"I think you always write what you love. Whether it’s your grandmother or gourmet cooking or mountains and rivers. Sunsets kissing the tallest building or chipmunks scattering off to bed. I like the quiet. And I like the sound of the quiet. I’m a mountain girl. I listen and make lists of what I hear." -- poet Nikki Giovanni (6/7/1943 - 12/9/2024), from "Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid", 2013. Giovanni was one of the best known African-American poets, who also was an educator and an activist on behalf of women of color and a key figure in the 1960s and 1970s Black Arts Movement.
She was honored with the Langston Hughes Medal, multiple NAACP Image awards, Parent's Choice Award, American Library Association's Black Caucus Award, and many more.
(photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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