Entertainment
Poet and activist Nikki Giovanni, the 'Princess of Black Poetry,' dies at 81
Poet and civil rights activist Nikki Giovanni, a prominent figure during the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s and ‘70s who was dubbed “the Princess of Black Poetry,” has died. She was 81.
Giovanni died “peacefully” Monday with life partner Virginia “Ginney” Fowler by her side, her friend and author Renée Watson said Tuesday in a statement to The Times. She had recently been diagnosed with cancer for the third time, Watson said.
“We will forever feel blessed to have shared a legacy and love with our dear cousin,” Giovanni’s cousin Allison “Pat” Ragan added in a statement on behalf of the family.
Watson and author-poet Kwame Alexander said that they, along with with family and close friends, recently sat by Giovanni’s side “chatting about how much we learned about living from her, about how lucky we have been to have Nikki guide us, teach us, love us.”
“We will forever be grateful for the unconditional time she gave to us, to all her literary children across the writerly world,” Alexander said in the statement.
Giovanni, born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr., used her voice as a poet to address issues of Black identity and Black liberation. She was best known for her outspoken advocacy and her charismatic delivery and was a friend of fellow wordsmiths Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. She also became friendly with other cultural iconoclasts, including Rosa Parks, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone and Muhammad Ali.
“My dream was not to publish or to even be a writer: my dream was to discover something no one else had thought of. I guess that’s why I’m a poet. We put things together in ways no one else does,” Giovanni wrote on her website.
Named after her mother, Giovanni was born June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tenn. She had an older sister, Gary Ann. Her family later moved north, and she spent most of her childhood in Cincinnati — a period she described in her writing as turbulent because her father was physically abusive to her mother.
Giovanni returned to Nashville in 1961 to attend Fisk, a historically Black university, where she studied history. A voracious reader since girlhood, she was admitted early, before she finished high school. Giovanni edited the university’s literary magazine and helped start the campus branch of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Associated Press said.
But she was expelled after just one semester because of her contentious relationship with one of the the school’s deans due to her political activism and opposition to the school’s stern rules and curfew. Three years later, she re-enrolled under a new dean, who agreed to wipe her record clean.
She completed her degree in 1967 and moved back to Cincinnati, where she edited a local art journal and organized Cincinnati’s first Black Arts Festival.
In 1968, she self-published her first volume of poetry, “Black Feeling Black Talk / Black Judgement.” Her poems grew out of her feelings about the assassinations of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and Malcolm X and the death of her grandmother.
In one of Giovanni’s early poems, “Reflections on April 4, 1968,” marking the day King was assassinated, she wrote, “What can I, a poor Black woman, do to destroy America? This / is a question, with appropriate variations, being asked in every / Black heart.” Her other works, including “A Short Essay of Affirmation Explaining Why,” “Of Liberation” and “A Litany for Peppe,” were described by the AP as militant calls to overthrow white power.
In addition to her adult poetry, she released two films, 13 children’s poetry books and 10 recordings, including her Grammy-nominated “The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection.” She was a frequent guest on the PBS talk show “Soul.” A film about her life, “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize for documentary at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023. The film utilizes vérité and archival images to give audiences a glimpse into Giovanni’s mind.
“A poem is not so much read as navigated,” Giovanni wrote in her in 2013 book “Chasing Utopia.” “We go from point to point discovering a new horizon, a shift of light or laughter, an exhilaration of newness that we had missed before. Even familiar, or perhaps especially familiar, poems bring the excitement of first nighters, first encounters, first love … when viewed and reviewed.”
After teaching at a few universities domestically and guest lecturing abroad, she was recruited by an English professor named Virginia Fowler to teach creative writing at Virginia Tech.
“We are deeply saddened to learn of Nikki Giovanni’s passing,” the university said Tuesday on X (formerly Twitter). “Nikki will be remembered not only as an acclaimed poet and activist but also for the legendary impact she made during her 35 years at Virginia Tech.”
Nikki Giovanni recites her poem “We Are Virginia Tech” during the May 2007 English department graduation ceremony on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
(Steve Helber / Associated Press)
In 2007, that university became the site of one of the most deadly shootings in U.S. history, with 32 people killed and 17 injured on campus. The gunman — who was also killed — was a former student of Giovanni’s, and she had alerted school authorities previously about his troubling behavior in her class. Giovanni, a former creative writing instructor, said she took some of his writing to the school’s dean and told the dean that she could no longer teach him.
After the tragedy, she was instrumental in rallying people and restoring a sense of morale to a traumatized student body.
“I couldn’t allow him to destroy my class,” she told The Times in 2007. She delivered part of the convocation address at graduation that school year to roaring applause.
“We will prevail! / We will prevail! / We will prevail! / We are Virginia Tech,” she said at the ceremony.
As her spouse, Fowler has become an expert and keeper of Giovanni’s work and legacy. In an interview with the Fight and the Fiddle, Giovanni described how Fowler was an important pillar of support and that she was “so lucky to have found Ginny.”
“Her grandmother was the most important person to her,” Fowler said. “Their home in Cincinnati wasn’t happy because Nikki discovered that she would have to leave or she would have to kill [her father]. She went to live with her grandmother. She asked if she could stay.”
As Giovanni lived, so she wrote. She broke with cultural norms and gave birth to her only child, Thomas Watson Giovanni, in 1969, when she was 25 because “wanted to have a baby and I could afford to have a baby.” She told Ebony magazine that she didn’t want to get married and “could afford not to get married.” In her 1971 extended autobiographical statement, “Gemini,” she detailed her life growing up as a young single mother, which was taboo at the time.
Nikki Giovanni appears at the 2015 unveiling of the U.S. Postal Service’s Maya Angelou Forever Stamp in Washington, D.C.
(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)
“Her life is the life of Black people,” said L. Lamar Wilson, who was mentored by Giovanni. “She documented it in every art form: film, television … from the 1940s to the present.” Wilson is now a published poet and professor at Florida State University.
Wilson was a reporter and copy editor working at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution when he made the case to report on Giovanni’s appearance in the city in 2007. During their interview, she stopped him and invited him to apply to the creative writing master’s program at Virginia Tech.
“Nikki changed the trajectory of my life. And I’m one of at least 25 people I could name to you who are very famous prominent writers who have the same story,” he said. “She has mentored us, she has been our friend, she has been our surrogate mother when we needed it. She has been our disciplinarian when we needed it, cautioning us about the pitfalls and the pratfalls of the publishing industry and of academia.”
As an educator, Giovanni is crediting with helping usher in a younger generation of Black writers.
Giovanni planned a celebration for “The Bluest Eye” author Morrison before the latter died in 2019. At the celebration, people read their favorite excerpts from her work, moving Morrison to tears.
As a winner of seven NAACP awards and countless more accolades for her achievements in poetry — Giovanni helped up-and-coming writers.
“I think she’s proudest of having opened the door for a lot of future … writers who came after her. They were able to come after her because she had opened doors,” Fowler said. “She is generous, she helps other people, she’s helped other artists, and that’s pretty unusual.”
In 2015, Times columnist Sandy Banks interviewed Giovanni on the heels of the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Mo.
“I’m not a guru. I don’t have the answers,” Giovanni said when Banks asked about guidance for young writers. “Just trust your own voice. And keep exploring the things that are interesting to you.
“All I can do is be a good Nikki. All you can do is be you,” she said.
Nikki Giovanni delivers closing remarks at a Virginia Tech convocation to honor victims of a mass shooting on the campus in 2007.
(Steve Helber / Associated Press)
Longtime friend Joanne Gabbin — executive director of Furious Flower, the nation’s first academic center for Black poetry — believes Giovanni was proudest of her relationship with her grandmother. “Family is very important. I think it goes all the way back to what her grandmother shared with her, what her grandmother taught her, the values that her grandmother instilled in her,” Gabbin told The Times. “She had made a commitment to her grandmother that whatever she did, it would be excellent.”
In 2016, Gabbin and Giovanni, who had been friends for more than 30 years, were given a preview opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
Gabbin said that while touring the museum, Giovanni encountered a “huge kind of a portrait” of herself displayed in the exhibit, marked in history as a literary legend.
Giovanni is survived by Fowler; her son, Thomas; and her granddaughter, Kai.
Kayembe is a former Times fellow. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Movie Reviews
Bandar Movie Review: Bobby Deol roars in Anurag Kashyap’s unsettling legal thriller that refuses to spoon-feed
Name: Bandar
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Cast: Bobby Deol, Sanya Malhotra, Sapna Pabbi, Saba Azad, Jitendra Joshi, Raj B Shetty
Writer: Sudip Sharma, Abhishek Banerjee
Rating: 3.5/5
Plot:
Bandar follows Sameer Mehra’s character, essayed by Bobby Deol, a fading star who is desperately clinging to his past glory. Just as he attempts to rebuild his life and finds solace in a new relationship, his world comes crashing down. A former girlfriend files a heinous allegation against him, dragging him into a vicious, high-profile legal battle. Written by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee, the film moves away from standard Bollywood courtroom setups. Instead, it dives straight into the murky waters of social media trials, public perception, and a sluggish judicial system where the truth gets buried under layers of gray.
What works:
Known for his chaotic energy, Anurag Kashyap takes a remarkably mature and controlled approach here. He avoids sensationalizing a highly sensitive topic, choosing instead to focus on the psychological claustrophobia of the protagonist. The prison sequences are exceptionally well-shot. They create a suffocating, raw atmosphere that makes you feel the weight of the character’s confinement. The script successfully avoids preachy, black-and-white monologues. It bravely forces the audience to confront their own biases regarding modern-day public trials and the digital judge-and-jury culture.
What doesn’t:
Clocking in at nearly two hours and twenty minutes, Bandar feels heavily weighed down in the second half. The narrative stretches thin, and a few subplots demand too much patience, making you wish for a tighter edit. The film stubbornly refuses to take a definitive moral stance or offer a neat resolution. While film enthusiasts might appreciate the complexity, mainstream viewers looking for a clear-cut ending or emotional payoff might walk away feeling detached and frustrated.
Performances:
- Bobby Deol is the beating heart of this film. Stripping away the massive macho swagger and menacing villainy of his recent hits, he delivers a deeply vulnerable, understated performance. He plays Samar with a mix of arrogance, confusion, and raw helplessness, proving his immense range.
- Sanya Malhotra anchors her screen time with her trademark reliability, turning in a grounded and impactful performance.
- Saba Azad and Sapna Pabbi excel in their respective roles, bringing genuine nuance to characters that could have easily been sidelined.
- Jitendra Joshi is an absolute scene-stealer, commanding your attention every single time he steps into the frame.
- Indrajith Sukumaran and Raj B Shetty are absolute show stealers with their raw acting.
Final Verdict:
Bandar is an unsettling, morally complex thriller that refuses to spoon-feed its audience. It isn’t a comfortable watch, nor does it try to be. While the sluggish pacing in the second half prevents it from being an absolute masterpiece, it is worth a watch for Bobby Deol’s spectacular acting reinvention and Anurag Kashyap’s gritty, thought-provoking storytelling.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of Pinkvilla. No statement in this article is intended to defame, harm, or malign any individual or entity.
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Kathy Hilton will no longer be the grand marshal of West Hollywood’s pride parade.
The city and WeHo Pride on Wednesday released a joint statement, announcing that “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star would no longer serve as the Grand Marshal Icon for the 2026 WeHo Pride Parade. The event is scheduled for Sunday.
“After thoughtful discussions, the City of West Hollywood, the WeHo Pride production team, and Kathy Hilton have determined that the 2026 WeHo Pride Parade will not designate a Grand Marshal Icon honoree,” read the statement.
The decision comes less than a week after Hilton was announced. That May 28 announcement was met with swift backlash from the LGBTQ+ community and allies, who called out Hilton’s ties to President Trump and alleged MAGA-leaning politics. Critics also cited accusations that the socialite had used a homophobic slur while on a trip with other cast members of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” an action she has previously denied.
In their joint statement, West Hollywood and the WeHo Pride team expressed their appreciation for “the respectful and sincere dialogue” around both the event and the “role and significance” of Pride honorees.
“The City of West Hollywood has always believed that Pride belongs to the community,” the joint statement said. “Since its earliest days, Pride has served as both a celebration and a platform for activism, visibility, resilience, and the ongoing pursuit of equality, dignity, and justice for LGBTQ+ people. … These conversations reflect the passion people have for WeHo Pride and underscore the importance of ensuring that WeHo Pride continues to honor the history, values, and diverse voices of the LGBTQ+ community.”
In a statement, Hilton expressed gratitude for being considered for grand marshal and reaffirmed her commitment to the LGBTQ+ community and causes.
“My reason for wanting to be involved in this year’s WeHo Pride weekend was simple: to celebrate, support, and share in the joy of a community that means a great deal to so many people,” Hilton said. “Pride is, and always will be, about celebrating and uplifting LGBTQ+ voices, experiences, and achievements. … My support for the community and WeHo Pride is unwavering.”
She also mentioned several queer advocacy organizations and events she has supported over the years, including GLAAD, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, Dr. Mathilde Krim, God’s Love We Deliver and Project Angel Food.
The latest Pride-related dust-up follows the abrupt cancellation of the Long Beach Pride Festival in May. The city’s Pride Parade took place as planned.
Both snafus have occurred as conservative politicians and advocates continue to attack LGBTQ+ rights and visibility nationwide. Some Republican governors have even pushed for conservative alternatives to Pride month festivities. A recent Gallup poll has found that after years of steady gains, support for marriage equality and same-sex relationships has slipped, particularly among Republicans.
Movie Reviews
Movie Review: Travolta’s “Propeller: One-Way Night Coach” is One for the Ages — All Ages
Back in the good ol’days — the ’90s — John Travolta would love to get off the topic of “Michael,” “Pulp Fiction” or “Get Shorty” in interviews with film journalists like me and regale us with how utterly besotted he had been with his first flying experience, how that drove his passion for piloting and buying planes and airfield-adjacent luxury houses.
He didn’t even seem to mind having to move house when this or that development balked at him flying his Boeing 707 out of there on the way to locations.
Travolta would tell any journalist who asked that he was writing a kid-friendly book, “Propeller: One Way Night Coach,” based on his first flights as a child in old propeller driven airliners — cheap red-eye overnight treks with too many connections for your average jet age traveller to tolerate.
I remember picking up the book when it came out later in the ’90s — at an airport gift shop — and thinking “Well, that’s as cute as I figured.”
And now, decades later and trapped in the B-movie hell of his post “Gotti” career, Travolta’s turned that cute book into the most delightful, fanciful and colorful bon bon of a movie.
“One Way Night Coach” is a child’s fantasy of flight and flying the way it used to be — with pristine, uncrowded, futuristic airports, an early ’60s era of jets and prop planes with over-uniformed stewardesses in white gloves, the days “Back before every Joe Sweatsock could wedge himself behind a lunch tray and jet off to Raleigh-Durham,” as Sideshow Bob memorably sneered on “The Simpsons’.”
It’s a fictionalized account of Travolta’s childhood about an only child (at least two Travolta siblings have bit parts in this movie) of a never-made-it/never-will actress/single-mom (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett) who indulges her aviation-obsessed eight-year-old with a cheap cross-country overnight flight.
Little Jeff (Clark Shotwell) will revel in almost every Idlewild to Pittsburgh to Dayton to Chicago to Kansas City to Denver and Los Angeles minute. He strolls into the cockpit to meet pilots, charms the stewardesses and checks out the sleeping bunks on the TWA Lockheed Super Constellation, loving even the delays if not the Chicken Cordon Bleu he’s offered on legs of the journey that offer a meal.
And as he’s an observant child, he comments (Travolta narrates) on his 50ish mother’s vamping and posing, her choice of cigarettes (Newports) and drinks, the solo traveling men whose attention she pursues and earns.
“I was her best audience,” adult Jeff remembers of the mother who’d read him plays as bedtime stories and delusionally hopes that this trip to Los Angeles might be her “big break” even though she’s pushing 50.
“Hollywood called,” she’d explain about their overnight cheap flight arrangements to ticket agents and crew. “They told me to take the next flight!”
At every turn, Jeff meets or sees kindness — stewardesses who indulge his many questions and bump them up to first class on the mostly-empty planes, a captain who fixes his toy model of a Constellation, a mentally ill flyer who flips out but is calmed by a flight attendant who isn’t overworked and frazzled in jet-powered tin-can jammed with Joe and Jane Sweatsocks who think nothing of traveling in their pajamas.
Normally, I cringe at pictures this reliant on voice-over narration. I recoil from stars who populate their picture with Sandler etc. offspring. But “Propeller” is unfailingly sweet and never cloying.
Sure, it’s fictionalized. But if you’ve followed Travolta’s life and career, a lot of him is in this — his raptoruous engagement with flying, an indulged child who developed a taste for fine food and creature comforts, a mother who was his guiding star as an actor.
I get why there are less adoring reviews than mine floating around “Propeller.” It’s unfailingly sweet. Mom’s man-hunting is seriously dated. This TWA tale is decorated with Gershwin’s majestic “Rhapsody in Blue” — United Airlines’ signature tune. And Travolta’s been around long enough for recent generations to come up and not feel a connection to the “Saturday Night Fever/Get Shorty” star whose career has fallen off and life has been visited by too much tragedy.
But I’d hate to be seated next to anybody who doesn’t appreciate this adorable, pristine and nearly perfect aviation fantasy on any flight, much less an overnight one.
Rating: TV-PG
Cast: Clark Shotwell, Kelly Eviston-Quinnett, Ellen Travolta, Ella Beau Travolta, Olga Hoffmann and John Travolta.
Credits: Scripted and directed by John Travolta, based on his book. An Apple TV+ release.
Running time: 1:01
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