Audio Book Recommendation: Make Me Rain by Nikki Giovanni, Read by the Author

Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile’s editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. We keep our daily episodes short and sweet, with audiobook clips to give you a sample of our featured listens.

Nikki Giovanni’s slightly raspy, slightly sibilant voice draws listeners into Make Me Rain, an important collection of poetry and prose. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss Giovanni’s skill at wringing out all the humor, anger, and sorrow in her poetry. Warm tones express themes of quilts and songs and love, and her poet’s sense guides her tempo as she explores her perspectives on being Black in America. Her palpable anger recalls the death of Michael Brown in “Ferguson: the Musical,” and her heart seems to be breaking as she describes “the brother” getting up in the dark to drive to the Million Man March. Her tributes to lost loved ones are heartfelt, and she reminds listeners that “All is transition and love is forever.”

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