Angela Angelou Wonderful Woman

While Sandra Cookson claims that the poem is about "the survival of black women despite every kind of humiliation, deploys most of these forces, as it celebrates black women while simultaneously challenging the stereotypes to which America has subjected them since the days of slavery"(Cookson). I agree, because Angelou endured several injustices such as sexism, racism and criticism. Although Angelou faced these injustices, she triumphs over each one of them with pride. In addition, the 70s, many African-American feminists argued that black women were oppressed, not only because of their gender but because of their race. For example, in the fourth stanza, Angelou states, “Did you want to see me broken? /Bowed head and lowered eyes? /Shoulders falling down like teardrops. /Weakened by my soulful cries?” (Angelou 13-16). Here, the poet says how her

People talk behind the speaker’s back and spread whatever rumors they can conjure, even to the point of ramming her face in the mud and really making a picture of her as a dirty, good-for-nothing person. Yet despite that, she still walks with her head high, knowing they're not true. And when people can't seem to understand why she’s not upset, they'll continue putting her down. And she'll just laugh it off, not really caring about what they say or do. The last stanza shows that even if she had a checkered past and no matter what she may have done before, she can still rise, she can still stand up, she can still look the world in the eye and tell them, “I will rise.” In lines 21-24, Angelou states, “You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I’ll rise.” This shows that no matter what came Angelou’s way, she still rose to the occasion and made a difference. Thus, the racism that Angelou went through left its footprints in the making of her poetic

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 is one of the most distinguished African American writers of the twentieth century. Writing is not her only forte she is a poet, director, composer, lyricist, dancer, singer, journalist, teacher, and lecturer (Angelou and Tate, 3). Angelou’s American Dream is articulated throughout her five part autobiographical novels; I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Gather Together in my Name, Singin’ and Swingin’ and Getting’ Merry Like Christmas, The Heart of a Woman, and All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes. Maya Angelou’s American Dream changed throughout her life: in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya’s American dream was to fit into a predominantly white society in small town

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.

Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri, is a writer,and she is known for many auto-biographical novels and she also writes poetry and essays. She also loved to study music, dance,and drama. From 1963 to 1966 Angelou was involved in the black civil rights movement. Maya Angelou wrote this specific poem called; “Phenomenal Women”. Angelou has a very creative way of saying things throughout her poem. Angelou talks about a woman in the poem that talks about herself a lot she repeats the phrase“ I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman that's me”( Angelou) therefore Angelou might be this person in her poem. Angelou is trying to show the reader that you need to have more confidence in your own person instead of worrying about others judgment.

Maya Angelou, who was the first African-American to work in the San Francisco streetcars, accomplished many things in her life. This fact proves that Angelou was a woman who believed in doing what needs to be done in order to accomplish her goals. Angelou made an influence on the world with her books and poems that related to diverse people in different situations, but most importantly, she fought for African-American right in the early and middle 1900s.

The words Multi-talented barely describes Maya Angelou's lifelong accomplishments and notoriety. She was a woman born during the difficult times of prohibition and abandoned at a very young age and faced the most painful of challenges during her youth. From transferring for place to place without her biological parent(s), unfit living environments, physical and mental abuse/ trauma, to simply just wanting to find a place to belong. These were the trials of Maya Angelou, in her youth, she moved more than four times across the country. The second time involved her father taking her and her kid brother back to California, but instead of taking them all the way he decides to drop them off to live with their mother in St. Louis where gambling and

Marguerite Johnson, known as Maya Angelou, was not only famous for writing poetry but she also served as a Civil Rights Activist. Her other occupations were being an actress, dancer, including an exotic dancing (Maya Angelou Is Born), and an author. When she was working at the strip club a theatre group which help her with her acting career. They helped her get a role in the infamous Porgy and Bess and Calypso Heat Wave (Maya Angelou Biography). Around that time, she started producing albums, which later got her a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Audio version, writing biographies, poetry. Later, in her adult life, she won two NAACP image awards, Emmy award, for the mini-series Roots, and three Grammy’s (Maya Angelou Biography). Unfortunately, She

Why do you think it matters to Angelou that she "had proved that one of their descendants, at least one, could just briefly return to Africa, and that despite cruel betrayals,

Rosa Angelou (30) beautiful and smart political science graduate becomes the first African American personal secretary to the president of the United States, a white man. She is a very educated and charming young woman who worked hard for what she believes in, and what she believes in was equality for Blacks in America.

These images portray the ability of someone to have hope and faith no matter the circumstances. Specifically, Angelou uses the image of a caged bird singing to show this idea. For example, during the scene when her grandmother is being made fun of by the three white girls Angelou states, "but of course I couldn't say anything, so I went in and stood behind the screen door" (355). Throughout this scene, Angelou is stuck watching Momma being ridiculed from behind a screen door where there is nothing that she can do but watch.

The first stanza of the poem introduce the free bird. Angelou uses words such as “leaps . . . and floats” (Line 1-3) in description of this character’s movements. These actions relate directly to moving without restrictions. The words leaped and floats are contradicted immediately in the second stanza as Angelou brings the caged bird into the picture. Angelou uses diction that complements confinement

It has been contrasted and music and musical structures, particularly soul, and like soul artist, Angelou utilizes chuckling or mock rather than tears to adapt to minor aggravations, trouble, and awesome enduring. A large number of her sonnets are about affection, connections, or overcoming hardships, as communicated in lyrics of hers, for example, "Still I Rise", I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, and Million Man March Poem. The allegories in her verse serve as "coding", or litotes, for implications comprehended by different