Walking Down Park

Nikki Giovanni is a prominent figure in the Black Arts Movement. This movement was a response to the Harlem Renaissance, pioneered by poets such as Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, Audre Lorde, and Sonia Sanchez. Critics of the Harlem Renaissance believed that Hughes and others were writing in the style of white Americans, making their work palatable for white culture. By contrast, the proponents of the Black Arts Movement created art that spoke directly to Black Americans. They wrote in a style that incorporated slang and the so-called “street language” of African American communities.

Many poets of this movement avoided capitalization and punctuation, meant to reflect a more natural form of communication that did not conform to American academia. In “Walking Down Park,” Giovanni writes without punctuation and capitalization. This allows the language to flow without stopping and mimics informal patterns of speech or writing informally for one’s friends instead of outsiders.

The poem also addresses many issues unique to the Black community. The speaker addresses other African American people directly, using the term “you” and “we,” asking variations of “did you ever wonder” several times. When she says, “we are the stock / exchanged” (Lines 12-13), she refers to Black people brought to the United States and sold like livestock. By using the pronoun “we,” she includes herself and implies that those reading the poem are included in this category with her. This suggests that those reading may be descendants of formerly enslaved peoples, but also that African Americans are still being treated as livestock.

Other lines address the concerns of Indigenous people. The Speaker references the fact that land in the United States used to belong to the Iroquois, Algonquins, and Mohicans, among others. She suggests that, prior to colonization, Indigenous tribes accorded nature more respect than Europeans and European descendants, and that people would have been happier had the Europeans not colonized the US. Like the Indigenous peoples, European and European-descended Americans displaced African Americans.

The line “black is beautiful” (Line 56) is a clarion call from the Black Arts and Black Power Movements. Reacting against a history of oppression, African Americans, specifically women, sought to reaffirm Black beauty. They incorporated traditional dress from African cultures into their wardrobe, including Daishikis, head-wraps, etc. Many poets of the time incorporated the phrase “Black is beautiful” or similar messages in their writing. Lucille Clifton, for example, wrote multiple poems praising her hips and other parts of her body. These poems distinguished her as an African American woman embracing her beauty.