The Full Text of “Nikki-Rosa”
The Full Text of “Nikki-Rosa”
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“Nikki-Rosa” Introduction
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“Nikki-Rosa” was written by the American poet Nikki Giovanni and first published in Giovanni's 1968 collection, Black Feeling, Black Talk/Black Judgement. The poem explores the speaker's memories of growing up in a predominantly Black suburb of Cincinnati, taking care to emphasize happy moments with family and the strong sense of community that the speaker felt. At the same time, the poem examines the ways in which white society tends to misrepresent Black Americans' experiences, focusing only on stereotypical narratives of hardship and poverty. The speaker rejects these shallow narratives and instead asserts the enduring power of love, connection, and Black identity within her own experience.
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“Nikki-Rosa” Summary
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The speaker says that bringing up childhood memories is always tedious if you’re Black, because people always focus on things like living in a suburb of Cincinnati without any indoor plumbing. If you're Black and happen to become well-known, people won't ever mention the fact that you were actually happy that you got to spend so much time with your mother when it was just the two of you, or how enjoyable it was to take a bath in a big metal tub, the same kind that people in Chicago often use for barbecuing. For some reason, whenever you talk about where you come from, people never understand how you could tell exactly what everyone was feeling when your whole family went to meetings about the Black housing development. Despite the fact that you remember things perfectly well, the people writing about your life will never grasp the suffering your father felt when he had to sell his stock and lost yet another dream for the future. They don't understand that even though you didn't have a lot of money growing up, being poor wasn't something that bothered you, or that, even though your parents often argued with each other, the fact that your father drank didn't matter. What did matter to you as a child was the community surrounding you, and that you and your sister enjoyed your birthdays and had wonderful Christmases. The speaker sincerely hopes that no white person ever has a reason to write about her, because they just never grasp the fact that the love felt Black communities is its own form of wealth. Instead, the speaker knows white people writing about her would most likely focus on how difficult the speaker's childhood was, and, in doing so, never see that, the whole time, the speaker was perfectly content.
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“Nikki-Rosa” Themes
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White Misrepresentations of Black Experiences
The speaker reflects on the way that society tends to erase the nuanced realities of growing up Black in the U.S. The speaker describes happy memories from her childhood in Woodlawn, a predominantly Black suburb of Cincinnati, while pointing out that white biographers (and implicitly white society as a whole) tend to misrepresent Black experience, focusing disproportionately on hardship and poverty. The poem shows how these dominant cultural narratives fail to acknowledge the strong sense of community and love that the speaker also experienced, and instead uphold stereotypical and reductive narratives of Black life tied to struggle and misery.
The speaker acknowledges that she and her family experienced material hardship and struggle, describing growing up in a house without indoor plumbing as well as her father's financial losses. But the speaker also emphasizes that her childhood was a happy one, full of family, love, and a sense of community.
For example, the speaker recalls that she and her sister had “happy birthdays and very good / Christmases” because what mattered was that “everybody [was] together.” She also notes “how much [she] understood their feelings,” showing that her family was close-knit and empathetic. And though the speaker bathed in “one of those / big tubs that folk in Chicago barbecue in,” she also reminisces about “how good the water felt when you got your bath / from one of those big tubs.” In other words, the speaker recalls the full complexity and particularity of her childhood, including these experiences of joy and pleasure.
Yet the speaker notes that white biographers—and implicitly white society as a whole—only want to focus on hardship within Black life. She says that “if you become famous,” these biographers wouldn’t talk about “how happy you were,” whether this happiness came from “hav[ing] / your mother / all to yourself,” or enjoying taking a bath in “one of those big tubs.” They don't recognize the positive experiences within the speaker’s childhood because they contradict stereotypical ideas about being Black. White society assumes that if someone grew up Black and poor, this can only mean that their life was filled with suffering.
The speaker emphasizes how off-base these cultural representations are. She says that she hopes “no white person ever has cause / to write about [her],” because they would “probably talk about [her] hard childhood,” ignoring the fact that she was actually “quite happy” growing up. Implicitly, white society would erase the speaker’s actual experience, to replace it with their own stereotypical narrative about Black hardship.
Ultimately, though, the poem also makes clear that these misrepresentations don’t have power over the speaker, since they can’t take away her experience or her understanding of what truly matters. The tone of the poem overall is light, suggesting that, while the speaker sees how problematic these white narratives are, she also views them as somewhat ridiculous since they get so much wrong.
The poem itself centers the speaker’s experience and recounts the full complexity of her childhood. The poem, then, can be read as a kind of reply to the false narratives of white society, showing that the speaker has ownership and authority over her own experience and her understanding of it.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-33
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The Power of Black Love and Community
While the speaker in “Nikki-Rosa” describes growing up poor, she also recounts a childhood rich in other ways—in family connection and in a sense of Black community and identity. In doing so, the poem asks the reader to consider the true meaning of poverty and wealth. Ultimately, the speaker presents community, love, and family as their own forms of wealth that are more meaningful and lasting than financial prosperity.
The speaker makes clear that her poverty was not the most important part of her childhood. “And though you’re poor,” she says, “it isn’t poverty that concerns you […] but only that everybody is together.” While the speaker grew up poor, then, this was hardly the most meaningful aspect of her life. Even when she describes her “father’s pain as he sells his stock,” the speaker implies that this was primarily significant to her because of seeing what her father went through emotionally. In other words, it wasn’t poverty itself that mattered to her, but its impact on those she loved.
At the same time, the poem offers a vision of the speaker’s childhood that is fundamentally rich in connection and community. The speaker notes that she and her sister “ha[d] happy birthdays and very good / Christmases.” The speaker doesn’t mention material gifts in connection these holidays, implying instead that the happiness came from the love her family members had for each other.
The speaker also recalls “how much [she] / understood their feelings / as the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale.” Hollydale was a Black housing development near where Nikki Giovanni grew up, and where her parents hoped to build a house. The speaker’s recollections of attending meetings about this housing development suggest that she was not only connected to her family, but to a larger Black community.
Finally, the speaker asserts that “Black love is Black wealth.” Bringing together everything she has said in the poem up to this point, this assertion makes clear that to the speaker, it is not material circumstances that determine one’s wealth. Rather, one can be rich in love and community.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-33
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Nikki-Rosa”
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Lines 1-4
childhood remembrances are ...
... no inside toiletThe title of “Nikki-Rosa” lets the reader know that the speaker of the poem is a representation of the poet, Nikki Giovanni, and that the poem will be about her experiences. “Nikki-Rosa” was a childhood nickname for Giovanni (given to her by one of her older siblings), and the reader can connect the first word of the title, “Nikki,” with the poet’s first name. As the poem begins, the speaker also establishes that she is Black, and that in this poem she will explore what it is like to bring up childhood memories as a Black American.
“[C]hildhood remembrances are always a drag / if you’re Black,” the speaker says. The colloquial phrase “a drag” means that something is annoying or tedious. The speaker, then, seems to be saying that as a Black American, it is always tedious or difficult to recall her childhood. The speaker’s use of this colloquialism makes the poem immediately sound spoken and conversational.
The speaker also uses the second person “you.” While the reader can infer that the speaker is talking about herself, this “you” also invites the reader to imagine themselves in the speaker’s situation. Specifically, the “you” can also be read as an address to other Black Americans who have had similar experiences.
The speaker goes on to bring up specific experiences from her own life, while implying that these experiences—or similar ones—are shared by many Black Americans of her generation. “[Y]ou always remember things,” she says, “like living in Woodlawn / with no inside toilet.” Nikki Giovanni grew up near Cincinnati, including in the Black suburb of Woodlawn, in the 1940s and 1950s. Here, through the allusion to Woodlawn and the details that follow, the speaker lets the reader where she grew up, as well as the fact that she grew up without indoor plumbing, suggesting that her family dealt with material hardship.
These lines reinforce the poem’s opening, where the speaker says that remembering childhood is a “drag / if you’re Black.” Implicitly, the poem seems to be suggesting that these childhood memories are tedious, because “if you’re Black,” you “always remember” experiences of being poor or struggling in some way. Yet it is exactly this assumption that the poem will go on to challenge and subvert.
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Lines 5-8
and if you ...
... all to yourself -
Lines 8-11
and ...
... chicago barbecue in -
Lines 12-15
and somehow when ...
... meetings about Hollydale -
Lines 16-19
and even though ...
... another dream goes -
Lines 20-23
And though you’re ...
... makes any difference -
Lines 24-26
but only that ...
... Christmases -
Lines 27-30
and I really ...
... is Black wealth -
Lines 30-33
and they’ll ...
... was quite happy
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“Nikki-Rosa” Symbols
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The Dream
In lines 18-19, the speaker describes seeing her "father's pain as he sells his stock / and another dream goes." Here, the poem refers to a specific memory from the poet's childhood. Nikki Giovanni's parents had hoped to build a house in Hollydale, a new all-Black housing development near where they lived. But as a result of racist lending practices, her parents weren't able to obtain the loan they needed and her father had to sell the stock he had invested in the project.
The "dream," then, refers to this specific dream of the poet's family—to build a home in this neighborhood. At the same time, the dream can be read as a symbol. Dreams, of course, represent hopes and aspirations. Additionally, the poem may be subtly invoking the American Dream—the idea that anyone can achieve middle class prosperity in the U.S. if they try. Yet, as the poem points out, this dream has all too often been barred to Black Americans. The "dream" of the poet's family, then, also symbolizes many other people's dreams that have been lost as a consequence of systemic racism.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 18-19: “your father’s pain as he sells his stock / and another dream goes”
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“Nikki-Rosa” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Allusion
Several allusions appear in “Nikki-Rosa” and are important to the poem’s meaning. First, the title of the poem alludes to the poet, Nikki Giovanni. Nikki-Rosa was a childhood nickname for Giovanni, given to her by one of her older siblings; the title, then, lets the reader know that the poem will be about Giovanni’s experiences and in particular her experiences as a child.
Within the poem, the speaker alludes to growing up in Woodlawn. Woodlawn was a Black suburb of Cincinnati, where Nikki Giovanni partly grew up. This allusion grounds the poem in the poet’s actual experiences. At the same time, the particularity of the allusion suggests that, in a way, what the poem is saying is meant for people who are already part of this community or who have shared experiences, specifically, other Black Americans who have had the experience of living in neighborhoods that are segregated.
Similarly, later in the poem the speaker alludes to Hollydale. Hollydale was, at the time Giovanni grew up, a new all-Black housing development where her parents hoped to build a house. However, due to racist lending practices, her parents were unable to get the loan they needed, and her father had to sell the stock he had invested in the development. This allusion to Hollydale, like the allusion to Woodlawn, is specific; yet readers who have had similar experiences of losing dreams for the future as a result of systemic racism could relate to it.
These allusions to the particulars of the speaker’s experience show how complex, nuanced, and specific the speaker’s childhood actually was—in contrast to white narratives that would reduce her experience to a flattened stereotype. At the same time, the fact that the speaker doesn’t explain her allusions suggests that she is not translating her memories or her life for a white audience. Instead, she is addressing people who can relate to what she describes, from a place of shared identity and community.
Where allusion appears in the poem:- Line 3: “Woodlawn”
- Line 15: “Hollydale”
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Anaphora
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Enjambment
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End-Stopped Line
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Alliteration
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Repetition
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Imagery
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Colloquialism
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Juxtaposition
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Parallelism
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"Nikki-Rosa" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Nikki-Rosa
- Woodlawn
- Hollydale
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(Location in poem: )
The title of the poem, "Nikki-Rosa," is a reference to the poet, Nikki Giovanni. "Nikki-Rosa" was a nickname for Giovanni, given to her by one of her older siblings. The title, then, lets the reader know that the poem will be about the poet's experiences, and in particular her childhood.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Nikki-Rosa”
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Form
“Nikki-Rosa” does not follow a traditional or fixed form. However, the poem creates its own form that is important to its meaning.
First, the poem is written in a long, single stanza. This unifies the poem and suggests that the speaker’s childhood memories are similarly unified, part of the complex and rich whole of her experience. Secondly, the poem omits punctuation, and in many places, capitalization. In leaving these out, the poem seems to be following its own rules, not the forms of punctuation considered normative in the dominant society.
These qualities make the poem sound spoken and immediate, as though the speaker is directly addressing the reader in conversation. Additionally, in a poem that deals with the ways white society distorts and misrepresents Black experience, it is important that the speaker creates her own form for the poem, telling the story of her experience on her own terms.
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Meter
As a free verse poem, “Nikki-Rosa” does not follow a set meter. Instead, the poem uses varying line lengths to create a natural-sounding rhythm, one that evokes a regular conversation. This spoken quality is important to the poem, as the speaker seems to be articulating her experience in a way that is colloquial, immediate, and direct.
It is also worth noting that, while the poem doesn’t use meter throughout, there are moments in the poem that partly gain their power through their metrical stress. Specifically, the speaker uses spondees—clusters of two stressed syllables— to convey her meaning when she says, “Black love is Black wealth.” Here, “Black,” “love,” “Black,” and “wealth” are all stressed, meaning that the line is driven by a cluster of stresses, all of which are given equal weight. Implicitly, this sends the message that what the speaker says is authoritative and true. Since these words are equated rhythmically, in their stress and emphasis, they are implicitly connected in their meaning.
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Rhyme Scheme
“Nikki-Rosa” is a free verse poem that does not have a rhyme scheme. Given that the poem is meant to sound conversational, a strict rhyme scheme would likely feel rather forced and artificial. The speaker wants to narrate her own experiences without forcing them into a prescribed societal narrative, and similarly refuses to make her poem conform to any sort of formulaic rhyme scheme.
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“Nikki-Rosa” Speaker
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The speaker of “Nikki-Rosa” can be understood as a representation of the poet, Nikki Giovanni. The poem takes its title from Giovanni’s childhood nickname (given to her by an older sibling). Even without this information, the reader can connect the first word of the title (“Nikki”) to the poet’s first name.
Within the poem, several details the speaker evokes are details from the poet’s own childhood. For example, Giovanni grew up in neighborhoods near Cincinnati, including the Black suburb of Woodlawn. Giovanni’s parents hoped, at one point, to build a house in a new all-Black housing development called Hollydale. Ultimately, though, racist lending practices made this impossible, and Giovanni’s father had to sell the stock he had invested in the development. Finally, Nikki Giovanni is a well-known poet, so she herself knows what it is like to become famous and have her life represented in ways that don’t match her own experience.
The poem, then, describes the poet’s childhood in its specific detail. At the same time, the speaker describes her experiences in such a way that readers, and in particular Black Americans, can relate to what she says. In a way, then, the poem uses Giovanni’s own childhood as a lens to show how much white society erases the particulars and nuance of Black people’s experiences, and in doing so denies their full humanity.
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“Nikki-Rosa” Setting
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The primary setting of “Nikki-Rosa” is the setting of the poet's own childhood, in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Woodlawn near Cincinnati. The speaker describes this setting with specific details, noting that there was “no inside toilet”—and implicitly no indoor plumbing—but also calling attention to the pleasure of taking a bath in “one of those / big tubs” that people might use for barbecuing.
The setting of the poem, then, is one that is unique and distinctive, and seen through the eyes of the speaker as a child. Since the speaker of the poem can be understood as Nikki Giovanni herself, the reader can intuit that the speaker’s childhood within the poem is the 1940s and 1950s, when Giovanni was growing up.
Importantly, too, the speaker creates an emotional setting for the poem and for the childhood she depicts, conveying a world of feeling that the reader can imagine and partially inhabit. For instance, the speaker describes a sense that “everybody is together,” and her empathy for family members when they all “attended meetings” about the housing development where her parents hoped to build a house. This emotional setting is crucially important to the poem’s meaning, since the speaker implies that what matters most in her experience is not the material circumstances within which she grew up, but the powerful sense of community, love, and family that surrounded her. The speaker emphasizes this setting within the poem, making its presence palpable to the reader.
Finally, the speaker describes her childhood, now, from the present tense. This suggests that while the speaker grew up in Woodlawn in the 1940s and '50s, now she is somewhere else and writing from a vantage point of time. Interestingly, though, the poem doesn’t let the reader know where the speaker is at the time of the poem’s composition. Implicitly, it is the setting of her childhood, and this powerful sense of community she experienced, that continues to shape her life.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Nikki-Rosa”
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Literary Context
“Nikki-Rosa” was first published as part of Nikki Giovanni’s 1968 collection, Black Feeling, Black Talk/Black Judgment. This collection, which brought together what were originally two separate books—Black Feeling Black Talk and Black Judgment—drew significant critical attention and helped to establish Giovanni as a major poet of her generation. In the collection, as in “Nikki-Rosa” specifically, Giovanni sought to center and explore Black Americans’ experiences.
On a larger level, Nikki Giovanni was a leading poet in the Black Arts Movement. This movement, which is thought to have formally begun following the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, brought together Black artists and writers who sought to nurture a distinctly Black aesthetic separate from the dominant white society. The movement included such writers as Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, Etheridge Knight, June Jordan, and Audre Lorde. In response to ongoing racism and discrimination following the civil rights movement, these writers worked to establish their own values and priorities, rather than assimilating to those of the white establishment.
Although the Black Arts Movement began to wane in the 1970s, its influences are still felt in American literature. As poet Ishmael Reed remarked, “I think what Black Arts did was inspire a whole lot of Black people to write. Moreover, there would be no multiculturalism movement without Black Arts [...] Blacks gave the example that you don't have to assimilate. You could do your own thing, get into your own background, your own history, your own tradition and your own culture.”
Similarly, Nikki Giovanni has gone on to become a major American poet whose work continues to influence American poetry and literature. Her work, especially “Nikki-Rosa,” has been widely anthologized, and she has published numerous collections, including poetry, children's literature, and essays. She has taught and lectured internationally, and is now a Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech.
Historical Context
Two aspects of historical context are important to “Nikki-Rosa”: the historical context of the speaker’s childhood, evoked within the poem, and the historical context of the poem’s publication.
First, “Nikki-Rosa” is based on the poet, Nikki Giovanni’s, own childhood. Giovanni grew up in the 1940s and 1950s near Cincinnati, including in the Black suburb of Woodlawn. Additionally, her parents hoped to build a home in what was then a new all-Black housing development called Hollydale. However, racist lending practices made it impossible for Giovanni’s father to get the loan they needed, and he had to sell the stock he had invested in the project—all details that the speaker alludes to within the poem.
Historically, then, the speaker describes her experiences growing up during segregation and the early years of the civil rights movement. The fact that she grew up in an all-Black suburb and her parents hoped to build a house in an all-Black development is not coincidental, but crucially important to the poem’s meaning. The speaker describes what it was like to grow up in these circumstances of racism, segregation, and systemic discrimination that barred her family from pursuing their dream to build a house. Despite this, she emphasizes the ongoing strength and perseverance of Black community and love, and how this shaped who she is today.
The poem itself was first published in 1968, three years after the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act were passed in 1965. Despite these legal victories, Black Americans have continued to face pervasive discrimination, racism, and violence in all aspects of society. “Nikki-Rosa” addresses one such form of ongoing discrimination, in examining how much white society distorts and misrepresent Black Americans’ actual experiences. However, the poem crucially centers the speaker’s perspective and understanding of her own life. In doing so, it implicitly suggests that these distorting narratives don’t have power over the speaker, and that what does have power is the ongoing strength of her identity and sense of community, connection, and love.
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More “Nikki-Rosa” Resources
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External Resources
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Collection of Work from the Black Arts Movement — Explore this special feature at the Poetry Foundation website to learn more about the Black Arts Movement. This collection includes a range of poems by Black Arts Movement writers, as well as podcasts and essays about their work.
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Biography of Nikki Giovanni — Read about Nikki Giovanni's poetry and critical responses to her work in this biography at the Poetry Foundation. This page also includes links to other poems by the poet, articles that talk about Giovanni, and other related information.
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The Black Arts Movement — Learn more about the history of the Black Arts Movement, and its connection to the Black Power Movement, in this article from the New York Public Library.
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The Poem Recited by the Poet — Watch Nikki Giovanni recite "Nikki-Rosa" in this video from 2014.
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Nikki Giovanni's Website — Learn more about the poet's life and work at her website, which includes a chronology of important events in her life and a full list of her published works.
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