Maya Angelou Research Paper

Thesis: Maya Angelou’s experiences with racism, female subjection……are evident influences to her literature….such as “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”

Maya Angelou is a phenomenal woman. She was born into a devastating decade, that suffered numerous tragedies. Not only had society shaped her as a woman, she has also shaped our society and influenced many lives. She is still living today, yet I believe her legend will never die. Furthermore I will share with you what motivated her and some of her gratifying experiences. How she was effected by society, and what she did about it. Also how the time period she was born into made her the extraordinary woman she is today.

I selected Maya Angelou as the poet who interests me the most because she is considered one of the best poets in the modern era. She has won multiple degrees and honorary awards throughout her life. She won the Quill Award for Poetry in 2006 for her poem Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010 which is considered the highest American civilian honor by the first African-American President, Barack Obama. Angelou was also awarded the NAACP award for Outstanding Literary Work in 2007 and even won the BET Honors Award for Literary Arts in 2012, just two years before her death. I also selected Angelou because she has lived a very interesting life. Angelou was educated at the San Francisco Labor School,

Maya Angelou is one of the most influential and talented African American writers of our modern day. Those who read Angelou‘s works should not pass the thought of where her influence came from. Maya Angelou’s work has been heavily affected by the era in which she began to write. The fifties and sixties were a tumultuous time for most African-Americans in the US. The civil-rights movement, led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, was instrumental in securing legislation, notably the Civil-Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Maya Angelou was multi-talented. She was an author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, and poet. Growing up, Maya lived in Stamps, Arkansas after her parents split. Living in Arkansas she faced racial hardships. In San Francisco she got a scholarship at the California labor school to study dance and acting. At age

Maya Angelou had a traumatic childhood filled with sad events that left an impact on her for her writing career to develop. She faced racism as a child being a young black girl living in San Francisco during the time of war and heavy racism she stuck our everywhere: “she wasn’t a white girl with long blonde hair. As she remembered that she was a girl with dark skin, a gap between her teeth, and kinky hair” (“Maya Angelou” 24). She was also being beat by her father’s girlfriend and ran away to live in a junkyard for a month with other misfits who struggled as well. At the age of seven and a half, she was raped and hospitalized by her mother’s boyfriend. He went to jail and when he got realized he was kicked to death by her uncles. Angelou felt the murder was her fault so she stopped talking for five years. During this time of not speaking she read every book in the

sent to join their mother in St. Louis.  By the time the children are in

Maya Angelou born April 4, 1928 is an American author and poet. She was born with the name Marguerite Ann Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents were Bailey Johnson, doorman and a navy dietitian and Vivian Johnson, a nurse and card dealer. When Angleou's older brother, Bailey Jr. was four and Angelou was 3 years old their mother and father's marriage ended and the children were sent to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Even though it was during the Great Depression and World War II their grandmother prospered financially because of the general store she owned and because “she made wise and honest investments”.

Maya reached her breaking point. Her dad was deployed in Syria; her mom was unresponsive most of the time from all of the alcohol she drank to numb the continuous stress she felt worrying about whether or not she would get a phone call notifying her of her husband's death. Her best-friend turned on her for the popular girls at school and her grades were starting to slip. The only thing that kept her sane was drawing. When she drew, she felt free. She felt as if nothing in the world mattered except her colored pencils and sketch book. One misty, eerie night Maya drew herself in great detail. She started with her silky, straight, brown hair that fell a few inches below her shoulders. She then went on to her facial structure. Her defined jawline connected at her chin to make a vague point. Her eyebrows were thin and well-kept, and her nose was as petite as a Boston Terrier. Her lips were small, but plump and resembled the pink hue of the sky at sunset. She took the most time on her deep blue eyes, capturing all of the pain she was feeling for so long. Maya finished her drawing by coloring and shading all of it in making her face look as soft as an airbrush painting. It was her

" A light is supposed to help you see your way; it brightens not just your day, but your path." These were the words spoken by Dr. Maya Angelou, a well-known American poet, an actress, a singer; overall, "a jack of all trades." During Angelou's visit to the Glide Memorial church in San Francisco, she taught the importance of inspiring others and "shining your light" on them despite your differences. Regardless of your ethnicity, sexuality, gender, religion or age; you should treat everyone with kindness and with the upmost respect. She teaches this lesson to her audience by reflecting on the hardships throughout her life; all while managing to come out being victorious and being an inspiration to people throughout her literary work and her

From St. Louis, Missouri, with her outgoing and gregarious life style. Maya Angelou, born in 1928, is widely known for her autobiographies. However, she was a successful poet and a

1924.Also his parents name is Maya Angelou,Richard Wright,and Toni Morrison. And the High Schools he went to is, The New School,DeWitt Clinton High School. His hobbies were writing books he was a novelist and a storyteller.

Known for her admirable poetry that spoke to many women in her time, Marguerite Ann Johnson or better known as Maya Angelou, born on April 4 1928, was an influential poet that experienced many dreadful events in her early life that led her to write the type of poetry that many women were able to relate to her poetry and books. At the young age of six Angelou had been sexually assaulted, by her mother’s boyfriend at the time. From this experience Angelou did not speak to anyone for five consecutive years. Throughout this time, Angelou had found her love for literature and writing. Angelou had began to read poems by famous writers, such as William Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe and Paul Laurence Dunbar, and started to understand the meaning of poetry (Maya Angelou) . Further on into her life, Angelou had been sexually assaulted again by her former boyfriend and resulted in a pregnancy at the young age of seventeen. Into her late

Esteemed African-American poet, Maya Angelou, is renowned as one of the greatest poets of the Civil Rights Era and also, as one of the greatest poets of all-time. Angelou is an esteemed woman of many talents, but her most notable was her poetry. Though Angelou had traumatic experiences as a child, she overcame her past and morphed into a beautiful poet, songstress, dancer, actress, and writer.

Maya Angelou, originally born as Marguerite Johnson, was an award winning poet, author and civil rights activist. She was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. She had a rough childhood as her parents split up when she was young, after which Maya Angelou, then Marguerite Johnson and her brother, Bailey, were sent to live with their grandmother in rural Stamps, Arkansas. She married two men, Tosh Angelos and Paul Du Feu, but eventually had divorces with both of those men. She was raped when she was 8 years old by her mother’s boyfriend after he suddenly showed up to visit. Her uncles found out about this event and beat her mother’s boyfriend to death. She remained silent for 5 years and during this time grew her love for literature.