Poetry Review: MAKE ME RAIN

Make Me Rain: Poetry and Prose is the first adult poetry book I've read by the renowned poet, Nikki Giovanni and the last poetry book she published before her death in 2024. And I must admit I feel rather sheepish admitting that I've only just discovered this poet since she has been famous, in a way most poets aren't, for a long time.

Make Me Rain was published in 2020 and I'm not sure if some of the poems were in response to the Black Lives Matter  movement that year or just a reaction to injustice in general. The poem "And So It Comes to This" starts: Painful words / Nasty comments /Always in groups / Never Just by yourself / Teaching your sons to hate / And your daughters to fear ... and concludes: The only thing you have to offer / Anything.. yourself...Planet Earth / Anything at all. / Is / Your white skin // How sad. How sad. Clearly Giovanni is burning with righteous anger. Poetry provides a perfect medium for the expression of this anger.

The whole collection didn't simmer over with anger or disgust, however. Many of the poems were lighthearted and about everyday events. Others take a poke at politics/politicians. In "Rainy Days" the poet says she called for sun with no luck, ask a friend to do the same but the sun didn't answer, so I opened a bottle of Champagne / and the fruit flies / surrounded the top // Lord Lord // donald trump / must be president  Notice the lack of capital letters for his name or title. Quite in keeping with her feelings about no sun and fruit flies.

The poem "Biography" is short but sums up her life and what she hopes her life stood for -- I'm also lucky / to had awards and daydreams / or is that / Daydreams / And Awards / And I'm lucky to be happy / At what I do / And how I do it / So that is this / Bio / I'm here / And if I mist/ On emotional soil / A weed will / Grow // Make Me Rain // Let me be a part / of needed change

Giovanni self-published her first two volumes of poetry in 1968. During this time she became well-known in Black Arts Movement, influenced by the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1970s she also began writing Children's literature and started her own publishing company, NikTom, to provide publishing opportunities for women of color. Over the decades her works often discussed social issues and human relationships, even Hip-Hop. She won numerous awards, including the NAACP Image Award seven times, and was given 27 honorary degrees. She taught at several universities, ending her teaching career at Virginia Tech in 2022. She even has a bat,Micronycteris giovanniae named for her. She died in 2024 after a lengthy battle with lung cancer. She was 81 years old. I'd say, looking back at her poem "Biography" she indeed played a part in changing America, perhaps the world, for the better. 

I understand that a volume of Giovanni poetry, titled The New Book: Poems, Letter, Blurbs, and Things, will be published posthumously in September this year. I will be the first in line at the library to check out a copy of it.

-Anne