This is another contribution to the Live Readings project: http://livereadings.wordpress.com/I attended a poetry workshop during the summer of 1986, and we were given the assignment to use random words selected by the group in a single poem. As I mention, the last stanza is exactly how I felt after writing it at the time.Mobile post sent by danieljohnsonjr using Utterz. Replies. mp3
January 9, 2008, 10:43 pm
Filed under: poetry, reading
Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou. Read by Dayngr as a part of http://livereadings.wordpress.com/ Phenomenal WomanPretty women wonder where my secret lies.I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s sizeBut when I start to tell them,They think I’m telling lies.I say,It’s in the reach of my armsThe span of my hips,The stride of my step,The curl of my lips.I’m a womanPhenomenally.Phenomenal woman,That’s me.I walk into a roomJust as cool as you please,And to a man,The fellows stand orFall 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 womanPhenomenally.Phenomenal woman,That’s me.Men themselves have wonderedWhat they see in me.They try so muchBut they can’t touchMy inner mystery.When I try to show themThey 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 womanPhenomenally.Phenomenal woman,That’s me.Now you understandJust why my head’s not bowed.I don’t shout or jump aboutOr have to talk real loud.When you see me passingIt 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 of my care,’Cause I’m a womanPhenomenally.Phenomenal woman,That’s me.Maya AngelouMobile post sent by Dayngr using Utterz. Replies. mp3
January 9, 2008, 5:14 pm
Filed under: poetry, reading
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou. Read by Dayngr as a part of http://livereadings.wordpress.com/ Still I RiseYou may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may trod me in the very dirtBut 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 wellsPumping 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 minesDiggin’ in my own back yard.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 surpriseThat I dance like I’ve got diamondsAt the meeting of my thighs?Out of the huts of history’s shameI riseUp from a past that’s rooted in painI riseI’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that’s wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.Maya AngelouMobile post sent by Dayngr using Utterz. Replies. mp3
This poem is part of a story titled “Reach Out and Touch Someone” by Donna Jenkins. Read by Dayngr as a part of http://livereadings.wordpress.com/You can find the poem and the short story in the book “Feathers Brush My Heart” by Sinclair Browning Mobile post sent by Dayngr using Utterz. Replies. mp3
Another reading from Ray …”To be or not to be” is probably the best-known line from all drama or literature. It is from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, 1603 (Shakespeare’s actual title is - The tragedie of Hamlet, prince of Denmarke): Act III Scene I HAMLET:To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause: there’s the respectThat makes calamity of so long life;For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,The insolence of office and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscover’d country from whose bournNo traveller returns, puzzles the willAnd makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprises of great pith and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action.Analysis:Hamlet is musing on the comparison between the pain of life, which he sees as inevitable (the sea of troubles - the slings and arrows - the heart-ache - the thousand natural shocks) and the fear of the uncertainty of death and of possible damnation of suicide.He is dissatisfied with life and lists its many torments but he is unsure what death may bring. He can’t be sure what death has in store; it may be sleep but in “perchance to dream” he is speculating that it is perhaps an experience worse than life.Death is called “the undiscover’d country from which no traveler returns”. In saying that Hamlet is acknowledging that, each living person shall discover death for themselves, as no one can return from it to describe it.Mobile post sent by Ray using Utterz. Replies. mp3
