may have been hard, but Nikki Giovanni took those hardships and turned them into writings that have now become famous. Nikki Giovanni is a poet with works for people of all ages. Nikki’s background of domestic abuse and the various happenings of the sixties shaped her poems. Nikki’s life was hard from the very beginning. She was born June 7, 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee to Jones, who was abusive, and Yolande Giovanni. At birth, she was known as Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Jr. As the second daughter