Lessons for the End of the World

I’d like to think that Nikki Giovanni would have forgiven me for misleading the seemingly oblivious white proprietor of a small bookshop in the Northeast two years ago. There were no books by Black women in the store’s poetry section except for one volume, which was so slim that you might have missed it if you weren’t paying the kind of close attention that comes when you’re in disbelief about the monochromatic nature of a selection of books. The book, Giovanni’s “Black Judgement,” was, in its original form, more of a chapbook than anything, the pages stapled together, the bound volume lacking a spine with language on it that might signal to seekers that they have uncovered it. And this is one miracle of paying close attention, even if that close attention is brought on by bewilderment—the miracle of, very literally, not knowing what you are looking for until you find it. A pamphlet of poems published in 1968, “Black Judgement” is among the earliest and most revolutionary works by Giovanni, who died in December, at the age of eighty-one. The first edition, dark brown with illustrations of Black men on the cover, is rare. In an interview once, Giovanni said that she wrote it for her mother, because she thought that it might be the only book she’d ever write. This sentiment was something I understood. I admire writers who believe they will write an infinite number of books, but I don’t relate to them.