Maya Angelou: Phenomenal Woman

Maya Angelou: Phenomenal Woman

Maya Angelou is an outstanding woman who is one of the great voices of modern literature. As a poet, educator, historian, best-selling author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director, she continues to travel the world, spreading her good judgment. Surrounded by the rhythm of her poetry and the sophistication of her writing style lies Angelou's unique power to help readers of every direction cross the lines of race and Angelou fascinates audiences through the energy and pure beauty of her words and lyrics. Angelou is an essential American writer because of her life, work, and critical opinions about her.

Maya Angelou a poet, civil rights activist, dancer, film producer, television producer, playwright, film director, author, and actress has accomplished a lot throughout her life. Even though her life wasn't the best life, she made the best out of it.

"Shadows on the wall Noises down the hail Life doesn't frighten me at all"(Maya Angelou). Marguerite Johnson, her maiden name, was born in a segregated area of St. Louis, Arkansas on April 4, 1928 to Bailey and Vivian Baxter Johnson. Angelou's parents divorced

at the age of three. After they were divorced Angelou and her brother Bailey were sent to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas.

At the age of seven, Angelou was raped by her mother's boyfriend. Later on that day, after she had testified against the man. She heard that her uncle's had beaten, the man that raped her, to death. Angelou felt that her words caused his death. From day that forward she fell into silence and did not speak for five years.

After five years of silence Angelou broke her silence at the age of 13. At that time her brother and she returned with their mother to San Francisco. Maya attended Mission High School and won a scholarship to study dance and drama. In her early teens she dropped out of high school to become San Francisco's first African American female cable car conductor. Angelou later returned to high school, but became pregnant in her senior year and graduated a few weeks before giving birth to her son, Guy. At 16 she left home and took on the difficult life of a single mother.

The most important and significant part of Angelou life was when she traveled to Europe and Africa for the musical Porgy and Bess in1954 and 1955. At that moment, is when her career as a writer began. When she returned to New York City, she joined the Harlem Writers Guild and became involved in black activism. She then spent several years in Ghana as editor of African Review, where she began to take her life more seriously.

Maya Angelou has faced many from childhood through adulthood, but through the entire struggle, she has used that to inspire her to write her poems. Angelou is known for

her poems about strength, women's rights, and how black people struggle in the modern world.

Maya Angelou has had many ideas in her poems, but she is known for using personal determination in most of her poems. In the first lines of the poem "Still I Rise", Angelou says, "You may write me down in history/With your bitter, twisted lies,/You may trod me in the very dirt/But still, like dust, I'll rise"(1). Angelou is trying to convey that no matter what is done or said to her, she will overcome it all. The poem shows Angelou's belief that being black should not stop anyone from being who they are, and she reveals that, "Did you want to see me broken? /Bowed head and lowered eyes? /Shoulders falling down like teardrops. /Weakened by my soulful cries. /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 backyard" (4-5). In those lines, quote Angelou is saying that she will rise up to any occasion and she will not let her color hold her back. She strives for the world to see who she is, not for her color,-but for what she has become which she shows through, her inspiring poem.

Maya Angelou grew up during a time when prejudice towards blacks was a major issue. For that fact she based most of her poems on that issue. One of her poems, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing," talks of the black race is being held back from freedom by their skin color. She discovers this in her poem when she says, "The caged bird sings with a fearful trill/of things unknown/but longed for still/and his tune is heard/on the distant hill/for the caged bird sings of freedom." This poem revolves around the theme even though one may come across many defeats in her life, one must never be beaten, "The