Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie

by Maya Angelou

Another remarkable collection of poetry from one of America's masters of the medium. The first part gathers together poems of love and nostalgic memory, while Part II portrays confrontations inherent in a racist society.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Classics, Feminism, African American, Literature, Race

48 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Maya Angelou was an American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou's series of seven autobiographies focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
She became a poet and writer after a string of odd jobs during her young adulthood. These included fry cook, sex worker, nightclub performer, Porgy and Bess cast member, Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator, and correspondent in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. Angelou was also an actress, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Angelou was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Beginning in the 1990s, she made approximately 80 appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" (1993) at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961.
With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou publicly discussed aspects of her personal life. She was respected as a spokesperson for Black people and women, and her works have been considered a defense of Black culture. Her works are widely used in schools and universities worldwide, although attempts have been made to ban her books from some U.S. libraries. Angelou's most celebrated works have been labeled as autobiographical fiction, but many critics consider them to be autobiographies. She made a deliberate attempt to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. Her books center on themes that include racism, identity, family, and travel.

Reviews

[Ciji Ann Heiser]

I read this book in one sitting one poem above all others gave me pause and was my favorite.

On Working White Liberals


I don’t ask the Foreign Legion
Or anyone to win my freedom
Or to fight my battles better than I can,

Though there’s one thing that I can cry for
I believe enough to die for
That is every man’s responsibility to man.

I’m afraid they’ll have to prove first
That they’ll watch the Black man move first
Then follow him with faith to kingdom come.
This rocky road is not paved for us,
So, I’ll believe in Liberal’s aid for us
When I see a white man load a Black man’s gun.

[Agbonmire]

I love Maya's poetry. I have ignored her works for so long. In my book hunting days I would always see slim second hand copies of her books under the bridges in Lagos. There were in great abundance. I always bought them and never read them. After her passing I have been reading lots of her and she is so wise and accessible.

These are my favourite poems in this collection.




"When I Think About Myself"

"When I think about myself,
I almost laugh myself to death,
My life has been one great big joke,
A dance that's walked
A song that's spoke
I laugh so hard I almost choke,
When I think about myself.
Sixty years in these folks' world
The child I works for calls me girl,
I say "Yes Ma'am" for working's sake
Too proud to bend,
Too poor to break,
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 lying,
They grow the fruit,
But eat the rind,
I laugh until I start to crying.
When I think about my folks."

________________________________________________


No Loser, No Weeper

"I hate to lose something,"
then she bent her head
"even a dime, I wish I was dead.
I can't explain it. No more to be said.
Cept I hate to lose something."

"I lost a doll once and cried for a week.
She could open her eyes, and do all but speak.
I believe she was took, by some doll-snatching-sneak
I tell you, I hate to lose something."

"A watch of mine once, got up and walked alway.
It had twelve numbers on it and for the time of day.
I'll never forget it and all I can say
Is I really hate to lose something."

"Now if I felt that way bout a watch and a toy,
What you think I feel bout my lover-boy?
I ain't threatening you madam, but he is my
evening's joy.
And I mean I really hate to lose something."

By Maya Angelou

[Reza Qalandari]

When I think about myself,
I almost laugh myself to death,
My life has been one great big joke,
A dance that's walked
A song that's spoke,
I laugh so hard I almost choke
When I think about myself.

Sixty years in these folks' world
The child I works for calls me girl
I say 'Yes ma'am' for working's sake.
Too proud to bend
Too poor to break,
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 lying,
They grow the fruit,
But eat the rind,
I laugh until I start to crying,
When I think about my folks.

[Redfeather]

5/5💙 instead of stars.

[Sterling Hardaway]

She’s one of one. She’s the only one.

[Julietta]

I'm awarding "Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie" 5 amazing stars! (Despite the fact that my knowledge is not up to par with all she is dishing out.)

Some poems are classic and symbolic, others are jazzy, modern, and colloquial. I tend to favor the plain, rhythmic ones. Here is a seemingly simple poem that I've memorized because it mesmerized me!

Remembering
Soft grey ghosts crawl up my sleeve
to peer into my eyes
while I within deny their threats
and answer them with lies.

Mushlike memories perform
a ritual on my lips
I lie in stolid hopelessness
and they lay my soul in strips.

Set rhythm all the way through with a driving last line taking it home. This is devastating.

No Loser, No Weeper
"I hate to lose something," then she bent her head
"even a dime, I wish I was dead.
I can't explain it. No more to be said.
Cept I hate to lose something."

"I lost a doll once and cried for a week.
She could open her eyes, and do all but speak.
I believe she was took, by some doll-snatching-sneak
I tell you, I hate to lose something."

"A watch of mine once, got up and walked away.
It had twelve numbers on it for the time of day.
I'll never forget it and all I can say
Is I really hate to lose something."

"Now if I felt that way bout a watch and a toy,
What you think I feel bout my lover-boy?
I ain't threatening you madam, but he is my evening's joy.
And I mean I really hate to lose something."
So keep yer mitts off my man!!!

PART TWO: Just Before the World Ends
These are all very hard to read, but must have been waaaay harder to live!

Riot: 60's
Excerpt from the lynching era. Truly horrific.
Watermelons, summer ripe
grey neck bones and boiling tripe
supermarket roasting like the
noon-day sun
national guard nervous with his shiny gun
goose the motor quicker
here's my nigga picka
shoot him in the belly
shoot him while he run.

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant]

I found this on a shelf presumably unread and due to be returned at the library in June 1989. Anyway this is Maya's first collection so it's up down and a lot of the poems in here are song lyrics. Litotic but Biblical. Langston Hughes seems a correlative but that's just a stylistic guess. It's the ear for it that counts

[Erin]

Not what I was expecting. Maybe a lot of this went over my head because I’m not of African decent, while I picked up on the victim of sexual abuse stuff loud and clear. Definitely an interesting read for somebody newly interested in poetry during Black History Month.

[Iulia Kyçyku]

Maya Angelou's poems are both raw and delicate. They are simple, beautiful and straightforward without lacking metaphor.
*
*
*
'Here / in the wombed room / silk purple drapes / flash a light as subtle / as your hands before / love-making'
*
'Moans / Deep swan song / Blue farewell / of a dying dream.'
*
'This bed yawns / beneth the weight / of our absent selves'
*
'The heatless fire consuming itself. / Again. Anew. Into ever neverlessness. / My man is Amber / Changing / Always into itself'

[Andy Hickman]

May Angelou's "Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie" is a collection of her abstract poetry addressing oppression of blacks and sexual exploitation.
Courageous, creative, raw, honest and searing.
My personal favorites are 'Tears,' 'When I Think About Myself,' and 'To a Freedom Fighter.'
- Andy

[Katy]

I find myself unable to rate poetry♥️

[Magen - Inquiring Professional Dog Trainer]

I don't know how to rate this collection as I'm pretty sure I'm not grasping the full depth of these poems, especially in the second part of the collection. I read an analysis of the collection which states that Angelou uses references to Black language and culture that isn't common knowledge to whites. I do feel I understood most of the gist of the poem, but I feel I missed that subtlety that feel the full impact of these poems and see them as powerful as those in And Still I Rise.

Finished on 4/27/21

[Louise]

I don’t know shit about poetry but I’m trying to get better and I really enjoyed this book! There were some poems that my dumbass couldn’t understand, but some particular favorite’s of mine were:
When I think about myself
The thirteens (black & white)
Senses of insecurity
Alone
America
I almost remember
Woman me
Song for the old ones
Take time out

[Wolgraugorimilir]

Rousing, grounded poems. The best I’ve read. Reading them aloud, my whole body moved to their bitter music. Maya Angelou was a warrior.

Containing:

Youthful sex with a good lover

A threat to the woman who’s trying to steal her man

A painful memory she can’t ignore, while she lies to herself

Weeping, for the weight of it all

The tragicomic absurdity of how she and her family were harmed by poverty

Perpetrators worshipping the suffering and gore of the violence of slavery

An ode to the pain of self sacrifice of a freedom fighter

How guilt-ridden nonaction abets violence, and destroys your soul

An excoriation of America

White liberals are all talk

The black bourgeois forget whose side they’re on

[Samuel Adeosun]

My Guilt

My guilt is “slavery’s chains,” too long
the clang of iron falls down the years.
This brother’s sold. This sister’s gone
is bitter wax, lining my ears.
My guilt made music with the tears.
My crime is “heroes, dead and gone”
dead Vesey, Turner, Gabriel,
dead Malcolm, Marcus, Martin King.
They fought too hard, they loved too well.
My crime is I’m alive to tell.
My sin is “hanging from a tree”
I do not scream, it makes me proud.
I take to dying like a man.
I do it to impress the crowd.
My sin lies in not screaming loud.

[Nathaniel]

Not what I expected, but still very well done. Angelou is perhaps one of the most famous names in poetry and I’m excited to be diving into her work. She has full control over her pen, and the words that come from it are as delightful as they are unexpected.

[Lewis Isbell]

finished atop box hill

[liz]

3.5

[Jayne Hood]

Wonderful collection of inspiration poems from a truly amazing woman

[Imogen Lamb]

My first time reading Maya Angelou and I enjoyed the concise and whitty nature of the poems however there were some I couldn't understand but nonetheless I could appreciate the beauty of the words.

[Sue Davis]

Slavery, cruelty, abuse, exclusion, resistance—all of it is here in catchy, assessable poems.

[Brishti]

SO good

[Sara]

Beautiful 🤎

[Anna]

Poetry.
I do not love to read it.
I do not really need it.
I find myself defeated.
And yet, it's sorely needed.
Poetry.
(Again.)

[Karen Burnell]

About the author

Dr Maya Angelou was one of the worlds most important writers and activists. Born 4 April 1928, she lived and chronicled an extraordinary life: rising from poverty, violence and racism, she became a renowned author, poet, playwright and civil right’s activist.

Blurb on the back

From this bestselling author comes a marvelous collection of poetry. Poems of love and regret, songs of the people and songs of the heart- all are charged with Maya Angelou’s zest for life and her rage at injustice. Lyrical, tender poems of longing, wry glances at betrayal and isolation combine with a fierce insight into ‘hate and hateful wrath’ in an unforgettable picture of the hopes and concerns of one of America’s finest contemporary writer.

Good bit about the book

I could wax lyrical about this book forever but I will try and keep it short! Maya writes the kind of poems I love and fail to write myself to her perfection. Every word she rights is full of passion and meaning. She observes the world around her and her own experiences and writes them so any one can understand. You do not have to be an avid reader of poetry to appreciate and enjoy what she writes. I may not be black or American but the pain, ignorance and pure evil that was done is plain to see and feel for the reader to.

Bad bits about the book

I have nothing to put here other than it was far to short!

Rating for book

Five out of five stars. Possibly my favorite poet ever.

[rada ☆]

4.5 stars

Maya Angelou seems to have this unparalleled ability to write poetry that's joyful, despairing, hopeful, and mourning all at the same time. It's one of the closest depictions to life I've ever seen portrayed in poetry, and she does it all in just a handful of pages.

This collection in particular jumps around a handful of themes, from the paradoxes of love to Angelou's trip to Ghana to the trauma that comes with the weight of black history to pure feminist thought, and she does it all in a way that feels so familiar. This is about to get really personal, but every time I read Angelou's poems I get feelings akin to sitting in my great aunt's house in Tennessee, which is really the seat of my whole family. Her poems all touch a vein of painful familiarity, and I think that's what's made her such a strong and beloved poet to this day. They manage to be both comforting and confrontational, speaking in the universal black female experience while at the same time challenging the status quo, and I think this reason is why she'll always remain one of my favorite and most well-beloved poets.

Favorite poems from this collection:
– The Gamut
– The Detatched
– The Mothering Blacknes
– When I Think About Myself
– The Thirteens (Black and White)

[✨ Brianna Raquel ✨]

My favorites:

No Loser, No Weeper

"I hate to lose something,"
then she bent her head
"even a dime, I wish I was dead.
I can't explain it. No more to be said.
Cept I hate to lose something."

"I lost a doll once and cried for a week.
She could open her eyes, and do all but speak.
I believe she was took, by some doll-snatching-sneak
I tell you, I hate to lose something."

"A watch of mine once, got up and walked alway.
It had twelve numbers on it and for the time of day.
I'll never forget it and all I can say
Is I really hate to lose something."

"Now if I felt that way bout a watch and a toy,
What you think I feel bout my lover-boy?
I ain't threatening you madam, but he is my
evening's joy.
And I mean I really hate to lose something."


Mourning Grace

If today, I follow death go down its trackless wastes, salt my
tongue on hardened tears for my precious dear times waste
race
along that promised cave in a headlong deadlong
haste,
Will you
have
the
grace
to mourn for
me?

[Iamthesword]

As someone who was only taught classical European poetry at school and who just recently started to read poetry by himself, this one was very exciting. The poems have a strong sense of melody, but the rhythms are quite different from what I know. I still managed to get into them and I really enjoyed it. The volume contains two parts, the first one focussing mostly on personal and emotinal experiences (including some very bad ones) while the second one shifts the focus towards black experiences, the heritage of slavery and racism. It's no surprise that they are tonaly quite different, but I enjoyed both. It's like the first part lays the groundwork to get us emotionally invested and makes the second part hits the harder. It's about how the personal and the socio-political are intertwined and it's not possible to understand the one without the other. A complex and very thoughtful volume that I absolutely recommend to anyone.

[wareef]

When I think about myself
I almost laugh myself to death,
My life has been one great big joke,
A dance that’s walked
A song that’s spoke,
I laugh so hard I almost choke
When I think about myself.
Sixty years in these folks’ world
The child I works for calls me girl
I say “Yes ma’am” for working’s sake.
Too proud to bend
Too poor to break,
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 lying,
They grow the fruit,
But eat the rind,
I laugh until I start to crying,
When I think about my folks.



‏On a bright day, next week
‏ Just before the bomb falls
‏Just before the world ends,
‏Just before I die
‏All my tears will powder
‏Black in dust like ashes
‏Black like Buddha’s belly
‏Black and hot and dry
‏Then will mercy tumble
‏Falling down in godheads
‏Falling on the children
‏Falling from the sky

[Tony]

I read 'And Still I Rise' by Maya Angelou last year (and I think a couple of poems from this collection are in that too, but my memory is not what it was.)

She knows how to write. She gets you to feel. She gets you to think and she gets you to understand - if you have that compacity within you. I like to think I have. Perhaps I am over-estimating myself. But this is packed full of good poetry.

"So, I'll believe in Liberal's aid for us
When I see a white man load a black man's gun."
(from 'On Working White Liberals)

The poems that touched me most from this collection - for whatever reasons- : They Went Home; Tears; No No No No; On Working White Liberals; Here's To Adhering; Come, And Be My Baby; Alone; Communications I; Africa; America; Lord, In My Heart; Prisoner and Song For The Old Ones.

Lovely writing. I'm looking forward to reading more Angelou. Poetry and Prose.