SOURCE: "Sweet Soft Essence of Possibility: The Poetry of Nikki Giovanni," in Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation, Doubleday, 1984, pp. 218-28.

In the following essay, Harris regards Giovanni as "a good popular poet" whose work responds to the complex events of her time yet sometimes suffers from a lack of a more complete realization.

Even though Nikki Giovanni has a large popular audience, she has not gained the respect of the critics. Michele Wallace calls her "a kind of nationalistic Rod McKuen"; Eugene Redmond claims her poetry "lacks lyricism and imagery"; Haki Madhubuti (Don L. Lee) insists she lacks the sophistication of thought demanded of one with pretensions of a "political seer" and finally, Amiri Baraka and Saunders Redding, united on no other issue, declare in their different styles that she is simply an opportunist. These critics illustrate the problem of evaluating Nikki Giovanni dispassionately. Her limitations...