2. Langston Hughes I, too, sing America I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll sit at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then. Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed,-- I, too, am America.

3. Maya Angelou Still I Rise 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 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.

4. Emily Dickinson Nature, Gentlest Mother As a child, they could not keep me from wells And old pumps with buckets and windlasses. I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss. One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top. I savoured the rich crash when a bucket Plummeted down at the end of a rope. So deep you saw no reflection in it. A shallow one under a dry stone ditch Fructified like any aquarium. When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch A white face hovered over the bottom. Others had echoes, gave back your own call With a clean new music in it. And one Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection. Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime, To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

5. Luis Rodriguez They are night shadows violating borders; fingers curled through chain-link fences, hiding from infra-red eyes, dodging 30-30 bullets. They leave familiar smells, warmth and sounds as ancient as the trampled stones. Running to America. There is a woman in her finest border-crossing wear: A purple blouse from an older sister, a pair of worn shoes from a church bazaar. A tattered coat from a former lover. There is a child dressed in black. Fear sparkling from dark Indians eyes; clinging to a beheaded Barbie doll. And the men, some hardened, quiet. Others young and loud. You see something like this in prisons. Soon they will cross on their bellies; kissing black earth. Running to America. Strange voices whisper behind garbage cans, beneath freeway passes, next to broken bottles. The spatter of words, textured and multi-colored, invoke demons. They must run to America. Their skin, color of earth, is a brand for all the great ranchers, for the killing floors on Soto Street, and as slaughter for the garment row. Still they come. A hungry people have no country. Their tears are the grease of the bobbing machines that rip into cloth that makes clothes that keep you warm. They have endured the sun's strangehold, el corrito, foundry heats and dark caves of mines hungry for men. Still they come, wandering bravely through the thickness of this strange land's maddening ambivalance. Their cries are singed with fires of hope. Their babies are born with a lion in their hearts. Who can confine them? Who can tell them which lines never to cross? For the green rivers, for their looted gold, escaping the blood of a land that threatens to drown them, they have come, running to America. Running to America

6. TuPac Shakur In the event of my Demise when my heart can beat no more I Hope I Die For A Principle or A Belief that I had Lived 4 I will die Before My Time Because I feel the shadow's Depth so much I wanted 2 accomplish before I reached my Death I have come 2 grips with the possibility and wiped the last tear from My eyes I Loved All who were Positive In the event of my Demise In the Event of My Demise