I've got my speech and drama exam in about a week so I figured it would help me to type some of my pieces out here and I thought you might like to hear them.
This is a poem by Maya Angelou called "Still I Rise" (V. Sorry if I've got anything wrong, my learning of it is not quite up to scratch I fear...)
You may write me down in history
with your bitter twisted lies
you may trod 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 old 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 my broken
bowed head and lowered eyes
shoulders falling down like teardrops
weakened by my soulfoul cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
don't you take it awful hard
'cause I laugh like i've got gold mines
digging in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with you 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.
(sorry for the lack of punctuation, I was concentrating on remembering the words, which I did. phew!)
I hope you like it. I wasn't sure at first but it has really grown on me and I really like it because it commands me to be really powerful which contrasts well with my other pieces which are a shakesperian sonnet and an extract from Angela's ashes, which is really sad.
Yes anyway, I'm off to learn about iambic pentametre and trochee etc. Oh the joys! XD