Ben Harper'in Still I rise isimli şiirden esinlenip yaptığı I'll Rise'ini 1994'te dinlemeden önce Maya Angelou'nun kim olduğu hakkımda bir fikrim yoktu. Albümde en sevdiğim şarkı olduğundan İstanbul'da verdiği ilk konserde canlı dinleyince kendimden geçmiştim resmen. Bugün Maya Angelou hayata veda etmiş. Şiir insanı, romantik kelimelerin hayranı, iddialı lafların çığırtkanı değilim ama kelimelerin gücüne ve etkisine inanıyorum. Edebiyatın ve yazma sanatının güzelliği burada herhalde. whatever. -2 ile devam ediyoruz.
Poet, writer, and civil-rights activist Maya Angelou died Wednesday in Winston-Salem, according to a statement from Wake Forest University. Angelou had been forced to cancel several recent events as a result of health problems; she was 86 years old.
- Still I rise -
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But 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 wells
Pumping 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 mines
Diggin' 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 surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.