Maya Angelou attained international fame in 1969 with the publication of her first book, I Know hy the Caged Bird Sings; however, the seeds of her acclaim were planted long before. Raised primarily by her grandmother in Arkansas, Maya attributed her first important lessons to the woman she affectionately calls "Momma." ith those lessons and other hard-earned knowledge, Maya progressed from being a victim of racism and sexual brutality with low self-esteem to a confident, skilled, dignified artist who is globally recognized for her wisdom.
Biography

Capturing Maya Angelou in a brief biography is impossible, for her many gifts and accomplishments read more like a "group biography." Interviewed in 2003 about her amazingly productive life and reputed wisdom, Maya said, "I'm considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. I've never been bored in my life" (Moore). She was born…...

mla

Works Cited

A&E Television Networks. Maya Angelou Biography. 2012. Web. 28 January 2012.

American Academy of Achievement. Maya Angelou Biography. 31 May 2011. Web. 28 January 2012.

Angelou, Maya. "Chapter 1: Narration | Grandmother's Victory by Maya Angelou." 1970. Highered.mcgraw-hill.com Web site. Web. 28 January 2012.

-- . I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 1969. Book.

It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance with which Maya viewed this incident, saying "If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than the apes" (Angelou, Chapter 19).
This is not the only time that violence and black males are associated in the novel, nor the only time that such an association has an impact on Maya's character and outlook on life. One day, her brother Bailey comes home after first witnessing the body of a black man pulled from a pond, then being forced to help load the body in a truck and humiliated by the white man instructing him, finally asking, "Uncle illie, why do they hate us so much?'" (Angelou, Chapter 25). Maya's understanding of race and identity is largely constructed by these random…...

mla

Works Cited

Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Bantam, 1983.

Manora, Yolanada M. "What You Lookin' at Me for? I Didn't Come to Stay': Displacement, Disruption, and Black Female Subjectivity in Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Women's Studies, no. 34 (2005), pp. 359-75.

Pollard, Ingrid. "Review: Maya Angelou." Feminist Review, no. 17 (Autumn 1984), pp. 115-7.

Angelou understands that part of her role is to be a leader (which encompasses more than the idea of "role model" although it certainly parallels it in many ways this idea) by asking others to be attentive to language. For example, in an interview for the Paris Review, she said:

When I'm writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for what it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and the delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit…...

Maya Angelou and Jay Gatsby
The two works of art are similar in many aspects though they also hold quite a number of differences when it comes to the characters and the themes covered in the works.

Maya Angelou's work is more of an autobiography since it tells of the life experience of the character called Marguerite's also called "My" or "Maya" and the challenges that she undergoes. This character is highly agreed I various literary works to be the author immersed in the novel and talking of her challenges in the life path. It is also considered a Bildungsroman since it traces her life as she grows from naivety through to maturity.

On the other hand The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is considered a plain novel and not an autobiography. The novel's setting in terms of time is at the later age of Gatsby after he has served in the…...

/ eakened by my soulful cries." (Angelou, 7)
Thus, the overall message of the poem is not very different from that of the first text, Phenomenal oman. Again, the writer celebrates her own self as an emblematic image of the entire people. Pride and self-esteem are the major ingredients in the writer's cogent and powerful discourse. She declares her haughtiness and the pleasure she takes in her own self, suggesting that she is so proud that she might even attract the envy of the others: "Does my haughtiness offend you? / Don't you take it awful hard / 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines / Diggin' in my own back yard." (Angelou, 7) the extreme optimism and mirth that animates the state of the spirit of the author could lead the audience to believe that she has very special reasons to feel this privileged. However, the comparison with…...

mla

Works Cited

Angelou, Maya. Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women. New York: Random House,

Hagen, Lyman B. "Poetry: Something About Everything," in Heart of a Woman, Mind of a Writer, and Soul of a Poet: A Critical Analysis of the Writings of Maya Angelou, University Press of America, Inc., 1997, pp. 118-36.

Ramsey, Priscilla R. "Transcendence: The Poetry of Maya Angelou," in Current Bibliography on African Affairs, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1984-85, pp. 139-53.

What school integration and political correctness have accomplished pales in comparison to the continued harm inflicted on students through class-based educational tracking. Moreover, Angelou in particular points out that some schools in America are inherently underprivileged. The Lafayette County Training School "distinguished itself by having neither lawns or hedges, nor tennis court, nor climbing ivy," (17). The all-Black school was in disrepair, its students cut off from the sources of power and prestige conferred on the white schools. Told that their school would not receive improved academic facilities but new pavement for the athletic courts, the students at Lafayette were not offered any other options.
Educational tracking doesn't just affect curricular content, it also affects who young people socialize with. Who children socialize with in class become their friends outside of school, where youth learn social cues and make connections with other members of the community who may reflect the…...

mla

References

Angelou, Maya. "Graduation."

Rose, Mike. "I Just Wanna Be Average."

Maya Angelou is one of the most renowned and influential voices in the recent time. She is a celebrated poet, novelist, actor and filmmaker. In her early life, she experienced the brutality of racial discrimination based on the situation at the time (Goodman 21). Her experiences in life had an influence in her work as she touched on the issues of racism and sexism over the years. Her poems, in particular, have prioritized on the themes of racism and sexism to reveal some of the issues that affect the society today. This paper looks at the manifestation of the theme of racism in Maya Angelou's poems.
It emerges from her poems that despite being her being a good writer, she was discriminated against and was not given the credit she deserves all because she was black. In her poem, 'Still I Rise', she declares:

You may write me down in history
With your…...

Angelou's book "I Know why the Caged Bird Sings' was written, according to its author, to serve as a certain purpose and this purpose can be glimpsed in its language. As the poet and critic Opla Moore (1999) remarked, the Caged Bird was intended to demonstrate, at a time, when these issues were just beginning to come into that open and when Blacks were still struggling for recognition, that rape and racism does exist in America and that out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy not only exists but must be recognized as not always the fault of the teenager and often due to other reasons that may be reducible to the state and church itself. Angelou uses poetic and vivid language to shake the very foundations of the reader's stereotypes and narrative way of construing his or her world by shaking conventional platitudes with the discomfiting reality of disruptive factors and introducing these…...

mla

Gilbert, S. (1999). Paths to escape in Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings: A casebook Oxford Univ. Press: UK

Moore, O. (1999) Learning to live in Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings: A casebook Oxford Univ. Press: UK

Braxton, JM Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings: A casebook

structure and content of the outline met the objectives of the assignment. I narrowed down the topic further to differentiate between Angelou and Cisneros because I recognized that Angelou sends her readers an optimistic message of self-empowerment, while Cisneros opts to use the medium of traditional storytelling more as a warning to women about how patriarchy strangles their power and self-reliance. Essentially, both send the same message using different media and different tones.
ace and gender are features that often determine access to power in a society. Moreover, race and gender are critical to personal identity formation, just as they locate an individual in the stratifications of the society.

Sandra Cisneros's short story "Woman Hollering Creek," and "Still I ise," a poem by Maya Angelou both make statements about race, power, and gender in America.

Author Backgrounds: Cisneros is a Chicano author and Maya Angelou is an African-American author and poet.

Brief Text…...

mla

References

Angelou, M. (n.d.). Still I rise. Poem. Retrieved online:  https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/still-i-rise 

Cisneros, S. (n.d.). Woman hollering creek. Retrieved online:  http://www.iaisp.uj.edu.pl/documents/1479490/29437798/Cisneros-Woman-HC-_02_V._Popescu.pdf 

Garcia, A. (2014). Politics and indigenous theory in Leslie Marmon Silko's 'Yellow Woman' and Sandra Cisneros' 'Woman Hollering Creek.' In Folklore, Literature and Cultural Theory. Routledge.

Higashida, C. (2011). Reading Maya Angelou, reading black international feminism today. In Black International Feminism. University of Illinois Press.

Sandra Cisneros's short story "Woman Hollering Creek," and "Still I ise," a poem by Maya Angelou both make statements about race, power, and gender in America.
Cisneros is a Chicano author and Maya Angelou is an African-American author and poet.

Brief Text Summaries: "Woman Hollering Creek" touches on issues like domestic violence and the subjugation of women. "Still I ise" celebrates black female identity in a culture that is both racist and sexist.

Although different in both form and intent, Cisneros's "Woman Hollering Creek" and Angelou's "Still I ise" both reveal the intersections between race, power, and gender in American society.

Topic Sentence 1: The intersection between gender, race, and power is one of the most salient themes in both Cisneros and Angelou, as both write from the perspective of minority females.

Focus on Cisneros

Example 1: " ... there isn't very much to do except ... to watch the latest telenovela episode and try to…...

mla

References

Angelou, M. (n.d.). Still I rise. Poem. Retrieved online:  https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/still-i-rise 

Cisneros, S. (n.d.). Woman hollering creek. Retrieved online:  http://www.iaisp.uj.edu.pl/documents/1479490/29437798/Cisneros-Woman-HC-_02_V._Popescu.pdf 

Garcia, A. (2014). Politics and indigenous theory in Leslie Marmon Silko's 'Yellow Woman' and Sandra Cisneros' 'Woman Hollering Creek.' In Folklore, Literature and Cultural Theory. Routledge.

Higashida, C. (2011). Reading Maya Angelou, reading black international feminism today. In Black International Feminism. University of Illinois Press.

Works of Maya Angelou
The purpose of this paper is to introduce and discuss author Maya Angelou, and some of her most important works. Specifically, it will discuss why her work is important, and give a brief biography of the writer. Maya Angelou has been an inspiration to writers, women, and Blacks ever since she began writing. Her career has spanned decades, and shows no signs of slowing down. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1971, Maya Angelou and her works are national treasures, meant to be enjoyed, contemplated, and to give inspiration forever.

MAYA ANGELOU

Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928. Her name was Marguerite Annie Johnson. Her brother Bailey gave her the nickname "Maya," for "My" and "my sister."

Maya's mother, Vivian Baxter, was a nurse and card dealer; her father, Bailey Johnson Sr., was a doorman and also a dietician or meal adviser for the navy.…...

Know hy the Caged Bird Sings
Angelou's I Know hy the Caged Bird Sings has been widely classified as an African-American autobiography, which chronicles the experiences of a young, black girl in the America of the 1930s. hile undoubtedly the work is a valuable contribution to the genre of African-American history, describing as it does the plight of black women living during a time of racial and sexual oppression, it is primarily a tale of survival. By choosing to render a honest account of her own painful insecurities as a child, along with her frequent encounters with racism, sexism, and classism, Angelou takes her readers through the process by which she learnt to value herself and develop a sense of self-worth. Thus, it can be said that I Know hy the Caged Bird Sings is an inspiring work about the human ability to rise above the most painful of circumstances.

Angelou…...

mla

Works Cited

Angelou, M. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Bantam Books, 1969.

Maya Angelou has several points in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Her primary point involves both the strength and the beauty in inherent to the human spirit. Despite all adversity, her book and life story stresses, greatness can still be accomplished. It is impossible to read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings without a sense of what the girl in the book would become; not only does the public already have knowledge of the name emblazoned on the front of the book, but the book was also necessarily written from the perspective of greatness having already been achieved. In this way, Angelou is also making a point about what telling a life story means, and the effect it has on the truth and on one's self-image. In some ways, the book appears to be a sort of healing process for Angelou, while at the same time the…...

Racism
Personal anecdotes related to the experience of prejudice are usually the most effective means of convincing an audience that prejudice exists, and that it is painful. Moreover, an effective author connects the issue of prejudice to broader issues that all readers can relate to regardless of their personal experiences. Thus, it is important to show how the society suffers from prejudice too. African-American authors are in the position of sharing personal anecdotes about prejudice from within the framework of what is supposed to be a free, open, and tolerance society. Because of the paradoxes in American society, prejudice seems even more terrible and ironic. Maya Angelou, Zora Neale Hurston, and Brent Staples are all African-American writers who offer convincing arguments about prejudice.

Maya Angelou's autobiographical essay entitled "Graduation" is about her high school graduation in a segregated public school in Arkansas. Angelou's story is like that of other black students in…...

mla

Works Cited

Angelou, Maya. "Graduation." "Occasions for Writing: Evidence, Idea, Essay." DiYanni, Robert, and Pat C. Hoy. Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle, (2008).335-342. Retrieved online:  http://ap-english-language.phoenix.wikispaces.net/file/view/Maya+Angelou+Graduation.pdf .

Hurston, Zora. "How It Feels To Be Colored Me." "Occasions for Writing: Evidence, Idea, Essay." DiYanni, Robert, and Pat C. Hoy. Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle, (2008). 159-161. Retrieved online:  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/grand-jean/hurston/chapters/how.html .

Staples, Brent. "Just Walk On By." "Occasions for Writing: Evidence, Idea, Essay." DiYanni, Robert, and Pat C. Hoy. Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle, (2008). 153-155. Retrieved online: http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/rspriggs/files/staples%20just%20walk%20on%20by%20text.pdf.

Prejudice
hat is it like to experience prejudice on a daily basis? Many, if not most, whites do not know what it is like to be a member of an underclass. It is important to understand the structural elements of prejudice in a society. It is also important to understand how to deal with prejudice on a personal level. There are many ways to deal with prejudice. One is to fight back, and direct anger and frustration outward. The problem with this method is that fighting back sometimes entails physical aggression, and can be harmful to self and others. Another method of dealing with prejudice is to internalize the sense of inferiority and come to believe in the stereotypes and biased beliefs. The problem with this method is that it only promotes prejudice and allows for its perpetuation. Furthermore, internalizing inferiority can lead to problems like mental illness and disharmony in…...

mla

Works Cited

Angelou, Maya. "Graduation." Retrieved online:  http://ap-english-language.phoenix.wikispaces.net/file/view/Maya+Angelou+Graduation.pdf 

Hurston, Zora Neale. "How it Feels to be Colored Me." Retrieved online:  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/grand-jean/hurston/chapters/how.html 

Staples, Brent. "Just Walk on By." Retrieved online: http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/rspriggs/files/staples%20just%20walk%20on%20by%20text.pdf

1. The symbolism of the caged bird in Maya Angelou's autobiographical work, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."
2. The theme of captivity and freedom in Harper Lee's novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird."
3. Analyzing the oppression and confinement of women in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper."
4. The symbolism of the birdcage in Henrik Ibsen's play, "A Doll's House," in relation to gender roles and societal expectations.
5. Comparing the experiences of the caged birds in Richard Wright's novel, "Native Son," and Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, "The Handmaid's Tale."
6. Exploring the theme of captivity and liberation in Jean Rhys's....

The Alchemy of Emotion: Poetry as a Conduit of Transformation

Poetry, the art of weaving words into evocative tapestries, holds a profound capacity to transform the intangible realm of emotions into tangible expressions. Through its rhythmic cadences, vivid imagery, and symbolic language, poetry provides a unique avenue for individuals to delve into the depths of their feelings, explore their complexities, and express them in a coherent and resonant manner.

1. Capturing the Elusive:

Emotions, by their very nature, are often fleeting and elusive. They flit through our consciousness like wisps of smoke, leaving behind a trail of sensations that can be difficult to....

....

....