Poems Of Maya Angelou Quotes

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.

Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform a million realities.

When Great Trees Fall When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety. When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear. When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken. Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves. And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.

We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.

Caged Bird A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky. But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own. But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.

It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It's the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can't touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them They say they still can't see. I say, It's in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. Now you understand Just why my head's not bowed. I don't shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought to make you proud. I say, It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.

I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees.

This bed yawns beneath the weight of our absent selves.

Water isn't shaped like a river or ocean; it mists invisibly against metal and glass

Soft you day, be velvet soft, My true love approaches, Look you bright, you dusty sun, Array your golden coaches. Soft you wind, be soft as silk My true love is speaking. Hold you birds, your silver throats, His golden voice I'm seeking. Come you death, in haste, do come My shroud of black be weaving, Quiet my heart, be deathly quiet, My true love is leaving.

That kind of thinking [that writers must alleviate their guilt for leading a creative life] is based on the idea that the creative life is somehow self-indulgent. Artists and writers have to understand and live the truth that what we are doing is nourishing the world. William Carlos Williams said, "It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." You can't eat a book, right, but books have saved my life more often than sandwiches. And they've saved your life... But we don't say, oh, Maya Angelou should have silenced herself because other people have other destinies. It's interesting, because artists are always encouraged to feel guilty about their work. Why? Why don't we ask predatory bankers how they alleviate their guilt?

No,nobody but nobody can make it out her alone.

You saw me bludgeoned by circumstance. Lost, injured, hurt by chance. I screamed to the heavens....loudly screamed.... Trying to change our nightmares into dreams...

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

You have tried to destroy me and though I perish daily, I shall not be moved.

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses. Flood waters await us in our avenues. Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche Over unprotected villages. The sky slips low and grey and threatening. We question ourselves. What have we done to so affront nature? We worry God. Are you there? Are you there really? Does the covenant you made with us still hold? Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters, Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air. The world is encouraged to come away from rancor, Come the way of friendship. It is the Glad Season. Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner. Flood waters recede into memory. Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us As we make our way to higher ground. Hope is born again in the faces of children It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets. Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things, Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors. In our joy, we think we hear a whisper. At first it is too soft. Then only half heard. We listen carefully as it gathers strength. We hear a sweetness. The word is Peace. It is loud now. It is louder. Louder than the explosion of bombs. We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence. It is what we have hungered for. Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace. A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies. Security for our beloveds and their beloveds. We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas. We beckon this good season to wait a while with us. We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come. Peace. Come and fill us and our world with your majesty. We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian, Implore you, to stay a while with us. So we may learn by your shimmering light How to look beyond complexion and see community. It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time. On this platform of peace, we can create a language To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other. At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ Into the great religions of the world. We jubilate the precious advent of trust. We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope. All the earth's tribes loosen their voices To celebrate the promise of Peace. We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers, Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation. Peace, My Brother. Peace, My Sister. Peace, My Soul.

Teachers of my early youth Taught forgiveness stressed the truth Here then is my Christian lack: If I'm struck then I'll strike back.

The race of man is suffering And I can hear the moan, ‘Cause nobody, But nobody Can make it out here alone.

Will I be less dead because I wrote this poem or you more because you read it long years hence.

Sugar cane reach up to God And every baby crying Shame the blanket of my night And all my days are dying

On late evenings when quiet inhabits my garden when grass sleeps and streets are only paths for silent mist I seem to remember Smiling.

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love.

A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Mark the mastodon. The dinosaur, who left dry tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness, Have lain too long Face down in ignorance. Your mouths spelling words Armed for slaughter. The rock cries out today, you may stand on me, But do not hide your face. Across the wall of the world, A river sings a beautiful song, Come rest here by my side. Each of you a bordered country, Delicate and strangely made proud, Yet thrusting perpetually under siege. Your armed struggles for profit Have left collars of waste upon My shore, currents of debris upon my breast. Yet, today I call you to my riverside, If you will study war no more. Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs The Creator gave to me when I And the tree and stone were one. Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow And when you yet knew you still knew nothing. The river sings and sings on. There is a true yearning to respond to The singing river and the wise rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, The African and Native American, the Sioux, The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek, The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, The privileged, the homeless, the teacher. They hear. They all hear The speaking of the tree. Today, the first and last of every tree Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river. Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river. Each of you, descendant of some passed on Traveller, has been paid for. You, who gave me my first name, You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, Then forced on bloody feet, Left me to the employment of other seekers-- Desperate for gain, starving for gold. You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot... You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare Praying for a dream. Here, root yourselves beside me. I am the tree planted by the river, Which will not be moved. I, the rock, I the river, I the tree I am yours--your passages have been paid. Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need For this bright morning dawning for you. History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, Need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon The day breaking for you. Give birth again To the dream. Women, children, men, Take it into the palms of your hands. Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out upon me, The rock, the river, the tree, your country. No less to Midas than the mendicant. No less to you now than the mastodon then. Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.

dreams are petted, like cherished lap dogs misunderstood and loved too well

I met that lovely Detroit lady and thought my time had come But just before I said “I do” I said “I got to run” and started to Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, gettin to the next town Baby.

Your voice at times a fist Tight in your throat Jabs ceaselessly at phantoms In the room, Your hand a carved and Skimming boat Goes down the Nile To point out Pharaoh's tomb. You're Africa to me At brightest dawn. The Congo's green and Copper's brackish hue, A continent to build With Black Man's brawn. I sit at home and see it all Through you.

Lovers think quite different thoughts while lying side by side.

Shadows on the wall Noises down the hall Life doesn’t frighten me at all Bad dogs barking loud Big ghosts in a cloud Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

Fall gently, snowflakes Cover me with white Cold icy kisses and Let me rest tonight.

Autopsy read: dead of acute peoplelessness.

Carefully the leaves of autumn sprinkle down the tinny sound of little dyings and skies sated of ruddy sunsets of roseate dawns roil ceaselessly in cobweb grey and turn to black for comfort.

Jimmy said, "We survived slavery. Think about that. Not because we were strong. The American Indians were strong, and they were on their own land. But they have not survived genocide. You know how we survived?" I said nothing. "We put surviving into our poems and into our songs. We put it into our folk tales. We danced surviving in Congo Square in New Orleans and put it in our pots when we cooked pinto beans. We wore surviving on our backs when we clothed ourselves in the colors of the rainbow. We were pulled down so low we could hardly lift our eyes, so we knew, if we wanted to survive, we had better lift our own spirits. So we laughed whenever we got the chance.

When you learn, teach. When you get, give” “But still, like dust, I’ll rise” “I’m not on top but I call it swell if I’m able to work and get paid right...” “I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

Weeper “I hate to lose something,”  then she bent her head, “even a dime, I wish I was dead. I can't explain it. No more to be said. ‘Cept I hate to lose something. “I lost a doll once and cried for a week. She could open her eyes, and do all but speak. I believe she was took, by some doll-snatching sneak. I tell you, I hate to lose something. “A watch of mine once, got up and walked away. It had twelve numbers on it and for the time of day. I'll never forget it and all I can say Is I really hate to lose something. “Now if I felt that way ‘bout a watch and a toy, What you think I feel ‘bout my lover-boy? I ain't threatening you, madam, but he is my evening's joy. And I mean I really hate to lose something.

Several years before Maya [Angelou] went home to heaven, she penned the poem popularly known as 'When Great Trees Fall,' but properly titled 'Ailey, Baldwin, Floyd, Killens, and Mayfield,' a lyrical ode she ends this way: And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly.... Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed. Her sentiments, so often repeated, powerfully sum up what loss does to the human heart, how it lowers our heads and deepens our sorrows, and yet how, in the end, it miraculously restores us. When great trees fall, we weep in unity with the forest--and we rejoice at the legacy that lingers.

Jimmy said, "We survived slavery.... You know how we survived?" ....We put surviving into our poems and into our songs. We put it into our folk tales. We danced surviving in Congo Square in New Orleans and put it in our bots when we cooked pinto beans. We wore surviving on our backs when we clothed ourselves in the colors of the rainbow. We were pulled down so low we could hardly lift our eyes, so we knew, if we anted to survive, we better lift our own spirits. So we laughed whenever we got the chance.

Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here alone.

she’d find a hidden meaning in every pair of pants, then hurry home to be alone and write about romance

the only sure prediction in this whole world was you

If you know that youth is dying on the run and my daughter trades dope stories with your son we'd better see what all our fearing and our jeering and our crying and our lying brought about. Take Time Out.

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper. At first it is too soft. Then only half heard. We listen carefully as it gathers strength. We hear a sweetness. The word is Peace. It is loud now. Louder than the explosion of bombs.

Hope is born again in the faces of children. It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets. Hope spreads around the earth, brightening all things, Even hate, which crouches breeding indark corridors.

13. “We survive in exact relationship to the dedication of our poets,” (this page) Angelou says of Black people. Do you think that this is true of all cultures? 14. The book title is a reference to a poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Why do you think that Angelou chose this title?

Maya Angelou @DrMayaAngelou "Our Summer's gone The golden days are through The rosy dawn I used to wait with you Has turned to gray My life has turned to blue."- Maya Angelou's poem with Nancy Wilson's song "My Life Has Turned To Blue". We send our deepest condolences to the family of #NancyWilson

No Loser, No Weeper “I hate to lose something,”  then she bent her head, “even a dime, I wish I was dead. I can't explain it. No more to be said. ‘Cept I hate to lose something. “I lost a doll once and cried for a week. She could open her eyes, and do all but speak. I believe she was took, by some doll-snatching sneak. I tell you, I hate to lose something. “A watch of mine once, got up and walked away. It had twelve numbers on it and for the time of day. I'll never forget it and all I can say Is I really hate to lose something. “Now if I felt that way ‘bout a watch and a toy, What you think I feel ‘bout my lover-boy? I ain't threatening you, madam, but he is my evening's joy. And I mean I really hate to lose something.

In a Time In a time of secret wooing Today prepares tomorrow's ruin Left knows not what right is doing My heart is torn asunder. In a time of furtive sighs Sweet hellos and sad goodbyes Half-truths told and entire lies My conscience echoes thunder. In a time when kingdoms come Joy is brief as summer's fun Happiness, its race has run Then pain stalks in to plunder.

And, where white women are slapped down for daring to be sexual, women of color are slapped down for daring to be anything else: Over the course of her career, Nicki Minaj has spoken about abortion rights, the need for female musicians to write their own work, the difficulty of being an assertive woman in a business setting, and the obstacles black women face in being recognized as creative forces. She is the best-selling female rapper of all time, and her success had done a tremendous amount to awaken critical and commercial interest in female voices within a genre that was largely seen (fairly or unfairly) as a man's game before she showed up. Nicki Minaj has done everything in her power to frame herself as a thoughtful black feminist voice, up to and including staging public readings of Maya Angelou poems. And yet, approximately 89 percent of Nicki Minaj's press coverage, outside of the feminist blogosphere, tends to focus on: her butt.

Simonton finds that on average, creative geniuses weren’t qualitatively better in their fields than their peers. They simply produced a greater volume of work, which gave them more variation and a higher chance of originality. “The odds of producing an influential or successful idea,” Simonton notes, are “a positive function of the total number of ideas generated.” Consider Shakespeare: we’re most familiar with a small number of his classics, forgetting that in the span of two decades, he produced 37 plays and 154 sonnets. Simonton tracked the popularity of Shakespeare’s plays, measuring how often they’re performed and how widely they’re praised by experts and critics. In the same five-year window that Shakespeare produced three of his five most popular works—Macbeth, King Lear, and Othello—he also churned out the comparatively average Timon of Athens and All’s Well That Ends Well, both of which rank among the worst of his plays and have been consistently slammed for unpolished prose and incomplete plot and character development. In every field, even the most eminent creators typically produce a large quantity of work that’s technically sound but considered unremarkable by experts and audiences. When the London Philharmonic Orchestra chose the 50 greatest pieces of classical music, the list included six pieces by Mozart, five by Beethoven, and three by Bach. To generate a handful of masterworks, Mozart composed more than 600 pieces before his death at thirty-five, Beethoven produced 650 in his lifetime, and Bach wrote over a thousand. In a study of over 15,000 classical music compositions, the more pieces a composer produced in a given five-year window, the greater the spike in the odds of a hit. Picasso’s oeuvre includes more than 1,800 paintings, 1,200 sculptures, 2,800 ceramics, and 12,000 drawings, not to mention prints, rugs, and tapestries—only a fraction of which have garnered acclaim. In poetry, when we recite Maya Angelou’s classic poem “Still I Rise,” we tend to forget that she wrote 165 others; we remember her moving memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and pay less attention to her other 6 autobiographies. In science, Einstein wrote papers on general and special relativity that transformed physics, but many of his 248 publications had minimal impact. If you want to be original, “the most important possible thing you could do,” says Ira Glass, the producer of This American Life and the podcast Serial, “is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work.” Across fields, Simonton reports that the most prolific people not only have the highest originality; they also generate their most original output during the periods in which they produce the largest volume.* Between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, Edison pioneered the lightbulb, the phonograph, and the carbon telephone. But during that period, he filed well over one hundred patents for other inventions as diverse as stencil pens, a fruit preservation technique, and a way of using magnets to mine iron ore—and designed a creepy talking doll. “Those periods in which the most minor products appear tend to be the same periods in which the most major works appear,” Simonton notes. Edison’s “1,093 patents notwithstanding, the number of truly superlative creative achievements can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Maya Angelou’s 1992 Inauguration Day poem, “On the Pulse of Morning,” mentions the Irish, Scandinavians, blacks, women, Hispanics, Native Americans, West Indians—everyone except the ethnic group that originally created the American republic. History as diversity, then, comes to mean a “reverse exclusion”: pushing Anglo-Saxon white males and their institutions out of memory, or at least showing them to be dependent on those groups that have been subordinated to their cultural and political control.

I can't wait to read it, because I want to know how someone who was abused and raped as a child could grow up to write poems about being phenomenal when something so disgusting and humiliating has happened to her. (Kendra's words upon learning about Maya Angelou and her books I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Phenomenal Woman)

Instead, the world was listening to the new President’s undimmed fury. I remembered the late Maya Angelou reading one of her poems at Bill’s first inauguration. “Do not be wedded forever to fear, yoked eternally to brutishness,” she urged us. What would she say if she could hear this speech? Then it was done, and he was our President. “That was some weird shit,” George W. reportedly said with characteristic Texas bluntness. I couldn’t have agreed more.

I keep on dying, Because I love to live.

The Traveler Byways and bygone And lone nights long Sun rays and sea waves And star and stone Manless and friendless No cave my home This is my Torture My long nights, lone

Centered on the world's stage, she sings to her loves and beloveds, to her foes and detractors: However I am perceived and deceived, however my ignorance and conceits, lay aside your fears that I will be undone, for I shall not be moved.

Use a minute feel some sorrow for the folks who think tomorrow is a place that they can call up on the phone. Take a month and show some kindness for the folks who thought that blindness was an illness that affected eyes alone.

Black women - the world knows that we are strong because our strength is legendary. We are Harriet Tubman, Michelle Obama, and Rosa Parks. We are Oprah Winfrey, Nanny, and Mae Jameson. We are Shirley Chisholm, Portia Simpson and Maya Angelou. We have birthed a nation, rescued slaves, built empires, traveled to space and written our place in history. Survival is not enough; we were built to rise.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try to understand each other, we may even become friends: Maya Angelou, Passports to Understanding

Last year changed its seasons subtly, stripped its sultry winds for the reds of dying leaves, let gelid drips of winter ice melt onto a warming earth and urged the dormant bulbs to brave the pain of spring. We, loving, above the whim of time, did not notice. Alone. I remember now.

Here's to Adhering I went to a party out in Hollywood, The atmosphere was shoddy but the drinks were good, and that's where I heard you laugh. I then went cruising on an old Greek ship, The crew was amusing but the guests weren't hip, that's where I found your hands. On to the Sahara in a caravan, The sun struck like an arrow but the nights were grand, and that's how I found your chest. An evening in the Congo where the Congo ends, I found myself alone, oh but I made some friends, that's where I saw your face. I have been devoting all my time to get Parts of you out floating still unglued as yet. Won't you pull yourself together For Me ONCE

Tears The crystal rags Viscous tatters of a worn-through soul. Moans Deep swan song Blue farewell of a dying dream.

I love the book and the look of words the weight of ideas that popped into my mind I love the tracks of new thinking in my mind.

One More Round There ain’t no pay beneath the sun As sweet as rest when a job’s well done. I was born to work up to my grave But I was not born To be a slave. One more round And let’s heave it down, One more round And let’s heave it down. Papa drove steel and Momma stood guard, I never heard them holler ’cause the work was hard. They were born to work up to their graves But they were not born To be worked-out slaves. One more round And let’s heave it down, One more round And let’s heave it down. Brothers and sisters know the daily grind, It was not labor made them lose their minds. They were born to work up to their graves But they were not born To be worked-out slaves. One more round And let’s heave it down, One more round And let’s heave it down. And now I’ll tell you my Golden Rule, I was born to work but I ain’t no mule. I was born to work up to my grave But I was not born To be a slave. One more round And let’s heave it down, One more round And let’s heave it down.