Maya Angelou

1928-2014 / Female / American

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Essential Poems

A compact first path through Angelou's public voice, resilience, humor, love, labor, and witness.

Rising, Freedom, and Public Voice

Freedom, dignity, public occasion, refusal, survival, and poems built for communal uplift.

Love, Memory, and Kinship

Love, touch, remembrance, aging, family feeling, passing time, and intimate address.

Work, Humor, and Witness

Work, appetite, humor, poverty, sleeplessness, testimony, and Angelou's social eye.

I know why the caged bird singsA free bird leaps on the back / Of the wind and floats downstream / Till the current ends and dips h

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207.1k

Old Folks laughThey have spent their / content of simpering, / holding their lips this / and that way, winding / th

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28k

The Health-Food DinerNo sprouted wheat and soya shoots / And Brussels in a cake, / Carrot straw and spinach raw, / (Today

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21.8k

Still I RiseYou may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies, / You may trod me in the very dir

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17.5k

Phenomenal WomanPretty women wonder where my secret lies. / I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size / B

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17.4k

RefusalBeloved, / In what other lives or lands / Have I known your lips / Your Hands / Your Laughter brave

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15.1k

AloneLying, thinking / Last night / How to find my soul a home / Where water is not thirsty / And bread l

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12.6k

Touched by An AngelWe, unaccustomed to courage / exiles from delight / live coiled in shells of loneliness / until love

2m

10.8k

Woman WorkI've got the children to tend / The clothes to mend / The floor to mop / The food to shop / Then the

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10.1k

RemembranceYour hands easy / weight, teasing the bees / hived in my hair, your smile at the / slope of my cheek

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9.5k

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