Virginia Tech remembers Nikki Giovanni

BLACKSBURG, Va. (WDBJ) - Tributes are pouring in from across the country following the death of Nikki Giovanni, the distinguished poet and longtime professor at Virginia Tech.

She died Monday at the age of 81.

In Blacksburg, colleagues are remembering her literary and academic achievements, but also the personal side of someone they say was both larger-than-life and down-to earth.

Giovanni was already a published poet, and a well-known literary figure when she came to Virginia Tech in 1987.

She taught in Blacksburg for 35 years until her retirement in 2022, and today her photo hangs in the College of Liberal Arts among other University Distinguished Professors.

“The Hokies will always look out for each other. And I’ve loved that as I came to this community I realized that I was gaining not a job, but a family,” Giovani told WDBJ7 in 2022. “And it meant a lot to me.”

While many are paying tribute to a remarkable career and body of work, Giovanni’s colleagues in Blacksburg are remembering her as a force of nature.

Dean Laura Belmonte said nobody ever quite knew what Giovanni might say.

“And it could be something that would make you laugh until you fell off your chair, but then she might just pivot and say something or ask you a question that you thought about months later, because it just challenged you to view the world in a different way,” Belmonte said.

“Through our blood and tears, through all of this sadness, we are The Hokies. We will prevail. We will prevail. We will prevail. We are Virginia Tech,” Giovanni said on April 18, 2007 as she read a poem during a University convocation.

Giovanni’s words helped console the Virginia Tech community following the April 16th mass shooting on campus.

English Department Chair Kelly Pender said she has taught Giovanni’s poem in the years since.

“Every time I come back to it, I’m amazed at how perfectly suited it was to the situation, how powerful it was and how it speaks to tragedies well beyond the one that happened here,” Pender said.

And both women said Giovanni’s influence and absence will be felt in Blacksburg for years to come.

“No one will be able to fill Nikki’s shoes,” Pender said.

“She was truly extraordinary,” Belmonte said. “And I don’t know if there will ever be another like her.”