Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for Nikki Giovanni's "The World is Not a Pleasant Place to Be"
    A Study Guide for Nikki Giovanni's "The World is Not a Pleasant Place to Be"
    A Study Guide for Nikki Giovanni's "The World is Not a Pleasant Place to Be"
    Ebook39 pages28 minutes

    A Study Guide for Nikki Giovanni's "The World is Not a Pleasant Place to Be"

    By Gale and Cengage

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Nikki Giovanni's "The World is Not a Pleasant Place to Be," 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 28, 2016
    ISBN9781535840675
    A Study Guide for Nikki Giovanni's "The World is Not a Pleasant Place to Be"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for Nikki Giovanni's "The World is Not a Pleasant Place to Be"

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Do You Remember? John Denver

      Sep 24, 2021

      Do You Remember? John Denver
      5 min read

    • Article

      Where Is Poetry Now?

      Aug 15, 2018

      Where Is Poetry Now?
      6 min read

    • Article

      Poet W.S. Merwin Dies at 91

      Mar 15, 2019

      Poet W.S. Merwin Dies at 91
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters From W. S. Merwin

      Mar 25, 2019

      Letters From W. S. Merwin
      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘First Lady Of Indigenous Music’: Buffy Sainte-Marie On Her Storied Career

      Nov 21, 2022

      Buffy Sainte-Marie believes that successful persuasion requires two ingredients: love and patience.  When the Indigenous songwriter wrote the 1964 anti-war song “Universal Soldier,” she imagined how a college student might write an essay to sway a pr

      3 min read

    • Article

      Can a Myth Grow Up?: The Poet Frank Stanford at Second Sight

      Apr 18, 2019

      The real question about the cult-hero of American poetry has now become: “What are we gonna do with this motherfucker?” The post Can a Myth Grow Up?: The Poet Frank Stanford at Second Sight appeared first on The Millions.

      15 min read

    • Article

      A Q&A With Joy Harjo, Poet Laureate Of The United States

      Apr 1, 2020

      The first Native American poet laureate talks about hearing the collective heart of the country, and the importance of listening.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Beyond hot

      Feb 7, 2020

      Beyond hot
      9 min read

    • Article

      Dazed 100

      Jun 1, 2021

      Dazed 100
      5 min read

    • Article

      Fist Full Of Love

      May 26, 2023

      Fist Full Of Love
      5 min read

    • Article

      Get To Know Australia’s Eurovision 2020 Entry Montaigne!

      Feb 16, 2020

      HER REAL NAME IS Jessica Alyssa Cerro HER STAGE NAME MONTAIGNE IS based on 16th century philosopher Michel de Montaigne SHE WAS BORN IN the Hills District in Western Sydney in 1995 SHE WAS SIGNED TO Albert Music records at the age of 16 after u

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Rooming House

      Jun 15, 2023

      I began writing The Rooming House on a camper van odyssey through a remote part of Australia in 2009. No matter where we pulled in for the night, there was an internet connection. Everyone we knew, wherever they were in the world, could be contacted.

      2 min read

    • Article

      The real Yoko

      Feb 16, 2024

      The real Yoko
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Herd word

      Jan 7, 2020

      The Herd word
      17 min read

    • Article

      The Poem Chooses You

      Feb 14, 2018

      The Poem Chooses You
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Poem Chooses You

      Feb 7, 2018

      The Poem Chooses You
      10 min read

    • Article

      Dylan Songs For Life

      Apr 30, 2021

      Dylan Songs For Life
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for Nikki Giovanni's "The World is Not a Pleasant Place to Be"

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Nikki Giovanni's "The World is Not a Pleasant Place to Be" - Gale

      13

      The World Is Not a Pleasant Place to Be

      Nikki Giovanni

      1972

      Introduction

      Nikki Giovanni's poem The World Is Not a Pleasant Place to Be was first included in her collection of poems about love, home, and family titled My House, published in 1972. The World Is Not a Pleasant Place to Be appears in a section labeled The Rooms Inside. Its placement in this section suggests that Giovanni intends for the poem to be linked to home and safety. At the time that Giovanni was writing the poem, the Vietnam War was still three years from ending. The late 1960s and early 1970s had been years of tumultuous protests over the war, amid demands for civil rights for all Americans. Focusing on the need for love, the poem is a counter to the turmoil that was occurring outside the home and is a reminder of the importance of love and home as a place of sanctuary.

      The World Is Not a Pleasant Place to Be is a thirteen-line, four-stanza, free-verse poem with no punctuation or rhyme scheme. Since Giovanni eschews periods, commas, and other forms of punctuation, there are no pauses or places for the reader to stop and catch a breath, which contributes to the natural songlike quality that is true of much of her poetry. Here, Giovanni uses metaphors from nature to illustrate the need for love. The central theme in this short poem is that without love and someone to love, life would be lonely; to be held by another makes the world a safer and happier place in which to live. The World Is Not a Pleasant Place to Be is included in The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (2003).

      Author Biography

      Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, named after her mother, was born on June 7, 1943, and grew up in Lincoln Heights, a predominantly African American suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, although she frequently visited Knoxville, Tennessee, the city of her birth and the home of her grandparents. Her older sister gave her the nickname Nikki. Giovanni enrolled at Fisk University after her junior year at Austin High School under an early-admission policy, but she was expelled at the end of her first semester when she left campus to visit her grandparents over Thanksgiving. After a new dean of women replaced the one who had expelled her, Giovanni returned to Fisk.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1