Nikki Rose

Barrios Pg.1

Maciel Barrios

Professor Perry-Steward

English 1101

September 10, 2014

Rhetorical Reader’s Response

Nikki Giovanni in the poem, Nikki-Rose, asserts that everyone has their only view of happiness. Giovanni supports her assertions by defining her meaning of happiness. The author’s purpose is to inform the people of her happiness in her childhood so that the people who are looking from the outside know her perspective. The author writes in various tones, at times she is formal and also humorous, for everyone.

Giovanni start of explaining how much of a drag childhood was if you were black. I understood what she was talking about as she began describing the Woodlawn with no toilet, the big tubs, and her father’s pain. At the moment I felt sympathy for her, but at I kept reading it all made sense. She did not really mean that’s what she felt but that people of other monetary statues thought. Other people could not understand but she was happy throughout all this events.

        As everyone thought her life was hard, yet she actually was very happy. “Black love is Black wealth” She used this metaphor to say that, as long as she had her family, she was wealthy in happiness. This made me think of how I grew up. We did not have a lot of money but as long as we were in family everybody was happy.