And Still I Rise - A Book Of Poems

Maya Angelou´s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS´s American Masters. 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. Thus begins "Phenomenal Woman," just one of the beloved poems collected here in Maya Angelou´s third book of verse. These poems are powerful, distinctive, and fresh--and, as always, full of the lifting rhythms of love and remembering. And Still I Rise is written from the heart, a celebration of life as only Maya Angelou has discovered it. "It is true poetry she is writing," M.F.K. Fisher has observed, "not just rhythm, the beat, rhymes. I find it very moving and at times beautiful. It has an innate purity about it, unquenchable dignity. . . . It is astounding, flabbergasting, to recognize it, in all the words I read every day and night . . . it gives me heart, to hear so clearly the caged bird singing and to understand her notes."