For more than fifty years, Nikki Giovanni's poetry has dazzled and inspired readers. When she first emerged from the Black Arts Movement in the late 1960s, she immediately became one of the most celebrated and controversial poets of the era. Considered a living legend, this is the first new Selected since the late nineties, and offers readers a chance to be introduced to and to celebrate her incredible lifetime's work.

Arranged chronologically, Giovanni's poetry speaks from and to the Black experience, with Black love, Black struggle and Black joy at the centre. The selection charts a full half-century of American life, touching on mothers and motherhood, great loves, death, dreams and revolution, showing Giovanni at her essential, profound best.