Maya Angelo

Maya Angelou’s birth name is Marguerite Annie Johnson, born in St. Louis, Missouri, her parents divorced when she was three. Maya and her brother were then sent to live with their grandmother in the small town of Stamps, Arkansas. Maya Anelou experienced racial discrimination as a young girl and at the age of seven was sexually molested by her mother’s boy friend. Maya only spoke of this incident with her brother, and later heard that her uncle killed her attacker. She felt that her”words had killed the man” (Biography p. 11). After that, Maya Angelou did not speak for five years.
At the of 13, she begin to speak once more and attended Mission High School and won a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School, where she dropped out while still in her teens. Maya later went back to school but became pregnant in her senior year and graduated a few weeks before giving birth to her son Guy. At the age of 29, Maya Angelou married and began her career as a night club singer, where she changed her name to Maya Angelou.
Maya Angelou’s big break came with her book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”.
This book goes in dept describing the writer’s childhood. The book was published in 1970 and became a big success, and Maya became a “national figure” (achievements p. 3). Her lists of published materials includes more that 30 titles, which includes “Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Die (1979), Gather Together in My Name (1974), Singing ‘and Swingin’ and Gettin Merry Like Christmas (1976), The Heart of a Woman (1981)” (Biography p. 1).
Maya Angelou is also known for her many writings of poems. A poem that I found inspirational is Phenomenal Woman. This particular poem was written for women of all shapes, sizes, colors. In this poem there is appreciation, acceptance and celebration of who we are, what we do, and it gives one a since of acknowledging just as we are. Phenomenal Woman is a poem that is an anthem for the strength of women.
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me (Angelou p. 121).
This poem continues but, I did not want to write down all of the words. You can read this poem as well as others in Maya’s book “Maya Angelou Poems”.
The interior standard for beauty and self worth extends way back. “Phenomenology of the body makes a nice philosophical dove tail with this kind of poetic sentiment, while cataloging her strengths by separate phenomena, Angelou cannot resist making clever use of another meaning of the word, phenomena – outstanding, excellent and strutting just a bit of her power over the fellows” (Annotation p. 1).
My attempt was to illustrate pros and cons of Maya Angelou’s poem Phenomenal Woman. I was unsuccessful in finding any negative remarks about the poem, so I will concentrate on the positive. Maya Angelou’s poem Phenomenal Woman, have touched so many women. In an Editorial Review, a woman wrote, “Phenomenal Woman is a phenomenal poem that speaks to us of where we are as women at the dawn of a new century. Here is a poem that radiates wisdom, and conviction, renewing our belief in the glory and tender mercies of our gender” (Amazon.com p. 1). In another review, a reader writes “This piece brings tears to the eyes. I have often wondered what made my mother and grandmother goes gracious, forgiving and tolerant of lesser women... and now I know” (Analysis p.2).
Awards for which Maya Angelou has been nominated for are the National Book Award for “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, the Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, and an Emmy Award, as well as receiving the Presidential Medal of Arts Award in 2000” (awards p.1).
Although many of Maya Angelou’s works are written for and from an African Americans point of perspective on life, any person reading her works can come away with some special meaning for themselves. This is a woman who truly has remarkable talent and hopefully one day I will have the opportunity to meet her.