The 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.