Literary legend and retired Virginia Tech professor Nikki Giovanni completed her final chapter on Monday, December 9, 2024.
Named by Oprah Winfrey as one of 25 living legends, Giovanni, who retired from VTech in 2022, died at age 81 after a third battle with cancer.
Giovanni was an acclaimed poet, activist and University Distinguished Professor Emerita. She taught at VTech in the Department of English for 35 years. In retirement, she continued to speak, travel and maintain a writing schedule. She returned to VTech campus to present the annual Giovanni-Steger Poetry Prize Award to undergraduate students in April 2024. Giovanni and late Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger created the competition in 2006, which offers monetary prizes for student poets.
“We can never let words be silenced,” said Giovanni during the Moss Arts Center ceremony. “We can never let words be taken away from us. We can never let people, because they don’t like what we’re saying, shut us up. Words are the most important things that human beings have. And no matter what the situation, we must always remember to use them.”
Known around the world for her poetry, essays and written work on social issues, including race and gender, Giovanni’s writing was a call for action. She received more than 30 honorary degrees, published at least 11 illustrated children’s books and won an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking for “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.” Her latest book of poetry, “The Last Book” will be published in fall 2025.
“To know Nikki was to be forever changed by her. One minute, she would say something that would make you laugh so hard you would cry. The next minute, she would say something that would haunt you for months and make you reevaluate the world as you knew it. She was a force of nature and our college, Virginia Tech, and the world itself are better for her impact on all of them,” Laura Belmonte, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, said.
Giovanni marked VTech’s historic and timely events with words, including poems for the April 16 tragedy and for the Class of 2020’s commencement ceremony at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Nikki Giovanni was a treasure who lived out Ut Prosim in countless ways, using her literary gifts to motivate change, encourage critical thought, inspire us to dream, and provide comfort in times of sadness and grief,” said Virginia Tech President Tim Sands. “Her spirit endures through her words and the students she inspired to express themselves through writing and poetry. She will be deeply missed and forever remembered by her Hokie family.”
In 2023, she was the fifth recipient of Virginia Tech’s Ut Prosim Scholar Award.
Giovanni supported the university in a variety of ways, including as a member of the Legacy Society. In 2010, she and Virginia Fowler, a retired English professor and Giovanni’s wife, created the Fowler-Giovanni Fund, a legacy gift to support initiatives for visiting scholars and students in the Department of English.
Giovanni grew up in Ohio, but spent summers with her grandparents in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she was born. She joined Virginia Tech in 1987, when Fowler recruited her. Giovanni brought to campus a unique spirit of community and inclusion, from hosting a campus-wide fish fry to inviting renowned authors Maya Angelou and Rita Dove.
As a professor, Giovanni’s goal was to teach students to think deeply and ask questions. After retirement, she said she would miss talking regularly with her students.
“I want my students to not accept what they are hearing, but to look and say ‘what kind of sense does this make?’ and ‘what is going to be the end result?’” said Giovanni when she retired.
New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander’s first class with Giovanni was advanced poetry, which did not go well at first.
“I was that student who argued everything and pushed back on anything she offered,” Alexander, an Emmy-award winning producer, said. “I thought I knew more than she did about poetry. Yet she kept letting me take her classes, kept teaching me, saw what was possible for me and shaped me into who I am today.”
Giovanni became Alexander’s “literary mother.”
“I’m so grateful and so much better because of her,” he said.
Giovanni is survived by Fowler, her son, Thomas Giovanni, her granddaughter, Kai Giovanni, and other family.
“We will forever feel blessed to have shared a legacy and love with our dear cousin,” said Allison Ragan, Giovanni’s cousin, in a family statement.
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Rebecca Barnabi
