When she rose to speak and read her poetry she looked out over a crowd that packed the atrium at the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County.

        All 300 seats claimed, with another couple of hundred people standing.

Acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni returned home to Cincinnati to speak and recite poetry at the Main Library downtown. (Tony Jones photo) | ZOOM |

        “It's good to be home,” Nikki Giovanni told them. “This is home.”

        Ms. Giovanni, the acclaimed poet who grew up in Lincoln Heights and now teaches at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va., kicked off Black History Month at the library with a poetry reading and remarks Saturday afternoon at the downtown library.

        Before a crowd that library officials said was one of the largest they've ever had for an author, Ms. Giovanni talked about:

        • Working at Walgreens as a young woman.

        • Her affinity for Skyline Chili.

        • How she doesn't do e-mails.

        • The moral authority and commitment of Rosa Parks.

        • How she imagines the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. if he were alive today, complete with tattoo — “Freedom Now” — and perhaps his hair in braids.

        She made only a passing reference to the spring and summer of violence in Cincinnati, but in an interview three days ago she talked about the April shooting of an unarmed Timothy Thomas by a Cincinnati police officer and the subsequent riot.

NIKKI GIOVANNI

• Yolanda Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni, born in 1943 in Knoxville, Tenn. Nicknamed “Nikki” by an older sibling.     • Her family moved to Cincinnati shortly after, and she grew up moving back and forth between the two cities. In Cincinnati, she lived in Lincoln Heights.     • Ms. Giovanni has written over a dozen books of poetry since 1967, and has also produced five books of prose, six children's books and has edited four anthologies.     • She has received numerous awards, including honorary doctorates. The New York Times called her the “Black Princess of Poetry.”     • Ms. Giovanni taught creative writing at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Delhi Township from 1985 to 1987.     • She has been an English professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va., for the past 15 years.

        “No people, not black people or any other, can allow an unarmed man to be shot down without reacting,” Ms. Giovanni said.

        “Any city is going to have an explosion when you cut off the voice of the people. Now we need to start rebuilding the neighborhoods, get some jobs and things will work out. We've put a lot of money downtown. We need to concentrate a little more on the neighborhoods. It'll make us stronger.

        “I think it would be helpful if people understood the corner that the black community was backed into. Someone needs to say we're really sorry this happened. And if we could do it over again, we wouldn't do it. That's a big help to a community trying to heal. “Somebody more responsible than a poet needs to say that.”

        But, Ms. Giovanni said, what happened doesn't diminish her belief that Cincinnati is better than most cities. She calls it a “world-class city,” a place she feels comfortable when returning.

        She loves Skyline Chili and enjoys shopping for jack salmon at Findlay Market.

        She tries to make it in for the ATP tennis tournament each year.

        “I'm 58 years old,” she said. “I've been in Cincinnati the overwhelming majority of my life, off and on for 35 years. It is totally home. We have burial plots at Spring Grove Cemetery. Anything that's important to me is going to happen in Cincinnati.”

        Ms. Giovanni read several poems in the hour-long program Saturday. The library gift shop sold out of her works, about 70 copies of three different books of poetry.

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