Kelly is an instructor of creative writing and literature at Oakton Community College. In this essay, Kelly discusses the childlike voice and nostalgic tone that make Giovanni's poem a work to which people from different societies can relate.

At the time that "Knoxville, Tennessee" was published in the late 1960s, Nikki Giovanni was gaining public attention for writing angry political poems that contained racial slurs and calls for violence. Other poems from her collection Black Feeling, Black Talk / Black Judgement have not withstood the test of time. Lines of poetry like "Blessed be machine guns in Black hands" from her poem "A Litany for Peppe" or her advice to black children to "grow a natural [afro] and practice radicalism" from "Poem for Black Boys" catapulted her to stardom in her twenties, but their significance has faded as the spirit of revolution has, for better or worse, faded...