From Library Journal
Social and/or political poetry often fails because it loses touch with humanity; it gets distracted by issues and forgets about the impact of things on people. Giovanni never loses sight of the people in her work. In poems built with broken lines and paragraphs of prose, she spars with the ills that confront us, but every struggle has a human face. Ask Roger Woody, of the Woody Pipe and Excavating Company, who is destroying the wonderful woodland adjacent to Giovanni's home and readying it for a new housing development. When a young basketball star is harassed for his youth and style ("Iverson"), she assumes the role of compassionate but stern sister. She is no less forthcoming with her opinions of the President and his woes. At times you wonder what makes these soapbox oratories poems. You will not find many familiar rhetorical devices here, but you will want to dance to the music, the rhythms and language, the sound and exacting energy of these poemsAwhich is more than enough.ALouis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
The much-published Giovanni has been amply rewarded for a career thats been spotty to say the least. Unlike fellow doggerelist Maya Angelou, Giovanni has no prose works of distinctionher Racism 101 (1994) hardly measures up to Angelous moving memoirs. So her reputation rests largely with her poetry, which, given this latest volume, is a sad spectacle: a lazy collection of prose rants with lots of ellipses to disguise the scatter-brained thinking. Her litanies of racist episodes from history, her ghetto-thug affectations, and her Oprahesque bits of uplift are all tired rhetorical devices and rely on a vocabulary of pop journalism and advertising (No problem / No Sweat / Just Jazz). Things turn so embarrassingly strange here that Giovanni mentions five or so times her personal animus toward a real-estate developer in her hometown who threatens the view from her backyard. A typical stream-of- consciousness bit links Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, black holes in science, and Sally Hemmings. Another celebrates the author and other revolutionary poets for understanding the power of a poem, with asides on the Nation of Islam and dietary habits. Giovannis political views become seriously discomfiting when her peroration on civil rights devolves into a chilling prescription for utopia. Elsewhere, she defends the presidential penis and offensively attacks anti-rap crusader C Delores Tucker . . . fuck her fuck her fuck her. Despite the infantile politics, Giovanni includes many short and light ditties, with their schoolgirl rhymes, that suggest her one strength: simple childrens verse that jumps and jives. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Gloria Naylor
"Nikki Giovanni is one of our national treasures. For decades she has offered her wit an wisdom, her bruising honesty and, above all, her unbounded love through...poems as a healing for herself, her community, and her country."
Gwendolyn Brooks
"Nikki Giovanni's work has always been remarkable for energy, venturesomeness, direct honesty, and courage."
"Nikki Giovanni is as outspoken, prolific and energetic as ever."
"Giovanni's poetry heals and struts, mourns and celebrates with restorative wit."
"[Nikki Giovanni] is fiery yet tender, political but down-home, beautiful at heart, but not afraid to finger ugliness."
Book Description
Intimate, edgy, and unapologetic, Blues: For All the Changes bears the mark of Nikki Giovanni's unmistakable voice. In a career that has spanned three decades, Giovanni has created an indispensable body of work and earned a place amoung the nation's most celebrated and controversial poets; Gloria Naylor calls her "one of our national treasures." Now, in these fifty-two new poems, Giovanni brings the passion, fearless wit, and intensely personal self that have defined her life's work to a new front.
Invoking the fates and exalting the rhythm of the everyday, Giovanni writes with might and majesty. From the environment to our reliance on manners, from sex and politics to love among Black folk, Blues is a masterwork with poems for every soul and every mood: The poignant "Stealing Home" pays tribute to Jackie Robinson, while "Road Rage Blues" jams on time and space; Giovanni celebrates love's absolut power in "Train Rides" and laments life's trasience in "Me and Mrs. Robin." With the tenderness that has made her on of our most accessible and beloved poets, Giovanni evokes a world that is not only just but also happy. Her powerful stand engages the world with a truth telling that is as eloquent as it is elegant.Intimate, edgy, and unapologetic, Blues For All the Changes bears the mark of Nikki Giovanni's unmistakable voice. At once political and intensely personal, this long-awaited volume embodies the fearless passion and wit that have made Nikki Giovanni one of our most accessible poets; her audience defies all boundaries of race, class, age, and style.From the poignant "Stealing Home," Ms. Giovanni's tribute to Jackie Robinson, to the defiant "Road Rage Blues," a jam on time and space, these fifty-one poems challenge the fates and invoke the precarious state of our environment, Giovanni's battle with illness, manners, and other topics seminal to one of our most compassionate, outspoken observers.With a reverence for the power of language, Blues For All the Changes will once again enchant Nikki Giovanni's extensive following and inspire those who are newly discovering her work.
Card catalog description
Intimate, edgy, and unapologetic, Blues: For All the Changes bears the mark of Nikki Giovanni's unmistakable voice. In a career that has spanned three decades, Giovanni has created an indispensable body of work and earned a place among the nation's most celebrated and controversial poets. From the environment to our reliance on manners, from sex and politics to love among Black folk, Blues is a master-work with poems for every soul and every mood: The poignant "Stealing Home" pays tribute to Jackie Robinson, while "Road Rage Blues" jams on time and space: Giovanni celebrates love's absolute power in "Train Rides" and laments life's transience in "Me and Mrs. Robin." With the tenderness that has made her one of our most accessible and beloved poets, Giovanni evokes a world that is not only just but also happy.
About the Author
Nikki Giovanni is the author of Racism 101 and more than fourteen volumes of poetry, including Black Feeling Black Talk/Black Judgement, Cotton Candy On A Rainy Day, My House, The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni, and, most recently, Love Poems. A professor of English at Virginia Tech, Ms. Giovanni reads her work all over the country.
Excerpted from Blues : For All the Changes : New Poems by Nikki Giovanni. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
The Wrong KtchenGrandmother would sit mebetween her legsto scratch my dandruffand unravel my plaitsWe didn't know then dandruff was a sign of nervousnesshives tough emotional decisionsthings seen that were better unseenWe thought love could cureanything a doll here a favoritecaramel cake thereThe arguments the slaps the chairsbanging against the wallthe pleas to please stop would disappear under quilts airedin fresh airwould be forgotten after Sunday Schoolteas and presentations for the Book ClubWe didn't know then why I played my radio all nightand why I kept a light burningWe thought back then it was my hairthat was nappySo we--trying to make it all right--straightened the wrong kitchen
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