A Virginia Tech professor and renowned poet, she brought the house down Tuesday with a staccato, 90-second sermonette that raised the hair on your neck.

Giovanni began:

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 tirelessly

We are brave enough to bend to cry

And sad enough to know we must laugh again

We are Virginia Tech

And she concluded:

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