PHILADELPHIA — Nikki Giovanni, the legendary poet and leader of the Black Arts Movement, died at 81 on Monday, Dec. 9, in Blacksburg, Virginia, after receiving a third diagnosis of cancer, according to news reports. Her longtime partner, Virginia Fowler, was by her side.

The revolutionary writer who penned verses about Black life, feminism, politics, rage and love, was born Yolanda Cornelia Giovanni Jr., in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1943 and raised in Cincinnati. She spent many years in New York and Virginia, where she taught English at Virginia Tech for decades.

Giovanni had many connections with this region, and notable Philadelphians shared their condolences on social media. Harriet’s Bookshop owner Jeannine A. Cook shared a photo of her cooking with Giovanni on a video call, writing, “May our good deeds add onto yours—thank you for teaching me how to make fried chicken among many other things. Long live the keepers of the word.”

Questlove posted a photograph of a young Giovanni with her reading of the popular poem “Ego Tripping” playing in the background; he wrote, “Man: thank you for gifts Nikki Giovanni.”

Early in her career, Giovanni spent time in Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware. As she developed her first book, the self-published poetry collection "Black Feeling, Black Talk/Black Judgement" (1971), Giovanni worked at a People’s Settlement House in Delaware. Around that time, she studied at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Work, pursuing a master’s of social work, and commuted into the city from Wilmington. She dropped out of the program and moved to New York, going on to become a prolific writer, outspoken activist, lesbian icon, and beloved English teacher.

Giovanni returned to Philadelphia briefly in the 1990s, when she recorded her 1997 poetry album "In Philadelphia" at the historic Sigma Sound studio. She also served as the 1996 artist-in-residence at the famed Clef Club.

Renowned for her disarming humor and incisive commentary across dozens of books, Giovanni appeared at literary events in Philadelphia throughout her career and found a deep and loving fandom of all ages. In 2010, North Philadelphia’s Art Sanctuary named her the recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award.

One of her last trips to the city was captured in the Emmy-winning documentary "Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project" that screened at the 2023 BlackStar Film Festival (and is now streaming on Max). Speaking about her 2017 book, "A Good Cry: What We Learn From Tears and Laughter," Giovanni had a room full of teens laughing at the Free Library of Philadelphia and heard from several attendees, particularly Black women, who said she was their biggest inspiration. Some had named their children for her.

“Philadelphia was the birthplace of the United States,” Giovanni told the Inquirer in a Zoom interview last year. “Having the documentary about me in Philadelphia is also saying that there is still a new world, there’s still something to create, still another step, or as the old spirituals used to say, we are climbing Jacob’s ladder.”

During our interview, she introduced me to her loud Yorkie, Cleopatra, and showed off the “Thug life” tattoo that she got on her arm in honor of Tupac Shakur.

In her later years, the poet was fascinated by space exploration (inspiring the documentary title). She called herself a “space freak” and told me about her wish for artists to be sent to the moon. She was also curious to learn more about potential new discoveries of alien life, which she welcomed.

“If another life-form is coming to Earth, they can drop by my house, and I’ll do what Black women always do, ‘Come on in baby, are you hungry?’” she said. “Because that’s what Black women do, no matter what it is. We save life whenever we can, and we feed it, and we welcome that.”

Fiercely determined to make every last minute count, Giovanni was still working during her final weeks. She’s expected to get the last word in the 2025 release of her forthcoming project, "The Last Book."

©2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.