Ego Tripping By Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni, one of the most famous African American poet is widely known through her interesting style in her poetries. Giovanni’s innovative usage of poetic technique of allusion, wide range of imagery, excessive hyperbole and free verse conveys and emphasizes her style and persona as uncontrolled and unrestrained by rules.

This poem is written from the perspective of an African-American from a foreign country, who has come to America for the promise of equality,

In the poem Ego Tripping, Nikki Giovanni uses the voice of a woman speaker who is strong, proud and independent.The word “ego- trip” describes an act of behaving in a self-seeking manner(“Ego- Trip”). Therefore, this is one of the main messages the poem tries to send across to its readers.Although Giovanni targets this poem at an audience of men and women of color, she also aims this poem at herself. She tries to see the good inside of herself. Giovanni inculcates the themes of Religion, Identity, and Africa into her poem. Although Nikki Giovanni penned this poem in 1972, when racial discrimination was at its peak, its messages are still very useful to us even today. The world today, is not much different from 1972.

“Graduation Day” illustrates Maya Angelou’s experience on her graduation day. All of Angelou’s feelings, reasoning, and thoughts of her graduation day are depicted between the pages of her short story. Her text covers multiple different aspects of a segregated community’s lifestyle and explains their decisions on coping with their limitations. The power of words impacts the community in several ways during Angelou’s story. Because words impact and shape people, they influence individuals into themselves.

In the second stanza she makes it directly clear who she is by stating, “I sat on the throne/ Drinking nectar with Allah/I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe/To cool my thirst/My oldest daughter is Nefertiti/The tears from my birth pains/ Created the Nile/ I am a beautiful woman.” Here we see Giovanni establish that she is in fact a goddess and the mother of Nefertiti whom based on these lines means a beautiful woman and was historically known as a powerful Egyptian queen. The final line of this stanza, “I am a beautiful woman,” also reinforces her pride and confidence as a woman. Giovani also points out her ranking as equivalent to that of Allah since she “…sat on the throne/ Drinking nectar with Allah.”

“You have tried to destroy me and although I perish daily I shall not be moved,” (Angelou, 2014), says Maya Angelou in her Commencement speech to the 1992 Spelman College graduates. Poet and award-winning author, Maya Angelou, is most well known for her poetry, essay collection, and memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Angelou happened to be the first black female cable car conductor who later started a career in theatre and music (Maya Angelou: Poet and Historian, n.d.). Once her acting and musical career began to take off, Angelou began touring with productions and released her first album Miss Calypso (Maya Angelou Fast Facts, 2017). Later, Angelou earned a Tony Award nomination for her role in the play Look Away and an Emmy Award nomination for the work she performed in the television mini-series Roots (Maya Angelou: Poet, Civil Rights Activist, Author, Activist, 2017). Angelou was also the first African American woman to have her screenplay produced (Maya Angelou: Poet, Civil Rights Activist, Author, Activist, 2017). Out of the number of poetry collections Angelou published, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Die happened to be her most famous collection that was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (Maya Angelou: Poet, Civil Rights Activist, Author, Activist, 2017). The focus of this paper is to critique Angelou’s credibility, sincerity, and appeal to her whole audience in her delivery during the Spelman Commencement Address in 1992.

My first theme is prejudice. It is never right for one individual to own another, or for one group of people to be denied equal rights because they are different in some way. In NightJohn, they were prejudice and made African American people be enslaved and work for them and treat them differently just because they were a different color than them. I’ve seen prejudice a lot all my life. Whether it’s for for colored people or gay people or whatever, in the end we’re all the same and should all be treated equally.

Welcome and thankyou to this discussion on celebrating a poet whose powerful language engages and influences others. The poet whose contributions demonstrate these features is Maya Angelou whose influence is evident in the poetry she produced. Maya Angelou is an American poet and civil rights activist, born in 1928 whose poetry is famous for its inspiration and is considered ‘one of the great voices of contemporary literature.’ (Metacritic, 2015) Maya Angelou’s personal and cultural experiences communicate the power of the African- Americans during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and 1970s era to overcome adversity and oppression that are clearly reflected in her inspirational poems ‘Caged Bird’ and ‘Still I Rise.’ An analysis of these poems reveals that

Any artist uses their surroundings as inspiration. An African American female artist deal with being the underdog. The situations they were placed in, ended up being inspirational moments. These moments became inspirational because they were personal stories, life learned lessons, and life changing moments. This essay only mentions three strong, powerful, monumental women. However, there are many more females who have helped the African American woman artist culture. They are still hidden. It is essays like this that help spread their stories, and their art

All three of the poems discussed in this essay relate to the struggles suffered by African Americans in the late 18th century to the early 19th century in many different ways. They had to live under harsh

Race plays a big part in this poem. He speaks on Harlem and its culture and this environment but also about mutual interest with people

The artist that I would like to discuss is Betye Saar. She is one of the artists that took part in the "Black L.A. art movement". This took place in the 1970s. Her art speaks of American culture combined with her African American folk culture. She makes assemblages that make political statements. The political statements that she makes through her art seems to start discussions regarding issues that African Americans go through. She stated that these issues, particularly political issues, were almost unavoidable. Growing up in Watts, she knew individuals who had it very rough, even just day to day. Being African American and having African American friends, she knew the dangers of them potentially being wrongfully arrested/likely to join a

In this poem self-image is a foremost theme as the author continually discusses the things she has done and her use of similes and metaphors creates an appearance of herself as a deity or something that has transcended. She does this throughout the poem by making it appear as though she had a direct relationship with all of the events she discusses. The narrator does this with relation to herself, but at the same time she doesn’t because she is talking about the different countries of Africa and their contributions to the world. And, she is talking about the black woman and everything they have done for the world with the goal of giving empowerment to young black girls. As the topic discusses self-image it is not singularly looking at her image but the self-image of black people as a whole and is justifying the Ego Trip that

Songs allude the importance of remembering one’s origin and advancements, all while taking into consideration how past coped or rebelled. During the twenties, Bennett’s poetry reflected [...] rediscovery of Africa, recognition of Black music and dance--or, she penned romantic lyrics, the poetry of personal statement” (Govan). The idea of rediscovery and reminding one of the past is highly valued within Bennett’s poetry. Gwendolyn Bennett consistently considers culture through music and dance when creating this piece. She alludes to pride in African heritage to maintain faith.

Romeo Clay Robinson is an African American Artist passionate about humans’ “condition, feelings, thoughts, dreams, and aspirations” and motivated by his family to produce work treating issues faced by society (Houston Museum African American Culture). Growing up beside his grandchildren, Robinson noticed how heavily social media impacted them and compromised their self-esteem. One of Robinson's work displayed at the HMAAC, “Closing Arguments”, portrayed the difficulties faced by younger black females. Society has excluded this group and has held a mediocre image of them, making them feel worthless. These are important points that need to be further highlighted, which is why I chose to write a poem reflecting on them, “Closing Remarks”. I used a variety of poetry devices to speak to black girls and encourage them to appreciate and love themselves because their worth is much more significant.