Maya Angelou

There are many influential poets that deserve to be heard. Maya Angelou was a poet, influential speaker, and a writer. Angelou was one of the most influential African-American women of all time. She published books, poems, and screenplays that were later filmed. Due to all these accomplishments, she was honored with a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, five Grammys, the National Medal of Art Award, and finally the Presidential Medal of Freedom (Pettinger). Angelou was most known for her poems. She wrote “Still I Rise,” “Phenomenal Woman” and “Caged Bird.” These are three of Angelou’s most outstanding poems. These poems were inspired by her life experiences, such as her experience with racism, inequality and sexism.

In I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Angelou uses various stylistic devices and rhetorical strategies such as similes and metaphors. Angelou’s use of similes are used in order to describe her own character. In this, Angelou remarks “For nearly a year, I sopped around the house, the Store, the school and the church, like an old biscuit, dirty and inedible” showing that Angelou's inner feelings of not being good enough to be picked or loved. Correspondingly Angelou felt her skin looked “dirty like mud” showing her inner insecurities of her skin colour being unattractive. The sense of Angelou’s insecurities can also be seen with the use of metaphors regarding Angelou's skin as she remarked “I was described by our playmates

Maya Angelou is a leader by example, she sets the standard by her actions and the stories she tells teaches the audience a lesson. Majority of her work is to inform us of the past and she wants us to learn from her experiences in life; she is a life teacher. The purpose of this poem was to inform us of the history of our country. The poem is titled “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” and her purpose of writing this is to teach the reader why the caged bird sings. Maya Angelou wants to put the reader in her shoes to get the ultimate experience of racial inequality but instead by taking the role of a caged bird or a free bird.

Maya Angelou was an inspiring activist, poet, and woman. Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928. Throughout her lifetime she explored her career options as an actress, dancer, singer, writer, and editor among many other careers. Angelou had a tough childhood. Her parents divorced when she was very young and she was sent to live with her grandmother in Arkansas along with her brother Bailey. As an African American, Angelou experienced discrimination and racial prejudices. Angelou gave birth to her son Guy, at the age of sixteen and married her first husband Tosh Angelos, at the age of twenty-four. Angelou and Tosh divorced years later however, she did get married a couple of more times. Angelou experienced many

Maya Angelou, named at birth, Marguerite Johnson was on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her and her family moved from St. Louis to Stamps, Arkansas, where she was raised growing up. Maya Angelou was an American author, dancer, screenwriter, actress, poet and civil rights activist. Angelou gained a majority of her fame with the memoir she wrote in 1969, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. This memoir made literary history as being the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman. Angelou received many awards and honors throughout her entire career. These awards included two NAACP Image Awards in the outstanding literary work (nonfiction) category, in 2005 and 2009. Angelou became one of the most legendary and influential

Angelou was born in Missouri in 1928. She spent most of her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas, pre Civil Rights Movement with her grandmother and her older brother. Angelou is most known for writing the poem Caged Bird. In the first stanza about the caged bird, Angelou declares that the bird, “can seldom see through/ his bars of rage/ his wings are clipped and/ his feet are tied/ so he opens his throat to sing”(Caged Bird). Angelou uses the bird as a metaphor for oppressed African Americans during this time period; the bird is held back by a barrier, just like African Americans were held back by unjust laws, a corrupt legal system, and their white peers who saw them as inferior. Similar to the bird, Angelou felt held back by others, but she did not let the “bars of rage” hold her back from her potential so, like the bird, she “opened her throat to sing” and used her voice to protest for herself and those who could not advocate for themselves.

The first element our writers used to express their message of wanting to be free is form. The narrator for ‘The Caged Bird” feels alone and wishes to be able to snatch the chains that keep her tied down. Also, in the poem “Sympathy” by Dunbar as well an in “The Caged Bird” both authors used a bird to symbolize the captivity and aspiration for freedom. Both poets wrote their piece in lyric form because of obvious reasons. A lyric poem is defined as a poem that expresses personal and emotional feelings. Writing poems with this form shows the amount of deep emotion that the narrator feels toward this work. In addition, both authors wrote their poems in iambic pentameter to make the poem sound like a natural flow of speech to really show the deep feelings the poets are feeling.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” depicts two birds which are used as metaphors to express the state in which the two classes of people live. In one description the poem describes the standard of living of a bird of privilege which alludes to the lives of whites. Then it describes caged birds whom of which are crying out for freedom, and are meant to represent African Americans during this time. It describes the feeling of being trapped and calling out for

In Maya Angelou’s poem, “Caged Bird”, She explains how a bird is trapped inside of a cage and can not escape from thick metal bars that hold it back. It imagines and signs of having freedom. People believe this is about a bird, but what if it isn’t. I believe that this is talking about a person who can’t make the decision if they want to keep fighting to do free.The bird can’t decide if it wants to fight to soon wear the bars of the cage down so it can finally fly away aswell or to give up and use its voice and

Maya Angelou is a writer and a civil right activist. In addition, she’s a poet and award-winning author known for her numerous poetry and essay collections. Angelou received several honors throughout her career, including two NAACP Image Award in outstanding literary work category. (Biography.com) Beyond her poetic days she was an actress, songwriter, and dancer. As an African American, Angelou experienced firsthand racial prejudice and discrimination in Arkansas. She also suffered at the hands of a family associate around the age of 7 raped by her mother boyfriend. Traumatized by the experience she became a virtual mute. (biography.com) Maya Angelou have faced many tribulations in life and expressed it through her poetic writing. The style

Through an examination of the female experience, Maya Angelou's Still I Rise (1978) and Anne Sexton's Her Kind (1960) utilise the authors' individual styles to inspire and shape our understanding of oppression and empowerment. In the difference in presentation of their common themes, the implications of different styles are shaped. Though there are similarities between the poets, it is the way they choose to utilise literary devices that creates a text that resonates with the audience in different ways.

When Maya was raped, she blamed herself for the death of her rapist, and became muted for 5 years. She used this story as a growth mechanism. She wrote a book titled, “I know why the caged bird sings” (Angelou), which is about the civil rights movement and a young lady struggling to make it through. The book reflects her life from when she was an insecure little girl to growing up and realizes people cannot be mad at the world forever. She learned that she can trust herself and be who she really is. This book is what got her noticed. She translated a message so clear throughout the book,that black girls can conquer independence and be great at it. New York Times Journalist Katherine Schulten says, “Maya Angelou’s often-taught “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” already know, for Ms. Angelou, “finding her voice” meant something much more than just learning to write well”(Schulten). What this quotes means is Maya Angelou purposely wrote this book to teach and become an inspiration to everyone. She found her voice and not its time for everyone else to find their voice ! She is such a great soul that blessed so many people's hearts with her inspirational teachings and poems. Ultimately, Maya Angelou defied expectations by finding her voice and becoming such a strong independent woman during rough times when everything seemed impossible. Her actions were worth every minute spend, til

The mood of “Caged Bird” changes drastically from stanza to stanza. Angelou’s specific diction choices help to reflect the change from being positive to negative with some elements of hope involved. The parts of the poem involving the free bird provide the reader with a feeling of self government.In contrast, the mood associated with the caged bird is confinment. Despite the negative mood tied to the caged bird there are still elements of hope woven into these stanzas.

However, in the poem “Caged Bird” Maya Angelou characterizes the free and caged bird as, one bird symbolizing imprisonment and limitations while the other symbolizes freedom, which further develops the theme of inequality. The line “And dares to claim the sky” shows how unaware the free bird is and further develops the idea of its freedom. This piece of evidence shows how unaware the free bird is by exaggerating the extent of its freedom compared to the caged bird. In

Near the end of the poem it is revealed that the bird “opens his throat to sing” Maya Angelou felt this way in her own life. She wrote, sang and danced because it was her way of expressing her longing for freedom despite being oppressed for most of her life. Although freedom, to the caged bird, is “fearful” because it is “unknown”, he still sings “a fearful trill”. The cries of help are heard but the overarching parents only hear it as background noise.