The poet Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, later attending Fisk University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University. Photographed here by Jack Robinson on February 17, 1970 for the People Are Talking About … feature of Vogue, while Giovanni was still working toward her M.F.A. at Columbia, she is described as a “stunning writer, funny, outraged, vivid.” Giovanni has spent most of her working life in academe and much of her writing has been inspired by black power and the civil rights movement.