Touched By An Angel By Maya Angelou

In an excerpt from her novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings called “Graduation,” Maya Angelou narrates the anticipation surrounding graduation in her small town of Stamps, Alabama. Angelou effectively contrives noteworthy differences between paragraphs 1 through 5 and 6 through 10 through the use of emotional and descriptive diction, powerfully bold comparisons, and a shift in perspective in order to instill pride and dignity in Angelou and her race despite the era’s highlighted social injustices which she endures.

In stanza four Maya Angelou asks a series of rhetorical questions in lines thirteen and fourteen. She knows that people want to see her broken, weak and crying from the criticism and hateful words that have been said to her. She not only had to deal with criticism from being an African-American in a time when whites did not accept them into their society but also dealing with the fact that she was an African-American woman. During the fifties women were expected to marry and be a helping hand around the house. They were not expected to be in the working field. Just imagine how hard it had to be to make as an African-American women trying to achieve her goals. But she refuses to show how difficult it was through her emotion she just rises above it.

In that case if anyone who is trying to put her down will end up failing. Maya is really proud of her appearance and not afraid to show that. As shown above it is explain that when you are strong and have confidence nothing will stop you from moving forward in life. As you can tell this poem is a very good advice from the author herself she includes how other people get amazed by the confidence she has. After all it is all about the confidence you carry at all times and putting aside all the negative things you carry that hurts

Welcome and thankyou to this discussion on celebrating a poet whose powerful language engages and influences others. The poet whose contributions demonstrate these features is Maya Angelou whose influence is evident in the poetry she produced. Maya Angelou is an American poet and civil rights activist, born in 1928 whose poetry is famous for its inspiration and is considered ‘one of the great voices of contemporary literature.’ (Metacritic, 2015) Maya Angelou’s personal and cultural experiences communicate the power of the African- Americans during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and 1970s era to overcome adversity and oppression that are clearly reflected in her inspirational poems ‘Caged Bird’ and ‘Still I Rise.’ An analysis of these poems reveals that

“A Rock, A River, [and] A Tree”(1) are three objects mentioned in Maya Angelou’s poem spoken at Bill Clinton’s inauguration ceremony, “On The Pulse Of Morning.” These objects remain through all of Earth’s history to represent our past and future. Sunlight is used to represent the unified future that is to come in this poem, and shadow is used to represent hatred, and ignorance. The title of the poem refers to this improved future, represented by a sunrise, which begins to portray the motif of light and shadow throughout the poem. When we are approached by this new beginning, we have the “space to place new steps of change”(98). She wants to eliminate all discrimination and ignorance in our future. Maya Angelou also wrote a memoir, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, which carries out the theme of progress and advancement. Throughout her life you can see her rise through all of the hardships she faces, such as racism and rape. Rape is not discussed in the

Perfection is impossible, but Barack Obama consolidates the concept that imperfection is acceptable as long as there is improvement along the way. Obama describes his visions for America in his speech “A More Perfect Union” with diction, paradox, and syntax by explaining why there needs to be improvements regarding racism. Maya Angelou shares a personal anecdote in her essay “Graduation” that ties to Obama’s vision. With parallelism and repetition it involves a doubt in her race, but ends in an ultimate revelation of pride. Obama and Angelou’s visions are comparable in their beliefs that there is an achievable need to improve equality between blacks and whites. This can be contradicted by the past history

The ballad still I rise is composed by Maya Angelou; an African American writer, instructor and social liberties extremist. The ballad's strict importance is a snide reaction towards the general population who look down on the speaker. To the storyteller, the sonnet figuratively depicts her quality to dependably survive the fight against individuals' feedback of her and her predecessors. All around, this ballad conveys the message of the human's fantastic quality and capacity to defeat hurt. In any case, the fundamental and most essential message this ballad gives is the storyteller's quality to counter against separation of races and sexual orientation; which offers seek after other people who experience the ill effects of a similar difficulty.

When I first read this poem, I was overwhelmed with conflicting emotions. Maya Angelou depicts herself as a fighter that will never give up, no matter the circumstances. She has obviously faced some difficult situations in her life that should have stopped her but she continues to triumph in the face of adversity. In this way, I am inspired to continue pursuing my goals. I also felt discouraged and disgusted, mostly because of the types of obstacles that are described in this poem. It is symbolizes the obstacles that many African Americans faced in the past as a result of the abolition of slavery, racism and inequality. The discouraging part of this poem is that some of these very inequalities and injustices still go on today. So, while this poem illustrates strength,

Maya Angelou utilises her passionate style to send a clear message and to create an empowering response within her audience. Through her use of imagery, figurative language, diction and repetition, she creates an uplifting tone of proud defiance

Maya Angelou demonstrates many examples of descriptive imagery in her excerpt Sister Flowers. Imagery is the formation of mental images, or figures through text. Angelou first introduces imagery in paragraph one. The essay states, “For nearly a year, I sopped around the house, the Store, the school and the church, like an old biscuit, dirty and inedible” (1 and 2). The imagery in line 1 and 2 is “like an old biscuit, dirty and inedible.” Angelou is forming an image in the reader’s mind of what she looked like as she “sopped around.” Only a few lines down Angelou begins to use imagery to describe the appearance of Sister Flowers as she writes “She was thin without the taut look of wiry people, and her printed voile dresses and flower

"I'm not modest," she told The Associated Press in 2013. "I have no modesty. Modesty is a learned behavior, but I do pray for humility, because humility comes from the inside out."

Majority of African American women get judged on the day to day basis. When scrolling through social media there will be large amounts of individuals who will bully or even belittle a colored female because of the natural kinks of her hair, her sense of fashion, the full shaped curves of her body, and the color of her skin . The poem “Still I Rise” by the well-known poet, Maya Angelou, specifically describes the reasons why she had so much confidence; even if she were to be judged by her appearances and mindset. This poem is about embracing females, but it mainly introduces similar life situations that many African American women have experienced. The symbols and point of view that Angelou specifically added in her poem made her readers realize that there are many meanings to this poem.

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”).

In “The Story of an Hour” and the poem “Still I Rise” Kate Chopin and Maya Angelou have explored the theme of oppression in a variety of different ways. “The Story of an Hour” is a short story based around how dramatically things can change within the space of an hour and how this can affect your life in the short period of time. Within the hour Mr Mallard is presumed dead in a railroad disaster, resulting in Mrs Mallard short lived ‘freedom’ after years of being oppressed, before soon learning that her husband is not dead as she encounters him. This shock triggers an ongoing heart problem and Mrs Mallard is soon confirmed dead. “Still I Rise” is a poem based around Maya Angelou and how she will overcome challenges that are thrown at her.

Maya felt strongly about oppression and this pushed her to make this poem to achieve social justice and to