Life Doesn’t Frighten Me – Maya Angelou / Jean-Michel Basquiat

Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Mean old Mother Goose
Lions on the loose
They don’t frighten me at all

Dragons breathing flame
On my counterpane
That doesn’t frighten me at all.

I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won’t cry
So they fly
I just smile
They go wild

Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

Tough guys fight

All alone at night
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

Panthers in the park
Strangers in the dark
No, they don’t frighten me at all.

That new classroom where
Boys all pull my hair
(Kissy little girls
With their hair in curls)
They don’t frighten me at all.

Don’t show me frogs and snakes
And listen for my scream,
If I’m afraid at all
It’s only in my dreams.

I’ve got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.

Life doesn’t frighten me at all
Not at all
Not at all.

Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

– Maya Angelou

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In 1993, the powerful words of African American poet, author and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou, were blended with the brave imagery of the late Multicultural American painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, to create a stirring children’s book, titled Life Doesn’t Frighten Me.

 Maya Angelou reads Life Doesn’t Frighten Me:

Angelou, date unknown. Photograph by Chester Higgins Jr./Getty

The poet and memoirist Maya Angelou died on May 28th, at the age of eighty-six. A civil-rights activist and a professor at Wake Forest University, Angelou—born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri—was the author of works including “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” and received awards including the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her public life spanned decades and included a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, as well as dozens of honorary degrees.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou