Maya Angelou Essay Example

Maya Angelou Essay: Introduction

Maya Angelou was an artist who had started her career at a very young age. She faced many difficulties in the early years of her life because she was a victim of rape. However, she was a talented black woman who had a unique point of view about herself and others that affected her art and life. She is a Professor, an Afro-American writer who fought against injustice and other ills of the society while she maintained a constant hope and optimism. She helped society by writing her poems although she suffered from rape, discrimination, and unfair civil-rights.

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One of her most famous poems was written for President Bill Clinton's inauguration. This poem is called “On the Pulse of Morning”, and a poet had not been read at a presidential inauguration since 1961 when Robert Frost read "The Gift Outright" for President John F. Kennedy’s presidential inauguration (Fuller 7). As an intellectual, she fought for her ideas and published many poems and books. Maya Angelou died in 2014, and she left a wealth of artworks and perspectives behind. She lived a fulfilled life with love, joy, and happiness. Maya Angelou witnessed many social and political changes that affected her art and beliefs.

Maya Angelou was born in 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, where she was raised by her grandmother. She continued in the same line of Martin Luther’s legacy even after he died. She spoke the truth that she believed was right. She inspired so many young artists, shared her ideas, and suggestions with them (“At 80 Maya,” n.p.). This source help readers understand her personality and her career as a black artist. Until the last day of her life, she remained an active civil-activist who never lost touch with society.

Maya Angelou lived as a well-respected artist who was nominated for so many literary awards and honorary titles. Also, she has more than 50 honorary degrees. In other words, Maya Angelou experienced her life as a valuable artist. Maya Angelou is the first black woman artist who has won the most valuable awards. In this direction, her most important awards include the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

More specifically, the award was given to Maya Angelou by Barack Obama in 2010, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom award is distinguished as the highest civilian honour in the United States (“Editors,” para. 2). In this sense, one can readily infer that her ideas and artworks deserve the highest awards. Early writings of Angelou include her experiences, perspectives, ideas, social, and political thoughts. Her political views are valued by society because of her artworks, and her ideas combine her style of writing poems. More specifically, Maya Angelou has a unique writing style and uses rhythms in her poems. Maya Angelou is one of the pioneer writers who used rhythm in her poems because of her combined-short poems with rhythm.

Also, her poems include the significance of social and political topics. More specifically, her poetry includes short length poems because her thought of a poem is that they should be short in formation. In other words, her poem’s length is between 12-50 verses. Her way of writing poems reflects her point of view about art and civil-rights because she writes poems according to her own rules and style.

During her career, her poems have been considered as influential and social because it combines different art sources together that writes about social and political topics. The majority of her poems are getting nominated for the most valuable awards and honorary titles. Her most famous works include her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Mathis 2). In other words, her autobiography tells her journey as an artist from the beginning of her career.

Mayo Angelou has six published poetry books that reflect her life, ideas, perspective, and her soul. She creates her artworks with working different specialists that include dancers, writers, and producers. She puts so many variables together, and her efforts make her poetry unique as well as valuable. She is the first civil-rights activist. Therefore, her poems and books discuss social and political issues because she aims to create awareness of these problems. Maya Angelou wants to present solutions for these problems. Her deep analytical thinking ability creates a mirror that reflects society. One can infer that Maya Angelou's ability to create poems is highly affected by social and political changes. She supports civil-rights because she observes the inequalities in society. Also, her first book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings reflects her point of view about civil- rights.

According to the secondary resources, her poems are going from the excitement of love to outrage over racial injustice, from the pride of blackness and African heritage to suffered slurs (Hagen 1). This source examines her art style and her poetry’s qualification. It helps readers to understand her poems’ criticism. She suffers from social injustice more than white artists. Maya Angelou not only wrote poems and book, and but she also collaborated with many artists who were working in different fields. She worked with a movie producer, and they created a movie together. In this sense, she created a series of poems that are songs. She turned her poems into songs and published them. She had many other collaborations with artists, and they created artworks together.

Maya Angelou Essay: Conclusion

In conclusion, Maya Angelou was a well- respected artist who won many important awards and honorary titles. She is one of the most valuable artists both in the 20th century and the 21st century. She has inspired so many young artists. She fought for her ideas, and personal believes that was right to her and the society because there were injustice and inequality. Specifically, during the 20th century, racism was a major problem in society because white individuals are considered as superiors to black individuals. Therefore, Maya Angelou's writing career includes these social and political problems. Maya Angelou's poems have another significance than its topics. In this sense, she wrote short length poems between 12-50. Her short poems included rhythm element. Maya Angelou died in 2014, and she had witnessed so many social and political differences. Moreover, her poems reflected the society and its major problems in which she tried to find solutions to these problems.

References

"At 80, Maya Angelou Reflects on a Glorious' Life." Weekend Edition Sunday, 6 Apr. 2008. Gale Literature Resource Center.

Editors, Biography.com. "5 Crowning Achievements of Maya Angelou." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 23 June 2020. Web. 04 Nov. 2020.

Fuller, Jaime. "What Maya Angelou Wrote and Said about Race and Politics." The Washington Post. WP Company, 26 Apr. 2019. Web. 04 Nov. 2020.

Mathis, Andrew E. “Angelou, Maya.” Encyclopedia of American Poetry, 2-Volume Set, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2013. Bloom's Literature.

Hagen, Lyman B. "Poetry: Something About Everything." Poetry Criticism, edited by Ellen McGeagh, vol. 32, Gale, 2001. Gale Literature Resource Center.