Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie
Cover of Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie
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| Author | Maya Angelou |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Publisher | Random House, Inc. |
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Publication date
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August 12, 1971 (1st edition) |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
| Pages | 48 pp (hardcover 1st edition) |
| ISBN | (hardcover 1st edition) |
| OCLC | 160599 |
| 811 | |
| Followed by | Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well |
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971) is the first collection of poems by African-American writer and poet, Maya Angelou. Many of the poems in Diiie were originally song lyrics, written during Angelou's career as a night club performer, and recorded on two albums before the publication of Angelou's first autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). Angelou considers herself a poet and a playwright, but is best known for her seven autobiographies. She began, early in her writing career, of alternating the publication of an autobiography and a volume of poetry. Although her poetry collections have been best-sellers, they have not received serious critical attention and are more interesting when read aloud.
Diiie is made up of two sections of 38 poems. The 20 poems in the first section, "Where Love is a Scream of Anguish", center on love. Many of the poems in this section and the next are structured like blues and jazz music, and have universal themes of love and loss. The eighteen poems in the second section, "Just Before the World Ends", focus on the experience of the survival of African Americans despite living in a society dominated by whites.
Angelou uses the vernacular of African Americans, irony, understatement, and humor to make her statements about race and racism in America. She acts as a spokesperson for her race in these poems, in which her use of irony and humor allows her to speak for the collective and to assume a distance in order to make comments about her themes, topics, and subjects. Critic Kathy M. Essick have called the poems in Diiie "protest poems". The metaphors in her poetry serve as "coding", or litotes, for meanings understood by other Blacks, although her themes and topics are universal for most readers to understand.
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie has received mixed reviews from critics, but was a best-seller and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Many critics expected that the volume would be popular despite their negative reviews, but others considered it well written, lyrical, and a moving expression of social observation.
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie is Maya Angelou's first volume of poetry. She studied and began writing poetry at a young age. After her rape at the age of eight, as recounted in her first autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she dealt with her trauma by memorizing and reciting great works of literature, including poetry, which helped bring her out her self-imposed muteness.
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