Emilia Kulka
Mrs. Harrington
TP-IB English II; Period 2
26 May 2016
Alice Walker: The Womanist Poet Poetry has been used for centuries to spread a message towards a community. This message reflects the poet’s background and their inner thoughts. Alice Walker’s biographical background and the time periods she has lived in influences her writing style as is evident in the analysis of her poem “Without Commercials.” A profound influence in Alice Walker’s poetry is her biographical background. A major inspiration for her writing is her upbringing. Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia as the eighth child of a sharecropper and a part-time maid. As an African-American woman, Walker has always been surrounded by issues of sexism and racism which
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Walker became contemplative in her search for reality and the truths of life. Later in life, Alice Walker was a student at Sarah Lawrence College. During this period of her life, Walker visited Africa over the summer. Walker was able to find love during this summer in Africa. This summer romance inspired Walker’s creativity. She wrote several poems on this trip which are included in her very first collection of poetry, Once. Upon her return home from Africa, Walker discovered that she was pregnant. This was an especially difficult time during her life. She was unsure about this pregnancy, so she was plagued by thoughts of suicide while contemplating an abortion. Walker felt trapped by her pregnancy; therefore, she sought an abortion in order to liberate herself. This period of despair in her life fueled her intense desire to write. Walker once again forced herself into isolation so that she could devote herself entirely to her creative passions. After the abortion, Walker continued to feed her desire of writing. She maintained this devotion by writing poems about love, suicide, and civil rights (King 749). Walker states, “Writing poems is my way of