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

Blurb

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