Ego Tripping

http://nikki-giovanni.com/page_51.shtml
Did I say I had a favorite already? That must have been a couple of poems ago, but I must say that Nikki Giovanni’s Ego Tripping, has certainly got me tripping! I mean it is hard to believe that nine stanzas could hold so much detail and meaning. Personally I had to read it a couple of times to realize just who exactly she wanted the targeting audience to be. Then I realized that Giovanni’s audience in this poem was actually herself! In this poem Nikki references a spiritual allusion. She uses words such as: throne, Allah, nile, and Jesus to explain her spiritual reincarnation into a “beautiful woman.” In the sixth stanza, Nikki writes “I turned myself into myself and was Jesus.” Like many others after reading this poem you since a hint of idiocy from the speaker, however; she is not trying to take Jesus’s place. Giovanni is implying that she found a new closeness within herself (that is similar to that of God and Jesus as they can sometimes be viewed as one) that has changed her into a divine woman. She has created a new being that is to be seen from the outside and the inside as well. Ego Tripping introduces the supernatural which in this case the speaker wants to bring to life as opposed to just talking about it. This radical poem can be viewed in many different ways but the theme finds comfort within the very last stanza. “I mean…I … can fly like a bird in the sky.” This simile ties the entire poem together. As she comforts herself through reassurance that she is new, the etc. punctuation suggests that she is second guessing her reincarnation of her new self. Finally she decides that she is new and everlasting like a bird soaring in the sky. Being that she didn’t suggest a land animal, it recommends that she feels majestic and glorious as if no one can bring her down.