In her prose poem, “Toni Morrison,” Nikki Giovanni imagines cooking a “Toni Morrison stew.” Among its ingredients are the heightened contradictions that characterize her novels: An exotic mix of tears ...

Nadine, Toni Morrison’s housekeeper, opens the door and lets us in. Morrison is not yet ready to receive us, so we wait upstairs in the living room, where Morrison has said, “make yourselves at home.” ...