Poet Nikki Giovanni to speak at Wake Forest

The free, public event will be held at 7 p.m. in Benson University Center’s Pugh Auditorium.

Giovanni is the author of more than a dozen books, including several volumes of poetry. She is currently the Gloria B. Smith Professor of Black Studies at Virginia Tech. She was born in Knoxville, Tenn., but raised in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. In the 1970s, she was named woman of the year by Ebony magazine, Mademoiselle magazine and the Ladies Home Journal.

She attended Fisk University, where she became involved in both the Writers’ Workshop and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. She became actively involved in the Black Arts movement, a loose coalition of African-American intellectuals who wrote politically and artistically radical poems aimed at raising awareness of black rights and promoting the struggle for racial equality.

The event is sponsored by Wake Forest’s Black Student Alliance, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Student Union and the American Ethnic Studies Program. For information, call 336-758-5864.