“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present in accessible.” Maya Angelou is one of the most inspirational and influential figure of black history month. Her writings not only told the real, sad truth of how African American women were treated in the United States, but teaches a lesson that everyone must learn from. Maya Angelou inspires through her history, obstacles and achievements and her contribution to society. In St. Louis Missouri, on April 4, 1928, Marguerite Annie Johnson was born into a world where racism and discrimination were a major issue, but it did not stop her.
Maya Angelou was a strong African-American women who made an influential impact on the Civil Rights Movement, in bother her actions, and her literature. Her life experiences and courage helped others, and made her work influential. During Maya’s early life, she experienced many hardships that shaped her into the person many remember her as. Born on April 4, 1928, she only lived in St. Louis, MO for three years before her parents got divorced, and Maya, along with her mother and brother, moved in with her grandparents in Arkansas. At the age of eight, raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Maya learned the power that words possess.
Making history isn’t an easy thing to do, but Maya Angelou, an acclaimed poet, faced the odds and led a truly impactful life. Throughout her life, Angelou also endeavored in civil rights and found success in writing memoirs. Her ability to write beautiful poetry and relate to readers with her poignant stories allowed her to have a career filled with achievements. She never had anything handed to her on a silver platter, which makes her successes even more noteworthy. Her hard work and dedication to her art made her a perfect role model for other aspiring dreamers.
In the poem, Angelou stands up against the people that have torn her down because of her race and femininity. “You may kill me with your hatefulness” (Angelou 23), she tells them, “But still, like air, I’ll rise” (Angelou 24). Maya Angelou is displaying excellence in her poem by achieving her highest potential as an African American woman, regardless of the degrading comments people make about her. Maya Angelou’s poem teaches its readers to accept the person they are, no matter what people, or society, think of
This journal of different Black studies and research concerning the issues of the Afro-American society. This interview is intended for the public, as well. In this interview, Maya Angelou explains her reasons for beginning to jump into the artistic society. She enjoys life and wants to express her feelings and thoughts into her artwork. She loves to be happy and has known from the early years of her life that she wanted to become an artist.
(Angelou) In some way she is bragging about being so phenomenal. Angelou wants people to know that she is amazing because of her different body features. In each poem, repetition shows ownership to something personal. Lucille Clifton owns her big hips, Megan Falley owns that she is a “fat” girl, and Maya Angelou own that she is phenomenal.
The author Maya Angelou has a rather Hopeful and empowered tone in her poem reflecting her emotions about her subject and making her readers feel the same with her choice of words in expression. By choosing a positive route, one as a reader as well feel motivated enough to achieve and think as well with whom comes to a obstacles in our daily life. As she states, “You may trod me in the very dirt but still, like dust, I’ll Rise.” (Angelou 3) As in one could attempt to treat her unethical she will still overall in the end be invincible.
Maya Angelou is well known for her numerous autobiographies and poems. In many of her works, Maya Angelou tells us about the struggles and challenges she went through in her childhood and how she overcame those struggles and challenges. While reading Maya Angelou’s, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” I observed that Maya and I share many of the same childhood experiences and challenges, but we have some major differences as well. While Maya
Angelou speaks to other woman through her poem. She tells them it 's alright to be confident about who you are, and
The rhyme scheme emphasizes certain words that make Angelou’s message more clear; the comparisons in the figurative language give more specific details to the message; the syntax helps perpetuate the theme throughout the poem; and the diction develops the first half of the message. Each device Angelou used in this poem was for a particular purpose, which is one thing that makes it truly artistic. Moreover, Angelou’s exceptional use of literary devices to convey the theme exemplify her talent, style, and creativity in her writing. Her ability to write a poem on self-confidence and acceptance, even after the conflicts she faced in the past, goes on to show her strength as a human being in general. With the creativity and strength in spirit she possesses, Maya Angelou was certainly able to successfully convey her message to her audience: that each individual should find their self-worth, rise above their pasts and distaste others show toward them, look to a better future, and not let anyone or anything bring them
Maya Angelou is a poet and award winning author know for her acclaimed memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and plethora of other works of art. In a contemporary society, middle school and high school graduates tend to only remember walking down the aisle, the class song, receiving the diploma and the handing of roses to whomever he/she want to give it to on their graduation. Angelou on the contrary, captures every moment of the graduation from the morning of to the end of the commencement. Graduation was one of the most appreciated events of the neighborhood. Maya Angelou remembered feeling excited and eager along with her classmates, soon to be high school graduates and adults as well.
For example, in the forth 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?”. These lines display the theme set through out the poem by showing the fight that the African American people of America had for their civil rights in the 1950s-1960s. Angelou shows this in her writing by asking rhetorical questions to the people who were the oppressors of the African American community on how they would like to see them, but she shows that they will no longer be treated like a dog or a door mate they will stand up and fight for what they believe was a fight that could be won by them.
Maya Angelou is a very strongly opinionated woman who wouldn’t let anyone or anything get in her way. She is known for writing a lot of poems that have a lot of meaning in them and that has lead her to her fame in this world. She was around through the racial fights so she helps put those who didn’t understand what it meant to live in a trapped world find a view in the past. In her poem “Still I Rise’ she talks about her indestructible path and this article is going to find more of a message in Mayas poem. In “still I rise” Maya goes on a spill letting everyone know that they will never get her down.
In the olden day’s people were judged on not only what they would wear, what car they owned, or what class they were in. If the color of your skin did not match everyone else, you would be judge and considered an outsider. You were labeled even before people knew who you were as a person, they just saw how someone stood different. “Still I Rise,” by Maya Angelou illustrates a strong independent person who is being beaten down with words and hatful actions, however, found the courage and strength to rise above the enemies.
Furthermore, “Angelou’s poetry can also be traced to African-American oral traditions like slave and work songs…and emphasis on individual responses to hardship, oppression, and loss” (“Maya”). Both Maya’s background and her tone weave together to form the flow of the
