Poetry can take on many forms, but it always has one common goal: to impact the reader in ways they have never been impacted before. A single poem can mean something different to every reader and even the poet. People read to poems to find humor, joy, solidarity, and comfort. Being a poet means being a guide for an audience much bigger than themselves, but it also means being true to oneself. Maya Angelou used poetry to impact the lives of many people and for that she is one of the most influential poets to this day.
As Alike struggled with being able to come out to her family she kept a notebook full of writings that she only shared with her advisor. In the beginning of the film when she read her work to her advisor she told her it was okay, just average. As the film progresses she experiences a lot more hardships and life changing moments that help shape her. She using her writing it express all of her emotions. She expresses her sufferings and fears, while also expressing her new strengths and contentment with life.
Trethewey immediately uses imagery to set the scene inviting your senses to help illustrate the image she has already relayed. This helped depict a more in-depth image of her poem “elegy”. After reading this poem several times, to build understanding, and break down literary elements; I came to the conclusion that Trethewey emphasizes the struggle to find balance. The balance between metaphor and symbolism, increasing throughout the entire poem showing battle between connotation and detonation. The struggle in which she used to connotation to portray the bigger picture, but also balanced out by denotation to show the subliminal messages of the relationship shared between the narrator’s father and herself.
Celie begins to show a self realization when she talk about Shug. When Celie writes “And then, just when I know I can live content without Shug.” A metaphor how Celie had learned from their conversation, you don’t need love an other to be happy. Throughout the novel Celie expresses a love for Shug, a different emotion that she has felt compared to anyone else. A love that gave her hope and confidence to live her life.
When Henley speaks of the different aspects of one's’ life, he uses proper words and terminology that a reader can understand and that is the goal of his diction- to make the poem relatable and real. In “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark,” Emily Dickinson transitions between multiple perspectives in her narration, at some points she will use
Her word structure makes it so that the audience know this essay is about her, and that she has gone through much pain and suffering on this matter. She would constantly use words like, I, like when she states, “I am a cripple,” or “I chose this word to name me,” or “I have long grown accustomed to them.” This emphasizes that she is the main subject, and that the entire essay will be about her.
June Jordan’s poem, “Poem about my rights” is about a woman who is describing her experiences and the unremittent concern for basic human rights for males and females. It is a personal and emotional poem about her view of the world and how change is needed. Although majority of the poem is written about how Jordan’s basic rights were not given, the poem also includes sections at which the reader sees the need for equal basic rights for both male and female is needed. This essay will comprise of my response to the poem, both as a poem and an oral performance. Throughout the poem Jordan uses repetition and in the oral performance uses her voice to enhance her message and feelings.
After reading about Rosario Castellanos we can recognize she was and continues to be one of the most influential writers of her time. Unquestionably, her voice as a poet, essayist, novelist and in general as a woman, served to express her disagreement with the condition of women at a universal and individual level. In several ways, she was able to carefully highlight one of the main issues in every society and that’s gender inequality. Not only that, but her peculiarity when it came to writing was another thing that distinguished her from all the others, and this is based on her constant use of irony and humor in most of her literary work. However, her approach to using humor and irony never detracted from her main purpose as a female writer, which revolved around the criticism of the political and patriarchal oppression.
The personification here helps the reader better comprehend what the speaker looks like. With the amount of hardships they have gone through and the “wrinkles” on their face, it is presumed to be an elder speaking. The last line of the poem brings a whole new aspect to the poem saying “I keep on dying, Because I love to live.” This is such a powerful line that gives reason to all of the sorrows through the speaker’s life. The speaker explains that she loves to live.
Viewing “Perhaps the World Ends Here” from a psychological perspective gave me insight in to why Harjo would deliver a poem with such an inspiring moral. Harjo’s life defines the word “effort” and “Perhaps the World Ends Here” is a summarization of her life. Knowing how she achieved her many accomplishments regardless of the mental pressure she must have received due to her social status allows me to have deeper recognition for Harjo and her work. Her work emphasizes
Both African American men and women have had the strength to put up with racial comments and slurs they have been told all their lives. In the speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” by Frederick Douglass and the poem, “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou, are perfect examples to show how white Americans used to treat the African American people. White Americans back then, and even in modern day, would talk down about them, hoping to break down their self confidence even more than it already has been. This may be true to others, but to Douglass and Angelou, they do not let the heartless words of others define who they are as an individual.
The poem “Still I Rise” written by Maya Angelou and the story “The Scholarship Jacket” by Marta Saline, are two different kind of writing styles. One is a poem and the other is a story. Even though they might be two different kind of styles of writing, they still are somewhat similar. “Still I Rise” is a poem about conquering your goals in life and rising up to be the best you can possibly be. Mayas writing in this poem is very confident, in a way she almost sounds like she's bragging.
Maya Angelou was a civil rights activist, poet, and award-winning author known for her 1969 memoir, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, which was the first non-fiction bestseller by an African-American woman; concluding in leaving a great trace in the literary history. Behind Maya Angelou’s successful work, she used to have a difficult childhood; beginning from her parents splitting up, then experiencing racial prejudices when she and her brother moved to Arkansas to live with their father’s mother, to being raped at age seven by her mother’s boyfriend during a visit. As a result, for this sexual assault, Angelou’s uncles killed the boyfriend, since then, Angelou spent five years as a virtual mute. Under those circumstances, Angelou felt
III. a. Maya Angelou was an avid writer, speaker, activist and teacher. As a result of the many hardships that she suffered while growing up as a poor black woman in the south she has used her own experiences as the subject matter of her written work. In doing this she effectively shows how she was able to overcome her personal obstacles. Her autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970) tells the story of her life and how she overcame and moved forward triumphantly in spite of her circumstances.
Many people face many different situations where they were not born in the United States and they have issue adapting to the English language. They tend to speak the way they can understand it. Sometimes with a little slang or like only using they English words they know. Many kids who were born in the U.S but their parents were not deal with this situation. In the novel Mother's Tongue by Amy Tan, she faces a situation where her mom only speaks "broken English" and she has ways of coping with it.