Maya Angelou's Poetry

Maya Angelou is one of the greatest voices of contemporary African American Literature. Angelou is well known for "I know why the Caged Bird Sings", one of her volumes of poetry published in 1970. Her poetry highlights her triumph over social obstacles and finding her identity. Angelou was not always a poet. She was a singer, performer, and civil rights activist. "Angelou's poems are a continuum of mood and emotion. They go from the excitement of love to outrage over racial injustice, from the pride of blackness and African American heritage"(Hagen). Two of her poems, "Still I Rise" and "To a Man" represent two of Angelou's common themes; the oppression of African Americans and love.
Maya Angelou was born on April 4th 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her name at birth was Marguerite Annie Johnson. When her parents, Bailey Johnson and Vivian Baxter Johnson got divorced, she moved to Arkansas to live with her grandmother. While on a visit home in St. Louis, Angelou was raped by her mother's boyfriend. When Angelou's family found out about the rape, her uncles beat her attacker to death. Because of this event, Maya Angelou did not speak from the age of eight to thirteen. She spent some of this time of silence, developing her passion for writing and poetry. At sixteen, Maya …show more content…
"Still I Rise" is composed of seven quatrains, or four line stanzas, and one fifteen line stanza. At the start of the fifteen line stanza, Angelou switches from using "I'll Rise" to "I Rise". This change represents how it is time for her to take action. The rhyme scheme also changes at this point. For the first seven stanzas the rhyme scheme is ABCB. The last stanza does not follow this pattern, and has a more irregular pattern. This is done to emphasize the last stanza and highlight the change in tone. The meter is not consistent throughout the poem. Angelou chooses to focus on the rhyme scheme and