Right now I'm reading a section about black power. I really like a lot of it, and it's very powerful. Giovanni writes poetry that is the very opposite of formal. It's all over the place, which, if not done well can be really bad, but Giovanni makes it feel like a punch in the gut (the good kind). She makes you feel what she was feeling, she makes you think what she was thinking, and she makes you take a long hard look at yourself.
Like I said, I've only read the black power section so far, which is mostly very angry. I don't mind the anger, though, because I think that there should be anger. We should be angry. We should be appalled, we should be furious that racism even exists today. Yes, Obama being elected was a huge step forward, but racism hasn't been eliminated or even substantially reduced. Giovanni was writing in a period of time where black people were realizing that discrimination and being treated as an inferior person is not OK, so while her poetry may be angry and may be for a mature audience, she has every right in the world to be angry.
I would recomend Nikki Giovanni's poetry only to people who enjoy poetry and are ready to read something pretty heavy. Also, while the school found a nice quote of her's about libraries to hang in the IMC, she does cover some explicit, sometimes violent topics. That's my disclaimer.
One last thing: while we were reading Romeo and Juliet, I heard the line "Peace? I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montagues," and I realized that that is the first line of a song called "Whatever (I Had a Dream)" by: The Butthole Surfers. They don't have a music video for it, but here's the link to a video I found on Youtube of the song with random footage two teenage girls shot. **note: there are swear words (among other non-school-appropriate things)**
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dckuzv-NcOY
Here's a link to the lyrics:
http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/buttholesurfers/whateverihadadream.html
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