Overview
First published in 1974. A Poetic Equation: Conversations Between Nikki Giovanni and Margaret Walker is a lively, impassioned, and intense meeting of two literary giants. It is also a caning and yet uninhibited dialogue between two women a generation apart, a mother-daughter confrontation in a spirit of love and respect.The topics range from Vietnam, the racial struggle, the sexes, violence, and literature. Each exchange mirrors the generational and regioual temperaments, backgrounds, and philosophies of both women: for Giovanni, the cauldron of the sixties; for Walker, the Depression and World War II of the thirties and fortics. In this edition of the book a postscript by Nikki Giovanni projects the dialogue into the eighties and beyond.
Margeret Walker is the author of For My People, a Volume of Verse, which won the Yale Award for Younger Poets in 1942. She is also the recipient of a Houghton-Mifflin Literary Fellowship for her novel, Jubilee, published in 1966. She recently retired as professor of English at Jackson State University where she taught for thirty years. Her biography of Richard Wright is near completion.
Nikki Giovanni was nominated for the National Book Award in 1973 for Gemini. In the same year she won the Youth Leadership Award, a poll, sponsored by the Ladies Home Journal. She also received the Outstanding Achievement Award from Mademoiselle magazine. Currently, in addition to lecturing. Ms. Giovanni writes a column for the black news monthly, Encore. Among her volumes of poetry are The Women and the Men (1975), Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day (1978), and Vacation Time (1979), a volume of children's poetry.