Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women Read online

  Copyright © 1978, 1983, 1990, 1994 by Maya Angelou

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  “Phenomenal Woman” and “Still I Rise” were originally published in And Still I Rise (Random House, Inc., 1978). “Weekend Glory” was originally published in Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? (Random House, Inc., 1983). “Our Grandmothers” was originally published in I Shall Not Be Moved (Random House, Inc, 1990).

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Angelou, Maya.

  Phenomenal woman : four poems celebrating women /

  Maya Angelou.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-80762-5

  I. Women—Poetry. I. Title.

  PS3551.N464P48 1995

  811′.54—dc20 94-27042

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Phenomenal Woman

  Still I Rise

  Weekend Glory

  Our Grandmothers

  Dedication

  About the Author

  PHENOMENAL WOMAN

  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 for my care.

  ’Cause I’m a woman

  Phenomenally.

  Phenomenal woman,

  That’s me.

  STILL I RISE

  You may write me down in history

  With your bitter, twisted lies,

  You may trod me in the very dirt

  But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

  Does my sassiness upset you?

  Why are you beset with gloom?

  ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

  Pumping in my living room.

  Just like moons and like suns,

  With the certainty of tides,

  Just like hopes springing high,

  Still I’ll rise.

  Did you want to see me broken?

  Bowed head and lowered eyes?

  Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

  Weakened by my soulful cries.

  Does my haughtiness offend you?

  Don’t you take it awful hard

  ’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

  Diggin’ in my own backyard.

  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.

  Does my sexiness upset you?

  Does it come as a surprise

  That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

  At the meeting of my thighs?

  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.

  WEEKEND GLORY

  Some dichty folks

  don’t know the facts,

  posin’ and preenin’

  and puttin’ on acts,

  stretchin’ their necks

  and strainin’ their backs.

  They move into condos

  up over the ranks,

  pawn their souls

  to the local banks.

  Buyin’ big cars

  they can’t afford,

  ridin’ around town

  actin’ bored.

  If they want to learn how to live life right,

  they ought to study me on Saturday night.

  My job at the plant

  ain’t the biggest bet,

  but I pay my bills

  and stay out of debt.

  I get my hair done

  for my own self’s sake,

  so I don’t have to pick

  and I don’t have to rake.

  Take the church money out

  and head cross town

  to my friend girl’s house

  where we plan our round.

  We meet our men and go to a joint

  where the music is blues

  and to the point.

  Folks write about me.

  They just can’t see

  how I work all week

  at the factory.

  Then get spruced up

  and laugh and dance

  And turn away from worry

  with sassy glance.

  They accuse me of livin’

  from day to day,

  but who are they kiddin’?

  So are they.

  My life ain’t heaven

  but it sure ain’t hell.

  I’m not on top

  but I call it swell

  if I’m able to work

  and get paid right

  and have the luck to be Black

  on a Saturday night.

  OUR GRANDMOTHERS

  She lay, skin down on the moist dirt,

  the canebrake rustling

  with the whispers of leaves, and

  loud longing of hounds and

  the ransack of hunters crackling the near

  branches.

  She muttered, lifting
her head a nod toward

  freedom,

  I shall not, I shall not be moved.

  She gathered her babies,

  their tears slick as oil on black faces,

  their young eyes canvassing mornings of madness.

  Momma, is Master going to sell you

  from us tomorrow?

  Yes.

  Unless you keep walking more

  and talking less.

  Yes.

  Unless the keeper of our lives

  releases me from all commandments.

  Yes.

  And your lives,

  never mine to live,

  will be executed upon the killing floor of

  innocents.

  Unless you match my heart and words,

  saying with me,

  I shall not be moved.

  In Virginia tobacco fields,

  leaning into the curve

  of Steinway

  pianos, along Arkansas roads,

  in the red hills of Georgia,

  into the palms of her chained hands, she

  cried against calamity,

  You have tried to destroy me

  and though I perish daily,

  I shall not be moved.

  Her universe, often

  summarized into one black body

  falling finally from the tree to her feet,

  made her cry each time in a new voice.

  All my past hastens to defeat,

  and strangers claim the glory of my love,

  Iniquity has bound me to his bed,

  yet, I must not be moved.

  She heard the names,

  swirling ribbons in the wind of history:

  nigger, nigger bitch, heifer,

  mammy, property, creature, ape, baboon,

  whore, hot tail, thing, it.

  She said, But my description cannot

  fit your tongue, for

  I have a certain way of being in this world,

  and I shall not, I shall not be moved.

  No angel stretched protecting wings

  above the heads of her children,

  fluttering and urging the winds of reason

  into the confusion of their lives.

  They sprouted like young weeds,

  but she could not shield their growth

  from the grinding blades of ignorance, nor

  shape them into symbolic topiaries.

  She sent them away,

  underground, overland, in coaches and

  shoeless.

  When you learn, teach.

  When you get, give.

  As for me,

  I shall not be moved.

  She stood in midocean, seeking dry land.

  She searched God’s face.

  Assured,

  she placed her fire of service

  on the altar, and though

  clothed in the finery of faith,

  when she appeared at the temple door,

  no sign welcomed

  Black Grandmother. Enter here.

  Into the crashing sound,

  into wickedness, she cried,

  No one, no, nor no one million

  ones dare deny me God. I go forth

  alone, and stand as ten thousand.

  The Divine upon my right

  impels me to pull forever

  at the latch on Freedom’s gate.

  The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my

  feet without ceasing into the camp of the

  righteous and into the tents of the free.

  These momma faces, lemon-yellow, plum-

  purple,

  honey-brown, have grimaced and twisted

  down a pyramid of years.

  She is Sheba and Sojourner,

  Harriet and Zora,

  Mary Bethune and Angela,

  Annie to Zenobia.

  She stands

  before the abortion clinic,

  confounded by the lack of choices.

  In the Welfare line,

  reduced to the pity of handouts.

  Ordained in the pulpit, shielded

  by the mysteries.

  In the operating room,

  husbanding life.

  In the choir loft,

  holding God in her throat.

  On lonely street corners,

  hawking her body.

  In the classroom, loving the

  children to understanding.

  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.

  I dedicate this book

  to the memory of my mother,

  Vivian Baxter,

  the most phenomenal.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MAYA ANGELOU has written five volumes of autobiography, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She has also published five collections of poetry: And Still I Rise; Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’fore I Diiie; Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well; Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?; and I Shall Not Be Moved; as well as On the Pulse of Morning, the poem she read at the inauguration of President Clinton. All of her poetry has been brought together in The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou.

 

 

  Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women

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