Maya Angelou
Essential Poems
A compact first path through Angelou's public voice, resilience, humor, love, labor, and witness.
I know why the caged bird sings
A free bird leaps on the back
/
Of the wind and floats downstream
/
Till the current ends and dips h
Maya Angelou
2m
1
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
/
With your bitter, twisted lies,
/
You may trod me in the very dir
Maya Angelou
3m
2
Phenomenal Woman
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
/
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
/
B
Maya Angelou
4m
3
Woman Work
I've got the children to tend
/
The clothes to mend
/
The floor to mop
/
The food to shop
/
Then the
Maya Angelou
2m
4
Old Folks laugh
They have spent their
/
content of simpering,
/
holding their lips this
/
and that way, winding
/
th
Maya Angelou
2m
5
Alone
Lying, thinking
/
Last night
/
How to find my soul a home
/
Where water is not thirsty
/
And bread l
Maya Angelou
2m
6
Refusal
Beloved,
/
In what other lives or lands
/
Have I known your lips
/
Your Hands
/
Your Laughter brave
Maya Angelou
1m
7
Touched by An Angel
We, unaccustomed to courage
/
exiles from delight
/
live coiled in shells of loneliness
/
until love
Maya Angelou
2m
8
Men
When I was young, I used to
/
Watch behind the curtains
/
As men walked up and down the street. Wino
Maya Angelou
3m
9
The Lesson
I keep on dying again.
/
Veins collapse, opening like the
/
Small fists of sleeping
/
Children.
/
Me
Maya Angelou
1m
10
The Rock Cries Out to Us Today
A Rock, A River, A Tree
/
Hosts to species long since departed,
/
Mark the mastodon.
/
The dinosaur,
Maya Angelou
7m
11
The Health-Food Diner
No sprouted wheat and soya shoots
/
And Brussels in a cake,
/
Carrot straw and spinach raw,
/
(Today
Maya Angelou
2m
12
End of Essential Poems
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