Anybody who is currently involved in the world of literature or literary achievements cannot possibly escape hearing the name "Rita Dove." In October of 1993, Ms. Dove's poem Lady Freedom Among Us was published in a limited edition by Janus Press and became the 4 millionth piece collected by the University of Virginia Libraries. In 1994, she read the same poem at the Capitol building to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Capitol and the restoration of the Freedom Statue, which adorns the roof of the Capitol Building. This alone should be enough to prove that Rita Dove is probably one of the most accomplished writers in the world today
Rita Dove was born in Akron, Ohio in 1952 to Ray and Elvira Dove. Rita's father was the first black research chemist, who broke the race barrier in the tire industry. In 1970, a young Ms. Dove was one of the hundred most outstanding high school graduates in the United States and was invited to the White House to meet President Nixon as a Presidential Scholar. She then attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio as a National Achievement Scholar. Ms. Dove graduated summa cum laude in 1973 with a degree in English before traveling to Germany in order to enroll in Universität Tübingen as a Fulbright Scholar for two semesters. She then returned to join the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop where she met German writer Fred Viebahn, who was a fellow Fulbright in the University of Iowa's International Writing Program that year. Ms. Dove earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1977 before marrying Fred in 1979. Their daughter Aviva Chantal Tamu Dove-Viebahn was born in 1983, who graduated from Mary Baldwin College with a B.A in theatre and biochemistry in 2001 before receiving her M.A in art history from the University of Virginia in 2003.
Magazines and anthologies had already begun promoting Ms. Dove's career and earning her a national spotlight before she published her first collection of poems The Yellow House on the Corner in 1980 with Carnegie-Mellon Press.
...utcome. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, is a clear example of freedom and hope illustrated by the characters of, Andy Dufresne and Red. Hope will give you the dedication to believing in what was once unimaginable. Freedom is the cause of your hopes and dreams in life when fighting for those dreams. No matter what life throws in your path, even if you are in prison, unemployed, sick, etc.; hope of being released from prison or getting a job, but also fight your sickness; gives you a stronger reason to hope for the best in your life. Freedom is the ultimate accomplishment of success, resulting in the negation of those who are trying to harm you and obliterate your hopes. When you hope for anything as deeply as possible, the result will be what you hoped for. Freedom will arrive as a result of your hopes and give you the sensation of liberation.
Joan Baez, a famous folk singer, sang her most famous song “Oh Freedom” during the civil rights movement. She expressed her want and need for equality and freedom f...
Maya Angelou’s “Equality” depicts a more patient yet tenacious rebel than described in Dunbar’s poem. “You declare you see me dimly”, she begins, “through a glass that will not shine.” Maya describes the denial of her boldness, of her rebellion; but, she continues to march, chanting “Equality and I will be free. Equality and I will be free.” She identifies herself as a shadow, unimportant to those she opposes— but she intends to repeat the mantra “Equality and I will be free” until she is heard. The sixth stanza left me in literal tears (and I am not an emotional person, thank you very
Often times in today's society, we stumble upon instances of racism and oppression. About 60 years ago, innocent civilians were poorly treated and ridiculed on a day to day basis during the time of segregation. The courage and strength of those men and women was indescribable. So now we ask ourselves, what was it like? In Maya Angelou's “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” Maya effectively uses multiple writing strategies to bring awareness to the prominently apparent issues of racism and oppression that still exist in our society using imagery, pathos, and strong diction to craft her overall message.
While attending the institution Laura composed essays and poetry on subjects such as religion, politics, nature and her own deafness. For her class graduation Laura wrote a farewell poem and gave a speech at commencement which was both published in the American Annals of the Deaf. Her first professional work was done for a church in St. Louis. Her work impressed the editors at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch so much that they hired her. When the Civil War began the newspaper sent her to Washington D.C as its war correspondent. To avoid offending other readers who thought that journalism was “man’s work,” all of her writing was published under the name Howard Glyndon. But it was not very effective. It was largely known that Howard Glyndon was a woman and it was accepted.
"Rita Dove: The Poetry Foundation." Rita Dove. Poetry Foundation, 2011. Web. 27 July 2011. .
Angelou, Maya, Paul Gauguin, and Linda Sunshine. "Phenomenal Women (Poem)." Phenomenal Woman. New York: Random House, 2000. N. pag. Print.
In the perspective as an African American woman, Maya Angelou speaks of the issue of sexism in her poem. In this quote, “You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies…”, Angelou sheds light on the problems women faced during her time. Many had to also face the discrimination from men as men control them and put words in women’s mouths. This indicates the doubled amount of burden that African American women had to go through and it was important for Maya Angelou to speak of this issue through literature and give a voice to women who were struggling with the same conflicting situations. In contrast, Hughes’s, “I, Too,” poem states the African American inequality more generally than Angelou’s
Rita Dove’s Museum utilizes juxtapositions as a means to create a revision of history, to remove the ekphrasis fear mentioned in W. Mitchell’s essay “Ekphrasis and the Other” in Picture Theory. Dove, establishes a new history by blurring the lines of otherness, focusing more so on humanism, rather than female, and African American being something that is over come with otherness. In fact, as the article “Ekphrasis in the book: Rita Dove’s African American museum” mentions, “Dove’s long interest in ekphrasis both explicitly and implicitly in her use of it to dismantle otherness, to reach across the gaps between poet, image and audience.” Throughout Dove’s work she undoes the otherness reestablishing a connection between the histories then and presently, along with the self and other now, which can be seen in “Fiammetta Breaks Her Peace” and “Anti-Father.”
The idea of freedom can be seen throughout Collection 2 in our textbook. Freedom can be seen in the short story “The Censors” by Luisa Valenzuela when it talks about the freedom of speech. Addition to that, an article “A People’s History Of The 1963 March On Washington” by Charles Euchner shows freedom in its article when it talks about the segregation occurring to colored men. Lastly, freedom is shown in the graphic novel “Persepolis 2: The Story Of A Return” by Marjane Satrapi as it shows high restriction.
Mason, Jr., Julian D. The Poems of Phillis Wheatley. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
Chloe Anthony Wofford, later known as Toni Morrison, was born in Lorain, Ohio, on February 18, 1931. She is the second of four children in a black family. Lois, George and Raymond are her sibling. Her parents moved to Ohio from the South, in the hope to raise their children in an environment friendly to blacks. Her mother's parents after leaving their farm in Alabama, moved to Kentucky, and then to Ohio. Toni was a gifted student, learning to read at an early age and doing well at her studies. She attended Hawthorne Elementary School, and she was the only African American in her 1st grade classroom. Because Toni was know how to read, she often asked to help other students learn to read. Displayed an early interest in literature. She studied humanities at Howard and Cornell Universities, followed by an academic career at Texas Southern University, Howard University, Yale, and since 1989, a chair at Princeton University. University. She has worked as an editor for Random House, a critic, and given numerous public lectures. Also she is specializing in African-American literature. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1981. Toni Morrison, the first black woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. She has been awarded a number of literary distinctions, among them the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
Maya Angelou's life growing up was not always perfect. Given the birth name of Marguerite Ann Johnson, Maya Angelou was borin in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4th, 1928. Although she was born there, she spent most of her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas with her Grandmother, Annie Henderson and in San Fransico, California with her mother. Maya Angelou is still living today and teaches at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Maya had to deal with many hard things growing up and although it wasn't perfect, she's lead a very eventful life.
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