[Black Feeling, Black Talk, Black Judgment] is a record of a time and an involvement and awareness and activism which marks the late Sixties as special. Nikki Giovanni is a special poet for this special time—a revolutionary one…. She records [the spirit of time and place] in a special way evoking images largely through cataloguing. Black feelings, talk, judgments taking pains to particularize details; through her black magic, she conjures up visions and spirit of time, although she seems to remain estranged from the true essence and spirit of the folk, "Seduction" is a fine poem in Part I which juxtaposes the rap and the real, so that she comes very close to the truth about the matter, as she undresses the brother in what he suspects to be a counterrevolutionary fashion. (p. 102)
It is in the section, "Black Judgment," where you find the poet coming into her own; the very personal tone of the first person narrator and the subject matter with autobiographical references rolls up the shades, pulls the covers off, and gets down to where it is, telling it like it is. "Nikki-Rosa" begins with "childhood remembrances are always a drag / if you're Black"; after cataloguing negatives like no inside toilet, a drinking father, conditions of poverty, we are told that what makes the difference—makes for happiness—are things like how good a bath feels, how smug to have a mother to yourself, birthdays and Christmases, and having everybody together….
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Read the rest of this Criticism with our Giovanni, Nikki 1943–: Critical Essay by Sarah Webster Fabio Access Pass.
