Maya Angelou Phenomenal Woman

Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise” was published in 1978 at one of the most productive and successful periods of Angelou’s career. “Still I Rise” tells about bouncing back and rising up past oppression and hate. The speaker in Angelou’s poem talks to a direct audience, asking them questions, announcing to them that no matter what they do, she will always rise back up. The poem is broken up into quatrains, although the last two stanzas use the repetition of the phrase “I rise” between the complete lines. The author uses figurative language in every stanza of her poem and uses similes and metaphors to create imagery and to get the tone and the theme of the poem across to the reader. Angelou uses figurative language to convey the message of resilience and succeeding even through hatred.

Oppressed women have been unjustly held back from achieving full equality for much of human history. A woman no matter neither color nor education faces discrimination on a day to day basis. Barriers that are place in their way to advancing includes: lack of mentoring, lack of opportunities for career development, biased rating and testing system and counterproductive behavior and harassment by colleges (Schaefer, pg 15). In the past, women did not have jobs and were to clean, cook and care for the children, also did not have the right to vote. While the man work long hours to provide for his family and gave orders as the women followed. As time went on and rights were given to women, the men did not like the idea that controlled was being lost. They refused to let women become equal to males. Women are allow to work the same career as males, but will never be paid the same as males. This paper addresses Maya Angelou life and how her writing and public speaking inspired women to overcome discrimination.

In the United States, there are people from all over the world who come from different backgrounds and have faced horrendous things. Some of these people feel that their race is inferior to others, but deal with it in different ways. Although the tension between whites and minorities was at it’s strongest in the 1950’s, today’s world still deals with racial discrimination. The question “Is one race superior to all others?” Some overcome this by believing one person can change how other races perceive them or by confronting the public and shining light on what’s going on in the world. Throughout this paper I will discuss how every person overcomes the stereotypes they face everyday. I will then analyze how stereotyping and discrimination

Mayo Angelou explains the reality between struggles and the beauty of overcoming them in her poem called “Woman Work”. This poem is about a mother, preferably, a single mother that has children that she takes care of. The poem starts off by saying, “I’ve got children to tend / The clothes to mend / The floor to mop / The food to shop / Then the chicken to fry / The baby to dry / I got company to feed / The garden to weed / I’ve got shirts to press /

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

The excerpt titled “Champion of the World” is extracted from Maya Angelou’s autobiographical work I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969. This passage tells the story of Angelou’s community gathering at the local store to watch the match between Joe Louis and Primo Carnera in June of 1935. Angelou describes the spirit of the black community in Stamps, Arkansas as they listen to a match between two heavyweight boxers. Angelou Uses extensive imagery to depict the tension before the match, the excitement during the match and the celebration after the match. The imagery, hyperboles and many other rhetorical devices help to give the reader a great sense of the events depicted in this excerpt.

To begin with, the tone of this poem is yearning for human connections. Angelou is longing for human relations as well as telling the reader the importance of these relationships. In the first stanza Angelou states, “Lying, thinking / Last night / How to find my soul a home / Where water is not thirsty/ And bread loaf is not stone.” She is trying to find a purpose and something to fill her empty void. Then she comes to the realization, that the only way to fill the void is to make healthy human relationship. “I came up with one thing / And I don’t believe I’m wrong / That nobody, / But nobody / Can make it here alone,” she’s yearning for love or a friendship. She also exemplifies her yearning tone, “Storm clouds are

Maya Angelou was born April 4, 1928. Her real name is Marguerite Johnson, but she later changed it to Maya. She was born in St. Louis, shortly after her birth her family up and move to Arkansaw. Maya grew up there in the rural parts of Arkansaw, and later married to a South African Freedom Fighter. She lived in Cairo with him, there she began her career as editor of the Arab Observer.

“You have tried to destroy me and although I perish daily I shall not be moved,” (Angelou, 2014), says Maya Angelou in her Commencement speech to the 1992 Spelman College graduates. Poet and award-winning author, Maya Angelou, is most well known for her poetry, essay collection, and memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Angelou happened to be the first black female cable car conductor who later started a career in theatre and music (Maya Angelou: Poet and Historian, n.d.). Once her acting and musical career began to take off, Angelou began touring with productions and released her first album Miss Calypso (Maya Angelou Fast Facts, 2017). Later, Angelou earned a Tony Award nomination for her role in the play Look Away and an Emmy Award nomination for the work she performed in the television mini-series Roots (Maya Angelou: Poet, Civil Rights Activist, Author, Activist, 2017). Angelou was also the first African American woman to have her screenplay produced (Maya Angelou: Poet, Civil Rights Activist, Author, Activist, 2017). Out of the number of poetry collections Angelou published, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Die happened to be her most famous collection that was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (Maya Angelou: Poet, Civil Rights Activist, Author, Activist, 2017). The focus of this paper is to critique Angelou’s credibility, sincerity, and appeal to her whole audience in her delivery during the Spelman Commencement Address in 1992.

Both Maya Angelou of "Champion of the World", and Amy Tan of "Fish Cheeks" write anecdotal short stories which express their isolation from the dominant Anglo culture while delving into deeper detail as to why they feel such a great sense of alienation. Although both stories take place within different settings and time periods, a primary commonality they share comes from within the detachment they feel as minorities within a larger, more dominant community. Each author expertly employs literary devices such as description and narrative style within their writing to express the primary underlying message of their anecdotal stories; however, placing emphasis on the descriptive aspects of a story and setting more often seems to give the audience greater clarity and insight into the situation and setting. In Tan's story, objects of familiarity and a myriad of overwhelming are described in intense detail. Therefore, Tan's heavy emphasis of description throughout her story resonates more strongly with the reader. By thoroughly analyzing the text, we can observe how and why the literary element which the authors place more focus on is an important aspect toward expressing the theme of cultural isolation, as well as to how Tan's usage of description give the audience more insight as a result.

Throughout the years, sports have become a major part of society. Sports, a large percentage of the time, are a part of peoples’ lives in one way or another. Whether they participate in them or just enjoy watching them, sports are a big deal to the majority of people. There are also some individuals who have redefined the expectations when it comes to certain sports. For instance, Babe Ruth redefined the way people think about baseball, or Michael Jordan completely changing the game of basketball. But Joe Louis and Venus and Serena Williams have changed their games in a way no one could have imagined. Although “Champion of the World” by Maya Angelou and “Woman Who Hit Very Hard and How They’ve Changed Tennis” by Michael Kimmelman are different, they are similar in the ways they show how the respected athletes, Joe Louis and the Williams sisters, changed the game and were seen using symbolism in racial and sexual progression.

Thursby, Jacqueline. “Critical companion to Maya Angelou.” A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work. New York: Random House, Inc., 1996. 240 Print.

Even though it deviates from traditional patriarchal culture, women like men have sexual needs. The traditional sex script shows men as aggressive and women as passive. Yet, although viewed as negative, the Jezebel image shows women expressing their sexual needs and desires. The music group TLC and poet Maya Angelou popular culture expressions positively express women’s sexual needs. In one of their early songs “Ain't Too Proud to Beg”, TLC positively tells the story for African American women who are comfortable with expressing their sexual needs. They see it as natural and a given right to be participants in their sexual experience. In a more subtle tone, Maya Angelou poem, “Phenomenal Woman,” speaks about a women’s ability to attract men. The woman in Angelou’s poem is not hypersexual like the standard depiction of Jezebel; instead, she is confident with herself and her sexual needs. The notion of women’s sexuality is not negative or unholy. TLC and Maya Angelou both manage to express a positive reality of a long-standing negative impression of women’s sexuality in their popular culture

“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”. Once said Maya Angelou, a poet, author, screenwriter, actress and and a civil rights activist who wrote poems intelligently and always with a gaping reason deeply within them, which made them rather fascinating. As we look back on Maya Angelou’s life, she had an incredible journey, fighting discriminations and harsh circumstances during her youth, she is truly an astonishing person who is worth of to be spoken as an important poet in history and one of the greatest in the poetic world.

Maya Angelou is one out of the best known poets. She has written a lot of poems that inspires and assist people with their lives. She has a “desire humbleness to learn and experience all that life has to offer her” (gale biography in context, “Maya Angelou More than a Poet”) which makes her poems have a meaning to them. In addition, Maya Angelou got a lot of pieces of poems considered equality to her experience as a human of the United States during race times and her experience as a person who worked with other civil right activist. Maya Angelou uses deep themes that leaves the reader to think about the topic is being talked about. In her poem, “Still I Rise” she talks metaphorically about discrimination. In the poem, it states, “does my haughtiness offend you? ( the poetry foundation, “Maya Angelou”). This quote from the poem shows how the rest of the poem is about people believe they is better than other people and that the other people should suffer because they are inferior to the people, but the people being abused should not be embarrassed of who they are and be thankful for life(“Maya Angelou More than a Poet 1”).