Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea

by Nikki Giovanni

When Nikki Giovanni's poems first emerged during the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements of the 1960s, she immediately took a place among the most celebrated and influential poets of the era. Now, Giovanni continues to stand as one of the most commanding, luminous voices to grace America's political and poetic landscape.In a career spanning over thirty years, Giovanni has created a body of work that's become vital and essential to our American consciousness. This collection of new poems is a masterpiece that explores the ecstatic union between self and community. Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea is an extraordinarily intimate collection. Each poem bears our revered cultural icon's trademark of the unfalteringly political and the intensely personal: The elegant "What We Miss" exalts the might and grace of women, while "Swinging on a Rainbow" rejoices about the spaces in which we read; Giovanni commemorates Africa and her family legacy in the majestic "Symphony of the Sphinx" and contemplat