Blues: For All the Changes: New Poems [Hardcover]

Nikki Giovanni (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 21, 1999

Intimate, edgy, and unapologetic, Blues: For All the Changes bears the mark of Nikki Giovanni's unmistakable voice.In a career that has spanned three decades, Giovanni has created an indispensable body of work and earned a place amoung the nation's most celebrated and controversial poets; Gloria Naylor calls her "one of our national treasures." Now, in these fifty-two new poems, Giovanni brings the passion, fearless wit, and intensely personal self that have defined her life's work to a new front.

Invoking the fates and exalting the rhythm of the everyday, Giovanni writes with might and majesty. From the environment to our reliance on manners, from sex and politics to love among Black folk, Blues is a masterwork with poems for every soul and every mood: The poignant "Stealing Home" pays tribute to Jackie Robinson, while "Road Rage Blues" jams on time and space; Giovanni celebrates love's absolut power in "Train Rides" and laments life's trasience in "Me and Mrs. Robin." With the tenderness that has made her on of our most accessible and beloved poets, Giovanni evokes a world that is not only just but also happy. Her powerful stand engages the world with a truth telling that is as eloquent as it is elegant.

Intimate, edgy, and unapologetic, Blues For All the Changes bears the mark of Nikki Giovanni's unmistakable voice. At once political and intensely personal, this long-awaited volume embodies the fearless passion and wit that have made Nikki Giovanni one of our most accessible poets; her audience defies all boundaries of race, class, age, and style.

From the poignant "Stealing Home," Ms. Giovanni's tribute to Jackie Robinson, to the defiant "Road Rage Blues," a jam on time and space, these fifty-one poems challenge the fates and invoke the precarious state of our environment, Giovanni's battle with illness, manners, and other topics seminal to one of our most compassionate, outspoken observers.

With a reverence for the power of language, Blues For All the Changes will once again enchant Nikki Giovanni's extensive following and inspire those who are newly discovering her work.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Social and/or political poetry often fails because it loses touch with humanity; it gets distracted by issues and forgets about the impact of things on people. Giovanni never loses sight of the people in her work. In poems built with broken lines and paragraphs of prose, she spars with the ills that confront us, but every struggle has a human face. Ask Roger Woody, of the Woody Pipe and Excavating Company, who is destroying the wonderful woodland adjacent to Giovanni's home and readying it for a new housing development. When a young basketball star is harassed for his youth and style ("Iverson"), she assumes the role of compassionate but stern sister. She is no less forthcoming with her opinions of the President and his woes. At times you wonder what makes these soapbox oratories poems. You will not find many familiar rhetorical devices here, but you will want to dance to the music, the rhythms and language, the sound and exacting energy of these poemsAwhich is more than enough.ALouis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

The much-published Giovanni has been amply rewarded for a career thats been spotty to say the least. Unlike fellow doggerelist Maya Angelou, Giovanni has no prose works of distinctionher Racism 101 (1994) hardly measures up to Angelous moving memoirs. So her reputation rests largely with her poetry, which, given this latest volume, is a sad spectacle: a lazy collection of prose rants with lots of ellipses to disguise the scatter-brained thinking. Her litanies of racist episodes from history, her ghetto-thug affectations, and her Oprahesque bits of uplift are all tired rhetorical devices and rely on a vocabulary of pop journalism and advertising (No problem / No Sweat / Just Jazz). Things turn so embarrassingly strange here that Giovanni mentions five or so times her personal animus toward a real-estate developer in her hometown who threatens the view from her backyard. A typical stream-of- consciousness bit links Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, black holes in science, and Sally Hemmings. Another celebrates the author and other revolutionary poets for understanding the power of a poem, with asides on the Nation of Islam and dietary habits. Giovannis political views become seriously discomfiting when her peroration on civil rights devolves into a chilling prescription for utopia. Elsewhere, she defends the presidential penis and offensively attacks anti-rap crusader C Delores Tucker . . . fuck her fuck her fuck her. Despite the infantile politics, Giovanni includes many short and light ditties, with their schoolgirl rhymes, that suggest her one strength: simple childrens verse that jumps and jives. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 100 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (April 21, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688156983
• ISBN-13: 978-0688156985
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,049,372 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blues for Truth-telling, April 17, 2010

By 

Kacie L. Adams "Kacie Adams" (Kentucky) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blues: For All the Changes: New Poems (Hardcover)

Nikki Giovanni's "Blues: For All the Changes: New Poems" opens with the following quote from Alberta Hunter, "People think the blues is sad. They hear people moaning and such. That's not the blues. That's just somebody singing slow....The blues is about truth-telling," which is exactly what Giovanni's collection does-tells the truth. The collection is divided into two sections; "flatted thirds and sevenths" and "fugue." I have to admit, not know much about the blues, I had to look up both of these terms. Flatted thirds and sevenths are blues notes and fugue is a technique of composition for a fixed number of parts. The collection is interpresed with what initially looks like prose but upon closer reading there is a lack of punctuation that forces the reader to read to a certain rhyme and rhythm.

Although I found the entire collection intriguing, one of my favorites was "Writing Lessons." "Writing Lessons" is a poem about (not to sound like a cliché) living life to the fullest. The poem begins by stating all the things there are still to do in life, "There are...still...so many books I want to read...and reread.../There are...still...so many places I want to travel...to..." and ends with this writing advice, "If I were giving advice I would say: Sing/People who sing to themselves/People who make variations on songs they know/People who teach songs to other people/These are the people other people want to be with/and that will let you be a good writer/Because/T here are...still...so many ideas to conceive."

Overall, Giovanni's collection is great not only for those who are already Giovanni fans or those who love the blues, but for anyone who loves poetry. It is not about the blues, it is about truth-telling.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Stars and then Some!, September 6, 2004

By 

Rukiya Faizah - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blues: For All the Changes: New Poems (Hardcover)

This book is just as wonderfully insightful and emotional as her works always are. Real. Life is not always about being nice and when you've spent your life in the struggle there are going to be times when you feel anger. So, to the reviewer who couldn't understand, maybe it's because you haven't known struggle. Contrary to what was stated, I didn't feel this book was based on anger but rather, as I stated before, it's just REAL.

This book begins with a poem called "The Wrong Kitchen" which talks about self-love. For those of you who know what a "kitchen" is on a black woman then you would know where she is going with it. This poem instantly became one of my favorites. It's not an angry poem but an insightful and emotional piece that is really about the conditions of society that need to be corrected. Two of my other favorite poems in this collection are "Invisible Ink" and "Truman's Baby".

This book is a great buy for any lover of poetry. Giovanni is actually the poet that inspired me to write because she knows how to lay the truth in your lap like a protected child but she also knows how to slap you in the face with truth when it needs to be done.

With that said....BUY THE BOOK!


(I also recommend: Love Poems and Black Feeling/Black Talk/Black Judgement ... all by Giovanni)

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Princess of Black Poetry does it again!, April 2, 2001

By 

thegritsdotcom "The-Girl-Reading-In-The-South... (Texas, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blues: For All the Changes: New Poems (Hardcover)

Nikki Giovanni, often referred to by fans as the "Princess of Black Poetry," is back on the scene with another brilliant collection of poems titled, BLUES FOR ALL THE CHANGES. Anyone who knows music and about the Blues in general will find all the poems in this book to be in some way a lyrical and rhythmic statement not only about this radical poet's life, but about some of the best and worst moments in Black America.

This book is divided into two main sections. The first 32 poems are called 'flatted thirds and sevenths.' Some of the poems in this section are short elliptical pieces that are hard-hitting while others are long flowing prose pieces without any punctuation --meant to be read with the natural breathing rhythm of the reader. My favorite in this section is 'Visible Ink'(p.15) This poem which starts out describing the imperfections of folks from the Bible to Hollywood is a an extension of the blues being " . . . about truth-telling." Yes, we all have imperfections, but it is through those imperfections that we learn what true living is all about. Through imperfections, real heroes arise and become the forerunners in the necessary changes we see and need in our lifetime. Other great poems in this section deals with topics that range from the Underground Railroad, civil rights, and hatred to special tributes to key people in our society like Betty Shabazz and Jackie Robinson.

The final 20 poems in this book are called 'fugue.' All of the poetry in this section depict the daily rhythm of human life coming together as we know it. These poems reflect our changing seasons, our dreams and aspirations, as well as our transient from this life to the next. This book is filled with poetry for every mood, emotion, and celebration!

Despite some critics believing that BLUES FOR ALL THE CHANGES is just another book about black anger in poetic form; or that Giovanni's opinions, though based in reality, are wrong subjective conclusions . . . I find her work representative of the emotions and ideas that many Black people have about life in this country. I believe BLUES FOR ALL THE CHANGES resonants in truth and is an excellent read for National Poetry Month!