A Study Guide for Nikki Giovanni's "Winter"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Nikki Giovanni's "Winter," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535843164

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Winter

Nikki Giovanni

1978

Introduction

Nikki Giovanni's poem Winter was published in 1978 and included in her eighth poetry collection, Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day. Winter is a twelve-line, three stanza, free verse poem, with no punctuation or rhyme scheme. For the most part, the poems in Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day are about isolation and loneliness. They were written after the civil rights movement of the 1960s and early 1970s appeared to have failed and efforts to secure autonomy and equal rights for African Americans seemed to be stalled. In Winter, however, Giovanni looks toward the future and turns her back on the past. The allegory of preparing for the winter cold is a reminder that African Americans should also be prepared for whatever might happen next in their struggle for equal rights. Winter also suggests the promise of a new beginning and a better world to emerge from the civil rights struggle. Winter is included in both The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni (1996) and The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (2007).

Author Biography

Born Yolanda Cornelia Giovanni on June 7, 1943, Nikki Giovanni grew up in Lincoln Heights, a predominately black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, although she frequently visited Knoxville, Tennessee, the city of her birth and the home of her grandparents. When she was fourteen, Giovanni moved back to Knoxville to live with her maternal grandparents. Giovanni enrolled at Fisk University after her junior year at Austin High School, under an early admission policy, but was expelled at the end of her first semester when she left campus to visit her grandparents at Thanksgiving. After a new dean of women replaced the one who had expelled her, Giovanni returned to Fisk. She graduated with honors in 1967, with a degree in history. After graduation, Giovanni moved back to Cincinnati. When her grandmother died only