THE COLLECTED POETRY OF NIKKI GIOVANNI will include the complete volumes of five adult books of poetry: Black Feeling Black Talk/Black Judgement, My House, The Women, and the Men, Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day, and Those Who Ride the Night Winds.

Nikki published her first book Black Feeling, Black Talk/BlackJudgement in 1969, selling 10,000 copies; William Morrow published in 1970. Know for its iconic revolutionary phrases, it is heralded as one of the most important volumes of modern African– American poetry and is considered the seminal volume of Nikki's body of work.