Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Thursday, June 18, 2020.

Today's poem is by Maya Angelou, born Marguerite's Annie Johnson. She lived from April of 1928 to May of 2014,

and she is one of the most popular and essential American writers of the 20th century. She's known for books like

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Gather Together in My Name, The Heart of a Woman, and a Song

Flung Up to Heaven. She was nominated Full Perlitzer Prize in 1971 for her poetry volume,

Just Give Me a Cool Drink of water for I die.

And the poem that I'm going to read today is one of her best known poems.

It's called Still I Rise.

Goes like this.

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies.

You may trot on me in the very dirt, but still like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

Because I walk like I've got oil wells pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like sunned with the certainty of tides, just like hopes springing high still I'll rise. Do 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?

Because I laugh like I've got gold mines digging 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 meaning of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame I rise, up from a past that's

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