Maya Angelou was an American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist.

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you lot did, only people will never forget how y'all made them feel." –Dr. Maya Angelou

She published vii autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of verse, and was credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years.

Google CelebratesDr. Maya Angelou's 90th Birthday with doodle on Apr 4, 2018.

She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees.

Angelou is all-time known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early developed experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.

Maya Angelou Poems:

ane. And Nevertheless I Rise

Maya Angelou Poems

You lot may write me down in history
With your biting, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But even so, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you lot?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Crusade I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Only like hopes springing loftier,
Still I'll rising.

Did y'all want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling downwards like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you accept information technology awful hard
'Crusade I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own dorsum yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your optics,
You may impale me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll ascent.

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
Upwardly from a past that'due south rooted in hurting
I rise
I'm a blackness sea, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rising
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 rising.

2. When I Call back Most Myself

Maya Angelou Poems

When I think nigh myself,
I almost laugh myself to death,
My life has been ane corking large joke,
A dance that's walked
A song that's spoke,
I express joy so hard I almost choke
When I recall about myself.

Lx years in these folks' globe
The child I works for calls me girl
I say 'Yes ma'am' for working's sake.
Too proud to curve
Likewise poor to break,
I express joy until my stomach anguish,
When I think most myself.

My folks can make me dissever my side,
I laughed so difficult I nearly died,
The tales they tell, sound simply like lying,
They grow the fruit,
But eat the rind,
I laugh until I start to crying,
When I think about my folks.

3. Equality

Maya Angelou Poems

Yous declare yous see me dimly
through a glass which volition not polish,
though I stand before y'all boldly,
trim in rank and marking time.
You lot do own to hear me faintly
as a whisper out of range,
while my drums crush out the message
and the rhythms never change.

Equality, and I will be costless.
Equality, and I will be free.

You announce my ways are wanton,
that I wing from man to man,
but if I'thou just a shadow to you,
could y'all ever empathise ?

We have lived a painful history,
we know the shameful past,
but I keep on marching forrard,
and yous keep on coming final.

Equality, and I volition be free.
Equality, and I will be free.

Take the blinders from your vision,
take the padding from your ears,
and confess you've heard me crying,
and admit you lot've seen my tears.

Hear the tempo and so compelling,
hear the blood throb in my veins.
Yes, my drums are chirapsia nightly,
and the rhythms never modify.

Equality, and I will exist complimentary.
Equality, and I will be gratuitous.

4. Passing Time

Maya Angelou Poems

Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk

One paints the start
of a certain end.

The other, the stop of a
certain beginning.

5. Son to Mother

Maya Angelou Poems

I start no
wars, raining toxicant
on cathedrals,
melting Stars of David
into gold faucets
to be lighted by lamps
shaded by human skin.

I set no
shop on the strange lands,
ship no
missionaries beyond my
borders,
to plunder secrets
and barter souls.

They
say yous took my manhood,
Momma.
Come up sit on my lap
and tell me,
what do you desire me to say
to them, just
before I demolish
their ignorance ?

6. Caged Bird

Maya Angelou Poems

The free bird leaps
on the dorsum of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange lord's day rays
and dares to merits the heaven.

But a bird that stalks
downwardly his narrow cage
can seldom run into through
his confined of rage
his wings are clipped and
his anxiety are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his melody is heard
on the distant loma
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The gratis bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright backyard
and he names the sky his ain.

Merely a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his anxiety are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for however
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

seven. Alone

Maya Angelou Poems

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to detect my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And staff of life loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'k wrong
That nobody,
Simply nobody
Can make information technology out hither alone.

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

There are some millionaires
With coin they can't use
Their wives run circular like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
Simply nobody
No, nobody
Can arrive out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can brand it out hither alone.

Now if you mind closely
I'll tell yous what I know
Tempest clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Crusade nobody,
Simply nobody
Can make it out here alone.

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

eight. Woman Work

Maya Angelou Poems

I've got the children to tend
The dress to mend
The floor to mop
The nutrient to store
So the craven to fry
The baby to dry
I got visitor to feed
The garden to weed
I've got shirts to press
The tots to dress
The can to be cut
I gotta make clean up this hut
And so see about the sick
And the cotton wool to pick.

Shine on me, sunshine
Pelting on me, pelting
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here
With your fiercest wind
Permit me float across the heaven
'Til I tin can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakes
Comprehend me with white
Common cold icy kisses and
Permit me rest this evening.

Sun, rain, curving sky
Mountain, oceans, leafage and stone
Star shine, moon glow
Yous're all that I tin can call my own.

9. Homo Family

Maya Angelou Poems

I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of u.s. are serious,
some thrive on one-act.

Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others merits they really live
the existent reality.

The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.

I've sailed upon the 7 seas
and stopped in every land,
I've seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.

I know ten thousand women
chosen Jane and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen whatever ii
who actually were the same.

Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers retrieve quite dissimilar thoughts
while lying side by side.

We love and lose in China,
we weep on England'due south moors,
and express joy 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 we're the same.

I note the obvious differences
betwixt each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

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

Nosotros are more than alike, my friends,
than nosotros are unalike.

10.  Touched By An Affections

Maya Angelou Poems

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from please
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until dear leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Nevertheless if we are bold,
love strikes abroad the bondage of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we cartel exist brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Nonetheless information technology is only dear
which sets us free.

11. The Lesson

Maya Angelou Poems

I keep on dying again.
Veins collapse, opening similar the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Retentiveness of former tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge. The years
And cold defeat alive deep in
Lines along my face.
They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I honey to live.

12. The Traveller

Maya Angelou Poems

Byways and foretime
And lone nights long
Lord's day rays and sea waves
And star and stone

Manless and friendless
No cavern my home
This is my torture
My long nights, solitary

Maya Angelou Quotes

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people volition forget what you did, just people will never forget how you made them feel.

Nothing will work unless you do.

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my dorsum to loneliness.

If you lot don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, alter your attitude.

Nosotros delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely acknowledge the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

Dearest recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of promise

There is more to life than only increasing its speed

There's a earth of divergence between truth and facts. Facts tin can obscure the truth.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. Just anger is like fire. It burns information technology all make clean

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you tin't practice whatsoever other virtue consistently.

Yous can practice any virtue erratically, simply cipher consistently without courage.

Related:

"Do it Anyhow" – Inspirational Verse form of Mother Teresa/Kent M. Keith

Friendship Poems

Motivational Poem – Days Teach Me