Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
¶ … prolific black American writers recognized in the world of contemporary American literature is Maya Angelou. Maya Angelou was born Margurite Johnson in Arkansas, but later changed her name to Maya Angelou, after her husband's last name, a man named Tosh Angelou (Life and Times 2002). Maya Angelou had struggled through hard life and poverty, living her life in perpetual abuse to opportunist and abusive men. She had a difficult childhood, and was raped at the age of 8 by her mother's friend, and by the age 16, gave birth to her son (Quilt Pages 2002). She sustains herself and her son by working, and Maya Angelou worked on different odd jobs. She was considered the first black streetcar conductor in San Francisco, the first black woman screenwriter and director in Hollywood, and became known for her work for the civil rights movement along with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. (ClassicNotes 2002).
Maya Angelou had led a life of eternal struggle and suffering, yet, her suffering did not become a barrier for her to pursue a meaningful and fruitful life as a writer and activist of women's...
Of the numerous poems she had composed, the poem "Africa" is a soulful reflection of herself, and the poem is an analogy of her life with that of the great continent of the world. This paper will provide a critical analysis of the poem 'Africa" by Maya Angelou, and will relate this poem analysis in the context of her life and experiences as a woman and black American in the white American society.
The first stanza of the poem "Africa" is descriptive of the qualities of a woman and of the continent Africa. The stanza can be viewed as having dual meaning, and the analogy of Africa and herself 9 Maya Angelou) starts at the first lines of the poem. The lines "sugarcane sweet / deserts her hair / golden her feet / two Niles her tears..." (lines 2-6, I) are descriptive phrases of the qualities the subject possesses (Africa and Maya Angelou). Notice that the firs three lines mentioned attributes to the exotic quality of the subject; however, the last line illustrates that despite the beauty that we see in those lines in the first stanza, there is suffering beneath…
Works Cited
Life and Times of Maya Angelou." Communications Academy of the Sir Francis Drake High School Website. 29 September 2002. http://drake.marin.k12.ca.us/stuwork/comacad/poets/ANGELOU/poems.html#af.
Maya Angelou." ClassicNotes Website. 29 September 2002 http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Authors/about_maya_angelou.html.
Maya Angelou." The Quilt Pages Homepage. 29 September 2002. http://wwwomen.com/users/hub/quilt/maya.html.
Lower Eastside Poem" - analysis The poetic turn is largely meant to provide audiences with the feeling that the speaker experiences an inner conflict and wants to project it onto listeners. It is practically as if he or she would want audiences to gain a more complex understanding concerning the ideas that he or she is referring to in addition to simply appreciating the concepts the poem describes. Miguel Pinero's
Poem Analysis Essay: “The Ecstasy” by John Donne John Donne is one of the celebrated poets, in the area of love. The poem “The Ecstasy” is one of the most renowned poems written by John Donne, which conveys the author’s distinctive and progressive notions regarding love. The poem explicates the perspective that untainted, divine or real love is existent solely in the union of souls instituted by the physical. From Donne’s
The poem that is reviewed in this brief essay is The Very End, as written by Tom Sleigh. As is indicated by the essay assignment prompt, the poem is about Sleigh’s grandmother. This is made quite clear on the page with the poem. Indeed, there is the text “For my grandmother” just below the title of the essay. What follows is a poem that is not terribly long. However, there
Snake Poem Analysis: "To the Snake" Denise Levertov's poem, "To the Snake," uses the presence of a snake to express the speaker's simultaneous fear of and attraction to sexuality and intimacy. The snake itself is an overt symbol of the male member and, as such, illustrates the dangers which are presented by desire. The speaker hangs the green snake "round my neck" (Levertov 1) and strokes its "cold, pulsing throat" (2),
The speaker of Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz” reflects on his abusive father. Using an ABAB CDCD rhyme scheme and fixed meter, the poet underscores the main motifs of music and dance. The titular waltz is a structured dance set to a specific type of music. Constrained by the form of the waltz, the speaker seems to have internalized guilt and complicity in his father’s behavior by suggesting that
George on "The Road Not Taken" by American poet, Robert Frost, is accurate in its capturing of the presence of 3 ages associated with the persona in the poem. A number of contradictions are included in this analysis, pertaining to the poem's time frame. This essay will explore the poem's analysis in terms of selecting the appropriate path to be taken in a given life event, while being aware