a visual way to explore the brain pickings book archive :: otlet's shelf theme :: back to brain pickings

CREATIVITY :: DESIGN :: SCIENCE :: HISTORY :: PSYCHOLOGY :: ART

1. More in…

   • Maya Angelou
   • poetry
   • The Universe in Verse

   

   The Complete Poetry

   Maya Angelou

   “We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
   Whose hands can strike with such abandon
   That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
   Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
   That the haughty neck is happy to bow
   And the proud back is glad to bend
   Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
   We learn that we are neither devils nor divines.”

   Astrophysicist Janna Levin reads Maya Angelou’s sublime cosmic clarion call to humanity, inspired by Carl Sagan:

   READ ON