I Shall Not Be Moved - Hardcover

Angelou, Maya

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394586182 ISBN 13: 9780394586182

Publisher: Random House Inc, 1990

Synopsis

The author writes of the Black experience in a collection of poetry that perceptively captures the themes of Black history, love, heartbreak, triumph, and pain

About this title

About the Author

Maya Angelou is an accomplished poet, an award-winning writer, a journalist, an activist, a performer, a dancer, an actress, a director, and a teacher. She is also a three-time Grammy Award winner for her autobiographical spoken-word recordings. Born in St. Louis, she was raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and then went to San Francisco. She lives in Harlem, NY, and Winston-Salem, NC. In addition to her bestselling autobiographies, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she is the author of Letter to My Daughter; several poetry collections, including I Shall Not Be Moved and Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?; and a number of books for young readers, including Kofi and His Magic; My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me; and the Maya's World series.



From the Trade Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

book of poetry since Why Don't You Sing? Maya Angelou, bestselling author of the classic autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, writes with lyric, passionate intensity that reaches out to touch the heart and mind. This memorable collection of poems exhibits Maya Angelou's unique gift for capturing the triumph and pain of being black and every man and woman's struggle to be free. Filled with bittersweet intimacies and ferocious courage, these poems are gems--many-faceted, bright with wisdom, radiant with life.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Reviews

Angelou's poems embrace opposite poles: the laughter of old folks who "generously forgive life for happening to them," and the "helpless hope" on the faces of starving children. Though she can be directly political, as in a stinging letter to "These Yet to Be United States," more often, a political dimension emerges naturally from ordinary lives observed with keen irony ("Even minimal people can't survive on minimal wage"). Angelou's themes include loss of love and youth, human oneness in diversity, the strength of blacks in the face of racism and adversity. The book's title is also the refrain of "Our Grandmothers," a moving history poem about the struggles of black women. Some of these lyrics are free-form, while others use conventional rhyme and meter to good effect. Angelou ( I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ) writes with poise and grace. Author tour.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Angelou speaks eloquently of black life, unfolding a significant history in poems that are highly controlled and yet powerful: "She lay, skin down on the moist dirt,/ the canebrake rustling/ with the whispers of leaves, and/ loud longing of hounds and/ the ransack of hunters crackling the near branches." Here, the language is precise and filled with imagery. Like Gwendolyn Brooks, Angelou's poems are sparsely written while still revealing painful truths to the reader: "She stands/ before the abortion clinic,/ confounded by the lack of choices./ In the Welfare line,/ reduced to the pity of handouts." An important new collection from one of the most distinctive writers at work today.
- Lenard D. Moore, Writer-in-Residence, Wake Cty. Arts Council, N . C .
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Inc
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0394586182
• ISBN 13: 9780394586182
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 48