What does the poem “Choices” by Nikki Giovanni mean?
Choices is actually a double-edged poem…it does have to do with choices, but it actually talks about choices when you don’t really have the choices you believe you should have…it has to do with dealing with the fact that the only real choices you may have are between things that you didn’t really want in the first place…because your “real” choice is not available to you. It speaks of the underlying angst of being both black and female in a white man’s world. “The Drum” deals with how she will handle a world “tight and hard” like a drum…as defined by her father, to whom she says she’ll simply “beat out my own rhythm”…meaning that she can’t change the way the world is, but she will do what she can with what she has and it will be enough.
