Essay Example on Maya Angelou is a very important poet and Writer

Maya Angelou is a very important poet and writer both in the past and contemporarily for not only women but for African Americans during the Civil Rights movement According to the article Maya Angelou from mayaangelou com a website dedicated to Maya Angelou s legacy she was respected as a spokesperson for black people and women and her works have been considered a defense of black culture Maya Angelou Because of these accomplishments and because she pushed through the trials of a rough childhood that consisted of her parents divorce moving back and forth between homes sexual assault and a murder she thought she had caused Maya Angelou is a great example of someone who pushed through her trials expressing her struggles for equality as an African American woman in her poetry The article Maya Angelou stated that at the age of seventeen Maya graduated from high school giving birth to her first son Despite their terrible effects she transcended her experiences to prosper as a poet In her very famous poem I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings readers get a look on the inside of Maya Angelou s life struggles with segregation and their ultimate toll demanded from her life A trial that Maya encountered that impacted her life tremendously was when she was raped as a child This not only took a toll on her emotional health but her physical health as well In the article Maya Angelou Teacher found on Wake Forest University s website when Maya was older she was able to have just one son Duke but suffered through eight miscarriages due to rape s destruction wrought upon her reproductive capability 

Although this was traumatizing for young Angelou it was the murderous after effects that hurt her childhood most severely After telling her uncles about the assault the man who assaulted her turned up dead Her uncles were thought to have killed this man but were never convicted This dramatically upended Maya s life because she thought that by telling her uncles she had caused this man s death She was so affected by this incident she went mute for five years not speaking with anyone we learn more about this incident from the aforementioned Maya Angelou This event followed by subsequent wrenching emotions is what led Maya to create her poetry she needed a release She used her story of being bounced back and forth between homes as a child the rape only having a single parent that she didn t see often and being simultaneously African and American to write her poetry and show how she was treated worse because of her race Maya Angelou discusses the insider s view of segregation and the way not only she but every person of dark complexion was treated in her famous poem I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Angelou uses the metaphor of a bird struggling to escape its cage described in Paul Laurence Dunbar s poem as a prominent symbol throughout her series of autobiographies Like elements within a prison narrative the caged bird represents Angelou s confinement resulting from racism and oppression People throughout her era and even today can relate some way to Maya Angelou s hard life and the trials that led her to become one of history s most successful writers poets and actresses Whether that is by her experience of sexual assault and the attendant murder and fallout being African and American in the segregation era being a woman or even surviving a small trial like her parents separation people today are able to relate to her