All in all, Maya Angelou's poems have became more inspirational as there years went on and the African Americans got the rights they deserved. She used imagery and a lot of emotions through her poems, as if you could feel the pain they had went through. Her poems had plenty of hope in them. She was hoping for the best during the Civil Rights Movement. In I Know Why The Cage Birds Sing, you can feel how that poem changed from the negative times to the positive. She talked about how the American Dream of giving blacks rights before the movement they had no hope, but as the poem went on you can feel a more positive vibe of hope.
Dr. Maya Angelou was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis Missouri. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps she was faced with the brutality of racial discrimination, and a very traumatic incident where she, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend when she was eight, but because of this she also developed an unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family. (Angelou)This shaped her poetry and her involvement in the arts. Where she began to sing and dance and planned to audition in professional theater but that didn’t work out well because she began working as a nightclub waitress, tangled with drugs and prostitution and danced in a strip club. In 1959, she moved to New York, became friends with prominent Harlem writers, and got involved with the civil rights movement. In 1961, she moved to Egypt with a boyfriend and edited for the Arab Observer. When she returned to the U.S., she began publishing her multivolume autobiography, starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as well as several books of poetry and the third being Still I Rise in published in 1978. (Maya Angelou is born) Because of this life of hardship shaped her to who she is and was the inspiration for a lot of her poetry.
Marguerite Anne Johnson, better known as Maya Angelou, was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. She was born and raised in an era that involved the Great Depression and World War I. When her parents divorced at a young age, she and her brother were sent to live with her grandmother in a heavily racially segregated Stamps , Arkansas. She found solace in her brother, Bailey, in the hard times produced by the South. This segregation was severe in this era, especially for shy young Marguerite. Throughout her childhood, she was sent from her grandmother to her father and mother. All these different environments exposed Angelou to a series of experiences including: racism, segregation, music, and politics. These experiences were most likely what prompted her to chronicle her life through autobiographical works as well as poems. In these works, Angelou utilizes elements such as literary devices, poetic devices, allusions, recurring themes and symbols to portray
Maya Angelou was one of America’s greatest writers in history. She was known for her many writings and for her part in Civil Rights Movements. Maya Angelou went through many hardships during her childhood, the most prevalent of those, racism over her skin color. This racism affected where she grew up, where she went to school, even where she got a job. “My education and that of my Black associates were quite different from the education of our white schoolmates. In the classroom we all learned past participles, but in the streets and in our homes the Blacks learned to drops s’s from plurals and suffixes from past tense verbs.” (Angelou 221) Maya Angelou was a strong believer in a good education and many of those beliefs were described in her
Ms. Angelou left her birth place as a young child after her parents had broken up. Ms. Angelou and her brother were sent to live with her fathers’ Mother in Stamps, Arkansas. Some may call Ms. Angelou’s 1969 autobiography ”I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing” her claim to fame, some may call her poetry her occupation, and more over there are still some that would like to call her Freelance writings Maya Angelou’s life’s work. Ms. Angelou was so much more. Ms. Angelou has been known for being a Civil Rights activist, a poet, a philosopher, a teacher, an Award-winning Author, an actress, a screenwriter and the
In conclusion, Maya Angelou’s poems are still very applicable to the lives of her reader’s today. To
Maya Angelou is one of most well-known poets ever. Her work is a reflection of her hardships during her childhood and her life as an adult. She expressed many of her opinions through her poetry and other writing. Many of her poems revolve around equality and freedom because she grew up in the segregated era and worked with civil right activist. The poems she writes are to inspire the lives of others. Till this day, Maya Angelou is still continuing to write inspiring poetry.
...ouble, but always leaving me with a happy ending. Maya Angelou had a very difficult life with the many challenges she faced being an African American during the timeframe of her life and she outlined these troubles in most of her writings. Given her circumstances she just kept moving forward and giving it her best without giving up and look at her now, she is a great model for anyone to follow.
Ms. Maya Angelou is the true definition of a strong, educated black woman. All of the people she worked with and for could say the same thing, and be very proud to speak in her honor.
Maya Angelou is a very inspiring and courageous woman who says how she feels through her poems without coming off in a hateful manner, but rather a sophisticated and intelligent way. Her poems varies between subjects such as love, passion,racism and the way of life. However, in her poem “Phenomenal Woman” she speaks for all women around the world who doesn’t feel they fit in with today’s society.
"Angelou, Maya (née Marguerite Annie Johnson)." Encyclopedia of African-american Writing. Amenia: Grey House Publishing, 2009. Credo Reference. Web. 12 March 2014.
In her first autobiography, Maya Angelou tells about her childhood through her graduation through, “Graduation”, from “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” when she is about to graduate. She starts as an excited graduate because she was finally going to receive her diploma, a reward for all her academic accomplishments. On the day of her graduation finally comes, that happiness turns into doubt about her future as she believes that black people will be nothing more than potential athletes or servants to white people. It wasn’t until Henry Reed started to sing the Negro National Anthem that she felt on top of the world again. Throughout her graduation she felt excited to disappointed, until Henry Reed sang and made her feel better.
The early 1930’s a time where segregation was still an issue in the United States it was especially hard for a young African American girl who is trying to grow and become an independent woman. At this time, many young girls like Maya Angelou grew up wishing they were a white woman with blond hair and blue eyes. That was just the start of Angelou's problems though. In the autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou goes into great depth about her tragic childhood, from moving around to different houses, and running away and having a child at the age of 16. This shows how Maya overcame many struggles as a young girl.
Dr. Maya Angelou once said, “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” Great writers like Dr. Maya Angelou write about their experiences in life and the obstacles they have overcome. Resilient is a word that can be defined as able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions. Dr. Maya Angelou has been well known for her novels, poems, and stellar accomplishments. One of her novels, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is about Angelou as a little girl in the 1930s struggling with overcoming many diverse issues. From early childhood to the last years of her life, Maya Angelou has been a true example of a resilient African American woman. From being abandoned