Love Poems

October 15, 1996
A "best-selling poet" seems a contradiction in terms, but Giovanni's been there, done that. Here, she offers some old favorites as well as 20 new poems.

January 1, 1997
In one way or another, love shapes most of Giovanni's smart, to-the-point, and emotionally candid poems, but it's wonderful to have a volume devoted strictly to her love poems, especially since it contains 20 new compositions. Giovanni is one of America's most popular poets, because she speaks her mind clearly and has such a good time doing it. As she writes in "A Poem: For Langston Hughes": "wool is sheared . . . silk is spun / weaving is hard . . . but words are fun," a sentiment she brings to rich fruition in her more playful poems, rhyming wonders reminiscent of old blues lyrics where every line is a double entendre, the sort of hand-on-your-hip songs Bessie Smith and Dinah Washington sashayed and smiled their way through. But Giovanni turns more somber and reflective as she expresses the love of a daughter and mother, and a woman's deep-down love for a man that far outlasts the giddy romp of romance. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)