I usually don’t post poetry and literature on this blog but I’m going to post something I think everyone should read.

My father sent me a link to a website called Poetry Out Loud (http://www.poetryoutloud.org).  Every year they hold a national recitation contest in Washington, DC where students from each state, and the District, compete for a $20,000 prize for reciting poetry.  If you want to view videos of the winners (which I highly recommend – it’s awesome) click here.

By far my favorite from the group was a young man named Stanley Jackson from Texas who recited Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar.  Go start the video and then come back here to read the poem along with him.

Take into consideration the time this poem was written and the harsh and brutal message it portrays.  Dunbar was a master.

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

Sympathy

I KNOW what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals —
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting —
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings —
I know why the caged bird sings!

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The above poem was published in Lyrics of the Hearthside by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1899. It was this poem that inspired the title to Maya Angelou‘s autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

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