water” felt good when she bathed in the barbecue tub. It is not the “water” that made her happy, but the presence of her family, especially her mother that made the memory special. In the next lines, the speaker takes a look back at her childhood from an objective perspective. She, as a grown-up,...
Lines 20-33
It is important to note that the word “And” in line 20, begins with a capital “A”. In all the lines of ‘Nikki-Rosa,” not in a single instance, this conjunction is capitalized. Giovanni does it for the sake of emphasis. Het persona tries to highlight the fact that even though she was poor, poverty did not concern her in her childhood. These lines have a tinge of irony. Indeed, poverty makes one suffer. However, with time, one becomes resilient to financial stringency. Her parents fought under...
Giovanni’s ‘Nikki-Rosa’ is a free-verse narrative poem without a set rhyme scheme or meter. The lines read like prose. That’s why it is also a prose poem. Due to the presence of a number of personal accounts in this piece, it can be read as an autobiographical poem, with a close look at the narrative scheme. Giovanni uses a second-person point of v...
Giovanni uses the following literary devices in her poem ‘Nikki-Rosa’: 1. Enjambment: This device is used throughout the poem. The lines do not end like a conventional poem. Each line runs into the next one, creating an unimpeded flow. For instance, consider these lines from the poem, “and if you become famous or something/ they never talk about ho...
Nikki Giovanni’s poem ‘Nikki-Rosa’ taps on a number of important themes, such as childhood experience, poverty, racism, and alcoholism. The main theme of the poem is the white representation of black lives or black experiences. Throughout this piece, Giovanni undoes the way of looking at the lives of black people. She distances herself from the “yo...
The poem ‘Nikki-Rosa’ was first published in Nikki Giovanni’s second collection of poetry Black Judgment in 1968. After the initial success of her self-published first collection, Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), which sold over ten thousand copies in the year of publication, she started working on her second collection. The second collection sold...
Readers who liked her simple way of storytelling may also consider reading more Nikki Giovanni poems. You can also find the themes present in Giovanni’s work in the following poems. 1. ‘As I Grew Older’ by Langston Hughes— This poem is about breaking through the “wall” that racism constructs. 2. ‘Parade’s End’ by Daljit Nagra— This poem deals with ...
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Complete summary of Nikki Giovanni's Nikki-Rosa. eNotes plot summaries cover all the significant action of Nikki-Rosa. The poet reflects on what it means to grow up black.
“Nikki-Rosa,” a short, introspective poem of thirty lines, dispenses with the conventional marks of written poetry—punctuation and capitalization—creating the effect of the narrator speaking...
Used with the permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Source: The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (2003) Reading the beloved “poet of the people”. childhood remembrances are always a drag if you’re Black you always remember things like living in Woodlawn with no inside toilet and if you become….
“Nikki-Rosa”, A Comment on Materialistic Approach to the World: The poem compares the choices of American and African-American people. The poem begins when the speaker reflects on her childhood memories. She describes what happens when an African-American woman becomes an icon.
Nikki-Rosa study guide contains a biography of Nikki Giovanni, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
