Comments on Social Foundations of Education: Bad Poetry

Nikki Giovanni is a horrible poet. In fact, it is ...

2008-05-07T14:54:00.000-04:00

Nikki Giovanni is a horrible poet. In fact, it is unfair to poets to actually call her a poet, because what she does is simply take prose writing and break it up so that it looks like poetry. Her line divisions make no sense and have no effect and have no reason for being.

There are great black poets being overshadowed by flashy, pretentious "literary" hacks like Giovanni and Maya Angelou. Jay Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks and others are hardly read now because elementary education have focused directly on what they perceive to be the easily understood works of Angelou. This is a shame for the youth of America who are raised now to think that the garbage Giovanni writes has any aesthetic value.

I don't think there's anyone more narcissistic than Giovanni, who manages to make the Virginia Tech shootings about her.

Please, let's sign a petition to get her fired. She is an embarrassment.

IF ALI G HAD INTERVIEWED NIKKI GALI G -Booyakasha,...

2007-06-09T09:17:00.000-04:00

IF ALI G HAD INTERVIEWED NIKKI G

ALI G -Booyakasha, chek i’ out. I is here wif my main man, Nikki G, my bro from Staines. How is you become poet?
NIKKI G- We’re communicators, it’s in our blood.
ALI G: Blood, West Side. Now sis, you, I mean, sorry you is my bro now, you is get some edumacation. You went to America, right?
NIKKI G: I went to Fisk.
ALI G: Tell me about how you is expelled for crack…
NIKKI G: It wasn’t for smoking crack. I started at Fisk in 1960, was soon expelled, and later returned and graduated in 1968. I did enroll and quickly drop out of two graduate schools after that but I did complete that one degree, my bachelor’s degree.
ALI G: Wha’eve. You is still my main man. Now you has Tupac Shukar tattoo, right? Can I see that?
NIKKI G: Yes, I have said I would rather be with the street thugs than with the ones who complain about them.
ALI G: Now is you believe Tupac’s criminal record make him a better rap artist?
NIKKI G: Well, I don’t know about that, but…
ALI G: I like that poem you wrote about nigger can you kill, can you stab a jew, and you draw blood, can you kill a honkie. Ain’t that a rap!
NIKKI G: You’re talking about my poem “The True Import Of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro.” I wrote that a long time ago.
ALI G: But can’t you make a rap out of that? You is get the whole crowd to stand up at Virginia Tech with that one.
NIKKI G: No, that was my new poem We Are Virginia Tech.
ALI G: Wha’eve. That was my one an’ only main man, Nikki G, my big bro and big time poet, big shout out for Nikki G from VT.

The prof is a radical liberal (I'm shocked!) and t...

2007-04-26T09:41:00.000-04:00

The prof is a radical liberal (I'm shocked!) and the plot thickens...

Virginia Tech's Professor of Hate
By Steve Sailer
VDARE.com | April 26, 2007

http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=28018

Her speech was all the more inappropriate given her link to Cho and her knowledge of his mentality.

I'm a VT graduate, and along with my grief and devastation about the murders, I am extemely embarrassed about her.

Your buddy Matt Sanchez is a prostitute and a cong...

2007-04-26T02:01:00.000-04:00

Your buddy Matt Sanchez is a prostitute and a congential liar. Not that it matters to "conservatives" like you.

No need to tie this crap with homosexuality -- as ...

2007-04-25T16:33:00.000-04:00

No need to tie this crap with homosexuality -- as a gay name, I can fully appreciate what shit this is.

This is the same woman who, in a very similar poem...

2007-04-25T15:14:00.000-04:00

This is the same woman who, in a very similar poem titled "I Am Cincinnati", last fall called then-Republican nominee for Ohio Governor, Ken Blackwell, a "son-of-a-bitch" and "political whore". She recited her poem at a non-political (and billed as "family friendly") statue dedication ceremony in downtown Cincinnati.

Peter is correct about the Invisible Children, and...

2007-04-25T10:49:00.000-04:00

Peter is correct about the Invisible Children, and the reason it's capitalized is that it refers to a specific group. I had initially thought perhaps it was a reference to children of the Sudanese civil war. Both are horrible stories.

In any event, I think the "poem" is banal irrespective of the fact that the events to which Giovanni alludes are real.

Her point, I think, is that 'no one deserves to have bad things happen to them.' But she makes it very artlessly, and besides, bad things DO happen. The question is simply how you and I will respond to said bad things.

And what's with the "Hokie Nation" bit?! I don't think I care for that image...

Now to get the full impact--Imagine William Shatne...

2007-04-25T10:48:00.000-04:00

Now to get the full impact--Imagine William Shatner reading this. There is no rhyme or reason tying all these tragedies together, sad though they all be. The Mexican child, the AIDS-infected child and the elephant don't really connect at all; while the description of the infant killed by a boulder just sounds wrong, true though it be, and the phrase "Invisible Children" threatens to turn this into bathos. This is one of those things that sounds Good, True, and Moving, until the HUNH? Factor kicks in, when you start to think about it.

Just as a note: the Invisible Children are probabl...

2007-04-24T23:38:00.000-04:00

Just as a note: the Invisible Children are probably the children of northern Uganda, trying to avoid being kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army. They really do "walk the night away" (or did, until quite recently; there was an agreement within the last few months between the Ugandan Government and the LRA, which may have stabilized the area some—I haven't kept abreast of that situation recently. If you want more details, Google "night commuters". That story, too, has “great potential ‘in case any of you have ingested something poisonous and need to induce vomiting.’”

Not that I claim any deep insight into the connection between the events in northern Uganda and those in Blacksburg (senseless violence, perhaps), but Giovanni is at any rate referring to a real situation, not something out of her own imagination.

Peace,
--Peter

Anonymous 231-I didn't know that it actually happe...

2007-04-24T21:31:00.000-04:00

Anonymous 231-

I didn't know that it actually happened. It is sad, but I agree it is out of place. I don't understand Giovanni's reference to it and can't figure out how she feels it relates to a gunman killing 32 fellow students.

Though totally inappropriate and out of place in h...

2007-04-24T14:31:00.000-04:00

Though totally inappropriate and out of place in her speech at the convocation, the "Appalachian boulder" story is true - it happened a few years ago in my hometown:

http://www.ohvec.org/links/news/archive/2004/fair_use/08_21.html

August 21, 2004
Boulder plummets from surface mine, kills 3-year-old boy
Kingsport Times News Saturday
By STEPHEN IGO
APPALACHIA, VA - A large boulder authorities believe was dislodged from a coal surface mining operation in Wise County early Friday toppled down a mountainside and killed a 3-year-old boy who was asleep in his bed...

Just checked out your blog. Very funny - the analy...

2007-04-23T07:46:00.000-04:00

Just checked out your blog. Very funny - the analysis of the poem - I thought it was a student until I read more about 'Nikki'.