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Preacher Dont Send Me Poem Analysis

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Analysis of Maya Angelou’ “Preacher, Don’t Send Me” Maya Angelou’ “Preacher, Don’t Send Me” directly illustrates death and the heavens, so the audience will have a solid theme for the poem. Also in the first stanza, the speaker uses first person throughout the poem.Therefore the speaker is Maya Angelou. In the third stanza the poem makes the reader visualize how heaven looks. In the same stanza, the speaker conveys that the preacher is preaching to the congregation. Because the the author is disagreeing what the preacher is preaching. The reader can conclude that the setting is in some church are the environment is focusing on some biblical subject. The final stanza the speaker gives their opinion on how they think heaven looks and should…show more content…
Angelou was, “Born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1928 abandoned by both her parents when they divorced ” (Ramey 1). Since her parents got a divorce when she was a baby, this could be one more reason to believe in heaven and God. She grow up in the 1930s, and as an adult, “She has been at various times in her life a streetcar conductor, Creole cook, madam, prostitute, junkie, singer, actress, and civil-rights activist” (Ramey 1). Being well rounded like this inspired her to write poems like “Preacher, Don’t Send Me”. Angelou experience in the south was racially divided for example she explains, “ the racial separation of the town, and the innumerable incidents of denigration which made life in the south an abomination against God and man” (Cudjoe 28). Maya Angelou is also a big part of African American history especially in the sixties during the civil rights movement. She also influents main civil rights activist it shows, “Angelou’s quest for self-identity and emotional fulfillment continues to result in such extraordinary experiences as her encounters with Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” ( “Maya” 1 ) This demonstrates that she was an active civil rights activist. In addition the main leader of the civil right movement, activist Dr. Martin Luther King was a preacher. All the events that happens in Maya Angelou life correlates in her…show more content…
In each stanza there are eight lines and the last line in each stanza has only four words. The repetition in the first two stanzas keep using the word “rat” (5,9). To make the readers understand, that people personality are like a rats. Another repetition the author illustrates is “promise me” (18,31), Angelou uses this in the last two stanzas. Which is pointing out to the preacher, don’t try to send me to heaven preaching the same sermon about heaven. In addition to the poem the rhyme scheme is a pattern with in a pattern. Over all the poem is a end rhyme scheme. In the very beginning of both of these stanzas the author uses a couplet. In the first and fourth stanza the rhyme scheme is aabcdefe. Now, in the second and third stanza it still uses a end rhyme scheme, and it is every other line abcbdcec. The pattern at the last three lines of each stanza has a couplet rhyme pattern throughout the whole poem. Maya Angelou uses word such as, “kill” (10) “hill” (12) “need”(14) “creed” to show her rhythm and rhyme combinations in the poem. Also Maya Angelou uses a internal rhyme in the poem, “where rats eat cats”(5). The way Maya Angelou writes the structure of this poem has a lot to do with the meaning of the poem, and she wrote it perfect enough for the audience picture that the heavens can look and be anything people can believe it
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