{"id":1239,"date":"2018-07-23T16:53:22","date_gmt":"2018-07-23T16:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/?page_id=1239"},"modified":"2020-07-07T16:38:51","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T21:38:51","slug":"nikki-giovani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/2018\/07\/23\/nikki-giovani\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikki Giovanni"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Jasmine Taylor <\/span><\/p>\n

Missouri Western welcomed world-renowned poet Nikki Giovanni<\/a> to campus on April 6 as a guest judge and speaker for Western\u2019s Mochila Review<\/i>, a national literary publication.<\/span><\/p>\n

For their annual writer\u2019s contest, Mochila <\/i>staff select a guest writer to judge the contest. When selecting this year\u2019s guest, Dr. Marianne Kunkel, editor of the Mochila Review<\/i>, said Giovanni was the first name to go on the board.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSam Lundy was one of our students who said, \u2018I want Nikki Giovanni here\u2019 and I think that was the first name that went on the board,\u201d Kunkel said. \u201cI laughed and said, \u2018I do too, big deal\u2019 like that\u2019s not going to happen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After a quick email and crossed fingers, the staff waited. Giovanni responded the next day with a phone call and agreed to be the poet to judge the writing contest and guest speaker in the spring. <\/span><\/p>\n

Both the students and Kunkel were in awe. After running down the hall and sharing the exciting news with a colleague, Kunkel shared the big news with the Mochila<\/i> staff.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it. When I told my students they just fell out of their chairs, that\u2019s how it all started,\u201d Kunkel said. \u201cThen I worked with her agent to secure a date for the spring but this was all because of the students, and bless them for dreaming so big. I don\u2019t know if I would have called her; I just didn\u2019t think she was doing this kind of thing. She\u2019s super famous, she has no reason to be touring universities other than them meeting her and seeing her read; that\u2019s just in her heart. She wants to speak to people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Potter Hall Theater was just shy of capacity for Giovanni\u2019s reading that evening. Before the reading, a few journalism and En<\/span>glish students had the opportunity to interview and dine with Giovanni. <\/span><\/p>\n

Though many saw Giovanni as a legendary poet and full of wisdom, she didn\u2019t see herself in the same prominent light.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m that prominent. I\u2019m not Aretha Franklin<\/a>, you know,\u201d Giovanni said. \u201cBut I never look myself up, because then I might worry about what people think about me and not my poetry.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Giovanni was always fond of storytelling and writing, which started at an early age. According to Giovanni, her sister was very pretty and her brother Gary being able to play the piano, and while she couldn\u2019t do those things, she loved reading and learning things. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Giovanni watched the world around her; the country she lived in, the planet she lived in, and being a fan of the heavens and NASA<\/a>, she watched the stars. As she watched, she wrote and told stories about it and found her niche with poetry.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I could never write a novel. I look at novels by Toni Morrison and they\u2019re so brilliant I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t get involved in that,\u201d Giovanni said. \u201cI think that poetry and I got together simply because I put strange things together. I write about my experiences.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kunkel was pleased with the turnout and the positive responses from the event. She expressed the importance of Western letti<\/span>ng students, especially students in the humanities, to see professional writers when they (the students) are struggling to see how valuable their major is.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we do a good job here at the university of trying to expose our students to important people, and that night was so overwhelming at how profound, yet warm and friendly, she was,\u201d Kunkel said. \u201cShe never changed who she was. I\u2019ve never been in the presence of an author that was so warm and what surprises me about that is that she\u2019s so famous and has been doing this for so long.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With such great feedback received of the reading from the community, students and faculty, Kunkel said that a few names, such as J.K. Rowling, were being thrown around for next year, but nothing would be decided until sometime during the fall.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t