Maya Angelou Essay
Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents were divorced when she was only three and she was sent with her brother Bailey to live with their grandmother in the small town of Stamps, Arkansas. At age seven, while visiting her mother in Chicago, she was sexually molested by her mother’s boyfriend. Too ashamed to tell any of the adults in her life, she confided in her brother. When she later heard the news that an uncle had killed her attacker, she felt that her words had killed the man. She fell silent and did not speak for five years. She began to speak again at the age of 13, when she and her brother rejoined their mother in San Francisco.
She dropped out of school in her teens to become the first African …show more content…
She has many poems out and many known books around the world. Three of her works are: Rainbow in the Clouds, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Amazing Peace. These are three of her top poems she has written. Rainbow in the Clouds has a quote saying “Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” What she means by this is that it takes so little to brighten someone else's day. Yet it can leave them feeling happy for a moment, an hour, a day, or give them a sweet memory for life. The thing we learn from the poem is that the littlest thing can brighten someone's day. It’s not that hard to brighten someone’s day. And to you it may just be a simple gesture but to that person it’s a lot. The next poem is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In this poem Angelou uses the metaphor of the bird trying to escape its cage, described in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, as a prominent symbol throughout her series of autobiographies. Like elements within a prison narrative, The caged bird represents Angelou’s confinement resulting from racism and …show more content…
She was a major poet to presidents, and to anyone who read her poetry because they loved her writing style and her passion. Most of her poems and novels were about racial appeal or true events that happened in her life;she wrote the award winning novel, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” .This book tells the story of Maya Angelou. When Angelou was three years old, her parents divorced and sent their children to live in the rural, segregated town of Stamps, Arkansas, with their paternal grandmother Annie Henderson. During their teens, they lived with their mother,Vivian Baxtar in California. At the age of fifteen, Angelou began her career as a civil-rights activist of sorts. She battled racism with dogged persistence and succeeded in becoming the first African American hired to the position of streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Aside from her autobiography type novels and poems, she dabbled in various genres as well. These include cookbooks such as “Great Food, All Day Long” and “Hallelujah! The Welcome Table”. She also wrote a couple essays and made some picture books for little
Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents were divorced when she was only three and she was sent with her brother Bailey to live with their grandmother in the small town of Stamps, Arkansas. At age seven, while visiting her mother in Chicago, she was sexually molested by her mother’s boyfriend. Too ashamed to tell any of the adults in her life, she confided in her brother. When she later heard the news that an uncle had killed her attacker, she felt that her words had killed the man. She fell silent and did not speak for five years. She began to speak again at the age of 13, when she and her brother rejoined their mother in San Francisco.
She dropped out of school in her teens to become the first African …show more content…
She has many poems out and many known books around the world. Three of her works are: Rainbow in the Clouds, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Amazing Peace. These are three of her top poems she has written. Rainbow in the Clouds has a quote saying “Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” What she means by this is that it takes so little to brighten someone else's day. Yet it can leave them feeling happy for a moment, an hour, a day, or give them a sweet memory for life. The thing we learn from the poem is that the littlest thing can brighten someone's day. It’s not that hard to brighten someone’s day. And to you it may just be a simple gesture but to that person it’s a lot. The next poem is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In this poem Angelou uses the metaphor of the bird trying to escape its cage, described in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, as a prominent symbol throughout her series of autobiographies. Like elements within a prison narrative, The caged bird represents Angelou’s confinement resulting from racism and …show more content…
She was a major poet to presidents, and to anyone who read her poetry because they loved her writing style and her passion. Most of her poems and novels were about racial appeal or true events that happened in her life;she wrote the award winning novel, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” .This book tells the story of Maya Angelou. When Angelou was three years old, her parents divorced and sent their children to live in the rural, segregated town of Stamps, Arkansas, with their paternal grandmother Annie Henderson. During their teens, they lived with their mother,Vivian Baxtar in California. At the age of fifteen, Angelou began her career as a civil-rights activist of sorts. She battled racism with dogged persistence and succeeded in becoming the first African American hired to the position of streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Aside from her autobiography type novels and poems, she dabbled in various genres as well. These include cookbooks such as “Great Food, All Day Long” and “Hallelujah! The Welcome Table”. She also wrote a couple essays and made some picture books for little