Analysis Of Maya Angelou's Poetry

“I 've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” (Angelou). Such wise words said by the only and only Maya Angelou an American poet. Maya Angelou 's life was not always as luxurious. She went through traumatic experiences including rape, the death of her mother, and an oppression of gender and race growing up. For the purposes of analyzing her works, the focus will be on three of her poems including The Week of Diana, Touched by an Angel, and Life Doesn’t Frighten Me. These three poems are about challenges and obstacles in life. In fact, they all send the same recurring message of looking out for hope when pain is present. Done through the use of

One example found is immediately found at the star of The Week of Diana “The dark lantern of world sadness has cast its shadow upon the land” (Angelou). During this time, Princess Diana (Heir of British Court) unfortunately lost her life. Maya Angelou, the poet decides to write this to honor her memory. Starting off with a metaphor the reader is able to recognize the princess’s death on a large-scale. Knowing and understanding the widespread effect of the princess 's death on the world is able to help explain sadness that comes with pain. Similarity, pain is also expressed in Touched by an Angel but has a solution “Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls” (Angelou). Correlated with hope, the use of personification implies that boldness comes with hope and is needed for a better outcome. When reaching a state of hope or in this case love acting as hope, one can be set free. Having broken chains means that there is no more future of bad experiences that were in the past. Taking out the figurative language helps understand the impact these pieces leave. Analyzing the impact helps discover the truth that without them the poems would lack the sufficient information needed to receive the message. Since it would all be a bunch of words on a page not being able to come

When it comes to writing, a poet or writer is able to choose the path to which they want to take to tell their stories ensuring they reach their audience. Maya Angelou is one that chooses to not follow a specific style. Instead, she chooses to write free verse poems. Much like the topics of what she writes about choosing from a variety of choices. It’s seen in most of her poems, one, in particular, is Life Doesn’t Frighten Me. Written in free verse throughout the whole poem if looking at one line, in particular, it says “Life doesn 't frighten me at all Not at all Not at all” (Angelou). This line follows no specific pattern, yet it has a great impact. One is able to read it and understand it without a problem. When written in free verse, the ideas are able to flow together with no pressure on rhymes to tell the story. In this case, the reader is able to read the writing and sees an immediate effect. This allows the reader to understand that life is something that shouldn 't be feared implying that hope is needed to let go of fears. In addition, The Week of Diana is also written in free verse. Seen throughout the poem, free verse is flowing with memories from the past to honor her life. Free verse, may seem irrelevant to a case for an impact on the reader after reading the poem, but it is hardly the truth. The narrator, who may be an admirer of Princess Diana tells the reader the impact of the princess from their view. This is not only done in a believable way but one that