Nikki Giovanni: A Literary Biography focuses on one of the most widely read poets to emerge from the Black Arts Movement, providing a thorough examination of Giovanni’s life and work, from her earliest volume of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk, to the recent Bicycles. The book addresses Giovanni’s preoccupation with historical themes and the past, and demonstrates the pervasiveness of music in Giovanni’s poetry.

Drawing on extensive interviews with Giovanni’s friends and family, this book offers biographical information not previously available in other publications. It references material from Giovanni’s prose works to illuminate and contextualize the analysis of her poetry, examining its highly allusive and topical nature. The book also shows the intersections of Giovanni’s biography and the public history of the United States from the 1960s to the present, making it of interest to general readers as well as those studying American and African-American poetry or black feminism.