Angelou - I Shall Not Be Moved

And Still I Rise
Gather Together in My Name
The Heart of a Woman
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water fore I Diiie
Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well
Singin and Swingin and Gettin Merry Like Christmas
Shaker, Why Dont You Sing?
All Gods Children Need Traveling Shoes
On the Pulse of Morning
Wouldnt Take Nothing for My Journey Now
The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou
Phenomenal Woman
A Brave and Startling Truth Copyright 1990 by Maya Angelou All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Angelou, Maya.
I shall not be moved / by Maya Angelou.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-80207-1
I. Title.
PS 3551. N 464I17 1990
811.54dc20 89-43550 Random House website address: http://www.randomhouse.com/ v3.1 VIVIAN BAXTER
MILDRED GARRIS TUTTLE The way a poem looks on the page is a vital aspect of its being.

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Big ships shudder down to the sea because of me Railroads run on a twinness track cause of my back Whoppa, Whoppa Whoppa, Whoppa Cars stretch to a super length cause of my strength Planes fly high over seas and lands cause of my hands Whoppa, Whoppa Whoppa, Whoppa I wake start the factory humming I work late keep the whole world running and I got something something coming coming. Whoppa Whoppa Whoppa I note the obvious differences in the human family.

Some of us are serious, some thrive on comedy. Some declare their lives are lived as true profundity, and others claim they really live the real reality. The variety of our skin tones can confuse, bemuse, delight, brown and pink and beige and purple, tan and blue and white. Ive sailed upon the seven seas and stopped in every land, Ive seen the wonders of the world, not yet one common man. I know ten thousand women called Jane and Mary Jane, but Ive not seen any two who really were the same. Mirror twins are different although their features jibe, and lovers think quite different thoughts while lying side by side.

We love and lose in China, we weep on Englands moors, and laugh and moan in Guinea, and thrive on Spanish shores. We seek success in Finland, are born and die in Maine. In minor ways we differ, in major were the same. I note the obvious differences between each sort and type, but we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.

The man who is a bigot is the worst thing God has got, except his match, his woman, who really is Ms. Begot. They have spent their content of simpering, holding their lips this and that way, winding the lines between their brows. They have spent their content of simpering, holding their lips this and that way, winding the lines between their brows.

Old folks allow their bellies to jiggle like slow tamborines. The hollers rise up and spill over any way they want. When old folks laugh, they free the world. They turn slowly, slyly knowing the best and worst of remembering. Saliva glistens in the corners of their mouths, their heads wobble on brittle necks, but their laps are filled with memories.

Midwives and winding sheets know birthing is hard and dying is mean and livings a trial in between. Midwives and winding sheets know birthing is hard and dying is mean and livings a trial in between.

Why do we journey, muttering like rumors among the stars? Is a dimension lost? Is it love?

Take me, Virginia, bind me close with Jamestown memories of camptown races and ships pregnant with certain cargo and Richmond riding high on greed and low on tedious tides of guilt. But take me on, Virginia, loose your turban of flowers that peach petals and dogwood bloom may form epaulettes of white tenderness on my shoulders and round my head ringlets of forgiveness, poignant as rolled eyes, sad as summer parasols in a hurricane. A series of small, on their own insignificant, occurrences. Salt lost half its savor. Two yellow-striped bumblebees got lost in my hair. When I freed them they droned away into the afternoon.

At the clinic the nurses face was half pity and part pride. I was not glad for the news. Then I thought I heard you call, and I, running like water, headed for the railroad track. It was only the Baltimore and the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe. Small insignificancies.

Listening winds overhear my privacies spoken aloud (in your absence, but for your sake).

When you, mustachioed, nutmeg-brown lotus, sit beside the Oberlin shoji. My thoughts are particular: of your light lips and hungry hands writing Tai Chi urgencies into my body. I leap, float, run to spring cool springs into your embrace. Then we match grace. This girl, neither feather nor fan, drifted and tossed. Power.

You declare you see me dimly through a glass which will not shine, though I stand before you boldly, trim in rank and marking time. You declare you see me dimly through a glass which will not shine, though I stand before you boldly, trim in rank and marking time.

You do own to hear me faintly as a whisper out of range, while my drums beat out the message and the rhythms never change. Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free. You announce my ways are wanton, that I fly from man to man, but if Im just a shadow to you, could you ever understand? We have lived a painful history, we know the shameful past, but I keep on marching forward, and you keep on coming last. Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free.

Take the blinders, from your vision, take the padding from your ears, and confess youve heard me crying, and admit youve seen my tears. Hear the tempo so compelling, hear the blood throb in my veins. Yes, my drums are beating nightly, and the rhythms never change. Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free.

Coleridge Jackson had nothing to fear.

He weighed sixty pounds more than his sons and one hundred pounds more than his wife. His neighbors knew he wouldnt take tea for the fever. The gents at the poolroom walked gently in his presence. So everyone used to wonder why, when his puny boss, a little white bag of bones and squinty eyes, when he frowned at Coleridge, sneered at the way Coleridge shifted a ton of canned goods from the east wall of the warehouse all the way to the west, when that skimpy piece of man-meat called Coleridge a sorry nigger, Coleridge kept his lips closed, sealed, jammed tight. Wouldnt raise his eyes, held his head at a slant, looking way off somewhere else. Everybody in the neighborhood wondered why Coleridge would come home, pull off his jacket, take off his shoes, and beat the water and the will out of his puny little family.