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. "