Maya Angelou Live and Unplugged

I open my mouth to the Lord and I won't turn back no I will go I shall go to see what the end is gonna be she does not know her beauty she thinks her brown body has no glory if she could dance naked under palm trees and see her image in the river she would know but there are no palm trees on the street and dishwater gives back no images so I open my mouth to the Lord and I won't turn back no I will go and share the world once riding in old Baltimore head filled heart filled with glee I saw Baltimore iam keep looking straight at me now I was eight and very small and he was no whit bigger and so I smiled but he stuck out his tongue and called me I saw the whole of Baltimore from May until December of all the things that happen there that's all that I remember but I open my mouth to the Lord and I won't turn back no I will go I shall go to see what the end is gonna be a show thank you out in sincerity and in seriousness I know that a poetry reading seems for the most part like a pretty dough you know I mean really you know people say well where are you going tonight well I'm going to the Hippodrome taking my chances and other people say oh I'm staying home with a friend a good friend and so when you say to somebody I'm going to lure him to a poetry reading people have got to say Oh poetry is asked to be magical mystical lyrical and musical now before I get into the written poetry that is the published poetry I just let you look at a couple of phrases from folk songs there's a nineteenth-century folk song in which a black man speaks of the woman he loves he said the woman I love is fat and chocolate to the bone and every time she shakes some skinny woman loses her home that's poetry there's a line 19th century this shred of the of the folk song found its way into mr. WC Handy's 20th century blues and Lewis blues a black woman speaking of the man she loves she said he's blacker than midnight teeth like flags of truth he's the finest thing in the whole sentence they say the black of the very sweeter is the Jew that's poetry and that's love poetry too now to look at the written poetry I like to go to miss Georgia Douglas Johnson I love to talk about love about all sorts of love but not much I mean sentimentality to love romantic love I got a love sensual love familial love and self love so I hope you brought everything you need because for the next four or five hours I just thought you know I would stick to it miss Georgia Douglas Johnson who wrote I want to die while you love me while yet you hold me fair while laughter lies upon my lips and lights are in my hair yes I want to die while you love me who would care to live to love have nothing more to ask and nothing more to give no I want to die if I you love me and bare to that still bed your kisses turbulent unspent to warm me while I'm dead hmm James Weldon Johnson writing in 1916 wrote the glory of the day was in her face the beauty of the night was in her eyes and over all her loveliness the grace of mourning blushing in the early sky and it seemed like to me that everything is wrong seemed like to me the birds done lost that song seemed like to me the days are just twice as long since she went away seem like to me I just can't help but seem like I mean my throat keeps getting seemed like to me a tear stay in my since she went away see the glory of the day was in her face in her face in her face James Weldon Johnson Paul Laurence Dunbar riding in 1892 wrote a poem called a negro love song mr. Dunbar puts the poem in a man's voice but this is a woman's poem the refrain in the poem is jump back honey jump back scene my lady home last night jump back honey jump back held a hand and squeezed it tight jump back honey jump back I heard her side that little sign saw that light gleam in her I saw a smile go flitting by I said jump back honey jump back hey the Mockingbird was singing time jump back honey jump back and my heart was beating so that when I reached my lady's door I just couldn't be out a good woman so we'll put my arms around her waist jump back honey jump I raised the lips and took a pace jump back honey jump back I said love me honey do you love me true you love me as well as I love you and then she answered of course I do the jump loud crashing you the books are filled with the love poetry the black American love poetry I mean from the 19th and the 20th centuries there's a poor Mickey Giovanni wrote a love poem romantic it says one of these days you're going to walk in this house and I'm going to be wearing that long African down and you not noticing me at all we'll say the problem in this country and I'm going to be taking that gown off and licking your arm you will go on as you always do what we are to do about the struggle and I will be unbuckling your belt and taking down your pants you not noticing me at all we'll say I want to talk to the brothers I've got to talk to you and then you will notice your state of undress and knowing you you will probably turn to me and say hey Nikki but isn't this counter revolutionary to look at love though all the versions of love there is the the need to see well love for what might seem to be unlovable you all know that black Americans for centuries were obliged to laugh when they weren't tickled and to scratch when they didn't it and those gestures have come down to us as uncle Tommy however I believe people live in direct relation to the heroes and Shiro's they have always and in all ways and I don't think we often enough stop to wonder how did that black man feel when his throat would start to ache and every person in this auditorium knows that feeling when you must cry but you won't and you hold yourself and then these muscles get sore each time that black man had to say yes sir boss you right I must be stupid yes sir so he could make enough money so he could go home and feed somebody for that black woman who said no ma'am miss and you didn't hurt but when you slapped me I ain't tender-hearted show ain't no ma'am so she could make enough money so she could go home and send somebody to school I think that we live in direct relation to the heroes and she rose we have and sometime at some place inside our hearts we've got to say thank you because I don't know about any of you but I wouldn't be here this evening had those people not been successful in the humiliating employment of those humiliating clothes yes honor them and in honoring them I honor all our ancestors who try to stay alive and be somebody so that we could be here this evening and try to accept that we've been loved each of us maybe by somebody three generations ago who never even thought what name you would carry that they paid for you all ready to look at that condition I wrote a poem about a woman who is a maid in New York City she sits at the back of the bus with two shopping bag blank if the bus stops abruptly she says that if it stops slowly picks up somebody misses somebody I watched her for about nine months and I thought if you don't know black features you may think that woman is laughing she wasn't laughing to simply extending her lips and making a sound I thought oh I see that's that survival apparatus it worked so I wrote a poem for her I use it mr. Paul Laurence Dunbar as poem mask and my own poem for old black men this is love when I think about myself I almost laughed myself to death my life has been one great big joke a dance that's walked a song misspoke I laughed so hard I nearly choked when I think about myself 70 years in these folks world the child I works for calls me girl I say yes ma'am for working sake I'm too proud to bend and to PO to break so I laugh until my stomach ache when I think about myself my folks can make me split my side I laughed so hard I nearly died the tales they tell sound just like lyin they grow the fruit I eat the rind laugh until I start to cry when you think about myself and my folks and the little children but we wear the mask that grins and lies it shades our cheeks and hearts our eyes this debt we pay to human guile with torn and bleeding hearts we smile and mouth with myriad subtleties why should the world be over wise and counting all our tears and sides may let them only see us while we wear the mask we smile but oh my god I choose to be from tortured souls arise ha ha ha oh we sing hey the clay is piled beneath our feet and long the mile let the world think otherwise we wear the mask my father's sit on benches their flesh count every plank the slats lead em to darkness deepened their withered flank and they nod like broken candles all waxed and burnt profound they say for baby it was our submission and that made your world go round there in those pleated faces I see the auction block the chains and slavery scuffles the quip and lash and stock my father speaking voices that shred my fact and sound they say but sugar it was our submission that made your world go round they laughed to shield their crime they shuffled through their dreams they step and fetched a country and wrote the blues in screams I understand that meaning it could and did derive from living on the ledge of death they kept my race alive by wearing man you see that too is love Leslie that is love when any human being is willing to allow herself or himself to be seen at the most debased level most demeaned most dehumanized level thinking that by doing so he or she can assure the survival of yet another human being that is love how be a bitter brutal painful that to is love now to look at well self-love I'm very keen about self-love very well because there's an African saying which is be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt I mean if the person had any clothes he put some on himself first right so I never trust anybody who says I love you and the person doesn't love herself or himself how can you how can you give something you don't have so I always encourage self-love that's why I sometimes think we ought to deal with that first must find something wondrous the uniqueness of one's own self to remind us that each of us is worthy some years ago I wrote a play in New York and it it I'd written a book the lyric the music and we were to open and the night before we were to open the producer who had all the money to her told me that the the play needed a work song so there was no time to plan for a wine or even B cross I just wrote a work song I wanted to write about men and women working together because that to me is healthy so I wrote there ain't no pay beneath the some sweet as arrest when the job's well done I was going to work up to my grave but it was not born to be a slave one more round that's heated down one more round that's heave it down Papa drove steel mama stood guard never heard him holler cause of work was hard they were bowing to word it goes on there at 98th birthday well when I heard the professional singers singing I realized I had written the man's works huh I mean I had simply put women in the lyric but it was a traditional tote that barge in a what from boom in Duke barn and all that nothing you know I don't not that it's just that I didn't mean to write a man's work song I wanted man in woman's works huh so I decided to try to write a woman's work huh looking at how fantastic we are I thought of that cliche that men may work from Sun to Sun if they can find jobs but woman's work is never done so I wrote I've got the children to ten the clothes to men the floor to mop the food to shop then the chicken to fry the baby to dry I got company to feed the garden to weed I got the shirts to press the tops to dress that came to be cut I got to clean up this Hut then see about the sick then the cotton to pick shine only sunshine little drops and cool my brow again storm blow me from you with your fiercest wind let me float across the sky till I can rest again because I have got to see about those peoples Pulu no no I got to get to the school no no oh I got to pick up the mail no I got to visit the Jo Titu this is a poem called weekend glory yeah thank you the only one thing there's a first line says some dick T folks dick T is a black American southern word meaning hinky which means sadiddy' which is the word sort of meaning snobbish haughty some dick T folks don't know the facts posing and preening and putting on Act's stretching the necks and straining their backs they move into condos up over the Rings lend their souls to the local banks buy big cause they can't afford then ride around town acting bored my job at the plant ain't the biggest bet but I pay my bills and stay out of debt I get my hair done for my own self sake so don't have to pick and I don't have to rake I take the church money out then I head across town to my friend girl's house where we plan our round we meet our men and go to a joint where the music is blues and to-the-point folks talk about me they just can't see how I work all week at the factory then get spruced up and laugh and dance and turn away from worry with a sassy glance they accuse me of living from day to day who are they kidding so are they my life in heaven but it's showing him I'm not on top but I call it swell if I'm able to work and get paid right and have the luck to be black on a Saturday night Hey self-love is very important you got to look at yourself and like it now I've written a poem for women because we are so phenomenal yes now I wrote this poem for black women I wrote it for Asian women I wrote it for Hispanic women Native American women I wrote it for women in the kibbutz M kibbutz hymn of Israel and in Palestinian concentration camps I wrote it for all women we have not even begun to test our potential but it's there it's there we have a wonderful promise now I know that men are as phenomenal as women I know that because I know that nature abhors imbalance like you I have been told that 98% of all the species which have lived on this little blob of spit and Sam are now extinct because they got out of balance we are still here which proves to me that we are in some balance men are as phenomenal as women I will only say this to the men in the audience you will have to write your own point I wrote it's a fat women very fat those who hate their sizes but will do nothing about it except called a friend in the middle of the night and say girl as a skinny woman still trying to get out and I wrote it for fat women who loved their sizes and who are the epitome of sensuality when they walk down the street I wrote it for skinny women those who deserve our sympathy I wrote it for many people wonder where my secret lies I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model size when I tried to show 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 I walk into a room just as cool as you please and to a man the fellows stand a fall down on their knees and then they swarm around me a hive of honey bees I said what's the fire in my eyes the flash of my teeth the swing in my waist the joy in my feet men themselves have wondered what they see in me they try so much but they can't touch my inner mystery when I tried to show them they say they still can't see I say oh it's an arch of my back and now you understand just why my head's not bound i don't shout a jump about I have to talk to laugh when you see me walking it ought to make your prime I said then the click of my heels the bend of my hair the palm of my hands the need for my care because I'm a woman phenomena Phenomenal Woman that's my mother and all your mother's and then my grandmother's and all your grandmother's and my great-grandmother's and your great grandma my great great great in your great great great and me okay I started out with romantic love and I think I would look at love romantic love again they went home and told their wives that never once and all their lives had they met a girl like me but they went home my praises were on all men's lips they liked my smile my wit my hips they'd spend one night or two or three but well I began to wonder having written bad it's a little longer poem than that but what I mean I began to wonder about some of the men not any of the people in this audience you know I know that none of you are the dream but I mean what was it that that would make a man play so cavalierly with the lady's heart and other parts of the anatomy I wondered you know what now you know gentlemen none of you this is not signifying that oh no sir so I wrote in another little poem hmm trying to look at it from the man's point of view there's a long leg girl in San Francisco by the Golden Gate she said she'd give me all I wanted but I just couldn't leave I started to picking them up and laying them down picking them up and laying them down picking them up and laying them down and getting to the next town baby now picking them up and laying them down it's a black American phrase meaning walking you know pick him up in it and then it means however you can you know whatever you I met that lovely Detroit lady and thought my time had come but just before I said I do I said I got to run and started to picking them up and laying them down picking them up and laying them down picking them up and laying them down and getting to the next town baby there's a pretty brown in Birmingham man she's little and cute but when I she tried to tie me down I had to grab my suit and start to picking him up and laying him down and pick him up picking them up and laying them down and getting to the next town baby there ain't no words for what I feel about a pretty face but if I stay I just might miss a prettier one someplace that's why I started picking them up and then I'm down picking up litter now man you know I'm not talking about you I thank you very much for your hospitality which is truly southern now I know the Lewisham is south but if it's not quite North Carolina but I really thank you and I would remind you of a wonderful African saying which is the trouble for the thief is not how to steal the Chiefs bugle but where to blow it the issues which face us all are not just how to survive obviously we are doing that somehow but really how to thrive really thrive with some passion some compassion some humor and some style this poem is called and still I rise now every person in this auditorium has gone to sleep one night or another I've gone to bed one night or another with fear of pain or loss or terror unhappiness grief insecurity and yet each of us has awakened arisen seen another human being and said morning how are you fine thanks in you now wherever that abides whether it's been the kneecap and the bend of the elbow or between the teeth wherever that is lives there we will find our nobleman not nobility I think that's a pompous word but the nobleness of the human spirit that we ride you may write me down in history with your bitter twisted line you may tribe me in the very dirt but still like dust a lie does my sassiness upset you why are you beset with gloom just because I walked as if I have oil wells pumping in my living room just like moons and like Suns with the certainty of tides just like hope springing high still I rise did you want to see me broken bowed head and lowered eyes shoulders falling down like teardrops we can buy my soul so crime does my sassiness upset you don't take it so hard just cuz I laugh as if I have gold mines digging in my own backyard you can shoot me with your words you can cut me with your lives you can kill me with your hatefulness but just like life all right there's my sexiness offend you Oh does it come as a surprise that I dance as if I have diamonds at the meeting of my thighs out of the huts of history's shame I rise up from a past rooted in pain I rise a black ocean leaping and wide Welling and swelling and bearing in the time leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise into a daybreak miraculously clear I rise bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave I am the hope and the dream of the slave and so you

Channel: indunaNo1

Views: 514,740

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Keywords: maya angelou live performance

Id: lhRlCY0_JNg

Length: 37min 5sec (2225 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 03 2015