I initially posted this on another thread, but it seems much better placed here.
Nikki Giovanni is a token writer and an insignificant poet; her work is only considered important because it is endlessly and myopically preoccupied with race and the hagiography of civil rights figures. Langston Hughes was fine poet, Jean Toomer wrote a first-rate novel, and Derek Walcott matters, but Ms Giovanni is an intellectual waterfly. There are plenty of third-rate writers and dreary poets like bell hooks and Maya Angelou who also have armloads of awards and a standing invite to go on Oprah; it doesn’t matter, they are still awful.
The audience warmly embraced her because they don’t know any better; they are cowed into thinking she is deep because someone always trots out the litany of awards that are supposed to stand in for her obvious lack of talent. They are also held in the spell of white guilt and it occludes both their discernment and their taste. No thoughtful writer, at her age, would ever say something like this in public, ever:
“We do not understand this tragedy We know we did nothing to deserve it But neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS Neither do the invisible children walking the night away To avoid being captured by a rogue army Neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water Neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night In his crib in the home his father built with his own hands Being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized No one deserves a tragedy”
It makes me wince just to read it. It is rubbish on so many different levels I don’t even know where to begin. Whatever their politics, no poet could utter such silly and sanctimonious drivel on such an occasion.
Incidentally, the sullen lunatic who murdered all these people was not college material; his writing is so appallingly bad that he should never have made it through any year in college, anywhere in the country, at any time in American history. But he was obviously passed along for years without the slightest hint of any talent whatsoever; no one gave him the rightful F he deserved because there are obviously no standards left. The same English department at VT that idolizes a phony like Ms. Giovanni was the same department who allowed the author of “Richard McBeef” to get as far as senior year. Sigh
“Incidentally, the sullen lunatic who murdered all these people was not college material; his writing is so appallingly bad that he should never have made it through any year in college, anywhere in the country, at any time in American history. But he was obviously passed along for years without the slightest hint of any talent whatsoever; no one gave him the rightful F he deserved because there are obviously no standards left. The same English department at VT that idolizes a phony like Ms. Giovanni was the same department who allowed the author of “Richard McBeef” to get as far as senior year. Sigh”
is it true he was about to graduate with a 4.0?
If it’s true, they didn’t just fail to give him an F....they gave the impression he was excelling.
Need to sit awhile with your numerous, wholly right points.
Have you read either On Moral Fiction by John Gardner or Style by Walter Raleigh? I’d be keen to know whether you had.
Thanks for the cogency and the clarity.
Ding..ding.. ding. We have a winner. You nailed it. Thank you.
Good background on this cretin who spews spittle at the poor students while they are mourning. She has no shame!