Lament After/During Tragedy

Nikki Giovanni, poet, writer, commentator, activist and educator, died this week at age 81.

She had a long and illustrious writing, teaching and activist career.

She was University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech until she retired on September 1, 2022.

She leaves behind her wife, Virginia Fowler, and one child.

The Virginia Tech mass shooting occurred on April 16, 2007. 32 people were killed, 23 others were wounded or injured.

At a memorial gathering held the next day, Giovanni spoke.

Here is what she said, giving space for sorrow, grief and injustice.

Perhaps these words will touch you in any grief you experience.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are sad today and we will be sad for quite a while.

We are not moving on; we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly;

We are brave enough to bend to cry

And sad enough to know we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does the child in Africa dying of AIDS; neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army; neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory; neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water; neither does a Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hand to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness. We are the Hokies.

We will prevail!

We will prevail!

We will prevail!

We are Virginia Tech.