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Maya Angelou

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Maya Angelou was born on April 4th, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Maya had a rough childhood. Her parents split when she was young and she went to live with her grandma in Stamps, Arkansas. Angelou experienced a lot of racial discrimination in Arkansas. While visiting with her mother, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend. Later on, Maya’s uncle killed her mothers boyfriend. She was very traumatized by the experience and soon after Maya stopped talking. She returned to Arkansas and spent years as a mute. She was in a short high school relationship and it led to pregnancy. When she was 16, Maya gave birth to girl son, Guy Johnson.(“Maya Angelou”)
During the war, Angelou moved to San Francisco, California. She had won a scholarship to study dance and acting at the California Labor School. While in California, Angelou became the first black female cable car conductor. After giving birth to her son, she worked at many jobs to support herself and her child. Although she worked many jobs, her passion was writing. She was an American author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, poet and civil rights activist. Angelou is best known for her 1969 memoir, I Know Why …show more content…
The poem contains 192 words, 38 lines, and 6 stanzas. The title of the poem makes one think it is about a bird trapped in a caged but if you read it you will see that it is a lot deeper than what one may think. The poem is describing Maya Angelou’s life while experiencing racial discrimination and her feelings and actions during this time. If Maya Angelou was still here today, I would ask her how she stayed so focused on her poems and books during the Civil Rights movement? Did she ever get discouraged about the discrimination? Or did she just keep being herself and thriving? By reading the poem, I know her life was rough but through her other poems, such as Phenomenal Women, I know she pushed

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