Ego-Tripping and Other Poems for Young People by Nikki Giovanni

First published: 1973; illustrated

Subjects: Family, race and ethnicity, and social issues

Type of work: Poetry

Recommended Ages: 13-18

Form and Content

Ego-Tripping and Other Poems for Young People is a creative, harmonious collection of twenty-two poems that are representative of some of Nikki Giovanni’s best works. Included in the collection are several poems from previous publications. Speaking primarily in the first person, the poetic voice, or persona, is unmistakably the poet herself as exemplified in her most-often-anthologized poem, “nikki-rosa.” In this poem, the poet chronicles a happy childhood in spite of the many hardships that she endured, including her father’s drinking and poverty. Ultimately, as in every poem in this collection, the conclusion is hopeful, celebrating “Black love” and “Black wealth.” George Ford’s black-and-white illustrations depicting African heritage and sketches of black children in play help to clarify and dramatize the meanings of the poems. Ford creates a thematic canvas that artfully displays Giovanni’s poetry.

Integrated into the collection is a playful sense of humor that involves readers, drawing them into the experiences at the onset. For example, the “kidnap poem” addresses the reader as “you,” bringing the reader into the poem to be kidnapped by the poet. This simple yet provocative poem captures the essence or unifying element of the poetry. Giovanni, like Walt Whitman or Langston Hughes, asks for involvement from the reader—offering the opportunity to play, sing, to be a child again. In fact, when Giovanni was asked by President Jimmy Carter to join the President’s Committee on the International Year of the Child in 1979, she replied: “As a former child, I accept.” Giovanni reminds readers of the child in each of them who wants to come out and play.

Infused into each poem is a rhythmic style resonating with a jazz or blues musical tone. For example, in “ego-tripping,” the title poem, the beat of a distant drum—an African drum—seems to play as one reads this poem about a woman who like a goddess can create and give birth to an ice age, the Nile, precious ores and jewels—and even children. The internal rhymes and simplistic beat blend to form a read-aloud poem designed for children to repeat to themselves as they, too, “fly like a bird in the sky.”

With an instructional yet uplifting tone, many of the poems center on great African American leaders in music, art, and religion, including James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Other poems capture the themes of restlessness and of revolution, as exemplified in “black power,” “revolutionary dreams,” and “revolutionary music.” Unifying her personal struggles with those of the 1960’s and 1970’s, Giovanni gives voice to the African American experience, translating its uniqueness yet also accurately rendering the universality of growing up in a changing world.

Critical Context

Following the birth of her son, Tommy, in 1969, Nikki Giovanni began writing children’s poetry after having a successful, productive career as a poet and essayist. Her first such work was Spin a Soft Black Song: Poems for Children (1971), which like her adult collections of poetry focuses on African American pride and aestheticism. Directed at much younger readers than Ego-Tripping and Other Poems for Young People, this collection embraces the natural rhythm of language and its appeal to children in dance and song. Illustrating the bonding of mother and child, many of the poems center on the spoken and unspoken connections between the two. As in all her work, the sense of pride in the accomplishments of black leaders and the anger juxtaposed with humor that together seem to foster survival are blended into the poetry through dialogue. This is exemplified in “trips” in which a mother says, “GET UP FROM THERE YOU GONNA BE DIRTY,” as her young child thinks to himself, “i want to tell her if you was/ my size the dirt would catch you up faster too.”

Having been a significant voice during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960’s Giovanni—“the Princess of Black Poetry,” as she has often been called—captures the nature of the changes that have taken place in herself and in society. Often mirroring these conflicts and the consequences of misdirected anger, her poetry attempts to provide direction for young people through the building of self-esteem and black pride, both for the individual and for all African Americans. Her poetry chronicles the progress of African Americans, often including the names of prominent black leaders in the arts and the Civil Rights movement.

With each collection of children’s poetry, the poet examines the complexities of growing up black in predominantly white America. For example, in Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day (1978), the tone is compromising and the spirit appears dampened. As in her other collections, the reader encounters the theme of loneliness; however, the poetry also focuses on disillusionment. Yet, inevitably in her work, disillusionment is merely another part of life, of living, that must be met honestly and realistically. Through her art, Giovanni gives her young readers the tools to confront and to combat an imperfect world, even during the most difficult of times, by emphasizing the universality of human experience as expressed through poetry.

Bibliography

Beason, Tyrone. “Survival of the Baddest: Poet and Activist Nikki Giovanni Keeps Her ’60s Spirit Intact for a New Generation.” The Seattle Times, January 15, 2004, p. C1.

Davis, Arthur P. “The New Poetry of Black Hate.” In Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Donald B. Gibson. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973.

Fowler, Virginia C. Nikki Giovanni. New York: Twayne, 1992.

Jago, Carol. Nikki Giovanni in the Classroom: “The Same Ol Danger but a Brand New Pleasure.” Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1999.

Josephson, Judith P. Nikki Giovanni: Poet of the People. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 2003.

“Nikki Giovanni.” In Her Words: Diverse Voices in Contemporary Appalachian Women’s Poetry, edited by Felicia Mitchel. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002.

Washington, Elsie B. “Nikki Giovanni: Wisdom for All Ages.” Essence 24 (March, 1994): 67.