Nikki Giovanni's iconic words come to life in new exhibition
Viewers will hear Giovanni’s voice change throughout the experience because her recorded words play from different decades of her life.
Near the end of one of Nikki Giovanni’s well-known poems “Ego Tripping,” she writes, “I cannot be comprehended without my permission.”
Now, seven months after the poet and retired English professor's passing, a team of Virginia Tech faculty and students are helping people to understand the late Giovanni and her award-winning poems in a new immersive way.
They are using Giovanni’s poetic words to paint an experience in images, music in surround sound, motion graphics, and movement to honor her and place viewers in the middle of her poetry. This immersive experience will debut with recordings of Giovanni reading two of her poems, “Ego Tripping” and “Nikki Rosa,” on June 8 in the Cube at the Moss Arts Center from 1 to 6 p.m. The presentation is free and open to the public.
It coincides with a celebration of life for Giovanni planned for the same day from 2 to 4 p.m. in the center's Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre. Also, just last week, the Poetry Society of America honored Giovanni posthumously with the 2025 Frost Medal, for which she was nominated before her passing. The prestigious poetry award is named for Robert Frost.
Meaghan Dee, associate professor of graphic design at Virginia Tech who has created other immersive poetic experiences, began talking with Virginia Fowler, Giovanni’s partner, about the idea before Giovanni died last December.
Dee and her creative team are moving forward, first with two of Giovanni’s poems. By later this year, they plan to roll out more of her poetry.
For Charles Nichols, associate professor of music composition and creative technologies, the experience has involved deep listening. After tracking down past recordings of Giovanni reading and performing her poems at all stages of her life, he has replayed her words over and over for the past few months as he composed instrumental music that matched the word beat.
For “Ego Tripping,” a celebratory poem about the power of the Black experience and Black women, Nichols developed a quick bebop beat. For “Nikki Rosa,” a poem inspired by Giovanni’s childhood, he composed an intimate, neighborhood jazz tune.
“Usually when I am writing music for a person, I am thinking about that person, so now I’m in commune with Nikki Giovanni and her words as she is speaking them,” he said. “That’s been powerful for me.”
Viewers will hear Giovanni’s voice change throughout the experience because her recorded words play from different decades of her life, echoing from all directions inside the Cube. Brittney Harris, associate professor of applied theatre, assembled this poetic montage.
Throughout “Ego Tripping,” Harris dances in flowing movements across the screen. While filming the scene, she wore a full body suit with motion trackers attached to it.
Trevor Finney, interim manager of the Virtual Environments Studio at University Libraries, translated Harris' movements into the motion elements of the experience. He, too, has been reading Giovanni’s poems closely to best represent her words and themes via movement.
“It’s thinking about what are the words that resonate and what can I learn about the spaces where the words find themselves,” Finney said. “How can I take the tools that I have and amplify the experience.”
The immersive experience offers an inspiring window into Giovanni’s work and will help viewers reflect on their own lives, said Gena Chandler, associate professor in the Department of English and a close friend of Giovanni’s. Chandler met with Dee and the rest of the creative team a few times as they planned the experience.
“It redirects our understanding of ourselves. That’s what makes her poetry so powerful,” Chandler said. “She was a truth teller. The loss of her voice is sad because of her fearlessness in speaking truth to power.”
