Life Doesn't Frighten Me: Maya Angelou

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His paintings, all his mixed-media art, reflected his harsh view of the world. The poem is very typical of Maya Angelou and reads especially well out loud. I don't think though it is a good pairing with the paintings, but that said, it's a wonderful art book, 5 stars.

Mayas’ “Big ghosts in a cloud”, her “loud, barking dogs” and the hair-pulling, teasing school-girls that she speaks of are represented by Jean-Michel’s crude ‘scribbles’: the message is clear and simple. It is a tough world out there but no one should shy away from it. Maya Angelou is an American author and poet. She has published seven autobiographies, five books of essays, and several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than fifty years. She has received dozens of awards and over thirty honorary doctoral degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of her life up to the age of seventeen, and brought her international recognition and acclaim. Angelou's list of occupations includes pimp, prostitute, night-club dancer and performer, castmember of the opera Porgy and Bess, coordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, author, journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the days of decolonization, and actor, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. Since 1982, she has taught at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she holds the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies. She was active in the Civil Rights movement, and worked with both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Since the 1990s she has made around eighty appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration, the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. more… Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’by Maya Angelou is a fourteen- stanza poem that is separated into uneven sets of lines. The stanzas range in length from one single line up to seven lines. The majority are tercets, meaning they have three lines. Angelou made use of a simple rhyme scheme within the text. The tercets mainly rhyme AAAA or AAB While the majority of the other stanzas make use of an alternating rhyme scheme of AABB. Angelou’s earnest and gentle (while still impossibly powerful) voice, comes from experience through a life-time of struggle and discrimination and overcoming these obstacles coupled with the often-stated egotism and thirst for fame that Basquiat was said to have displayed in his personality, do not seem like they could match-up well together, however, the two visions link up perfectly. Angelou herself was a major figure in the civil-rights movement and a clandestine understanding between the two distinct personalities seems to span a generational and personality-gap, which is highlighted through the blending together of both of their works.

In the final stanza, the speaker adds a touch of magic to her fearlessness by mentioning a “magic charm” she keeps up their sleeve and her ability to walk the ocean floor without breathing. This use of magical elements adds a sense of fantasy and wonder to the poem and further reinforces the idea that the speaker is not afraid of anything. Conclusion There is in the second stanza a reference to the barking dogs and “big ghosts in a cloud”. None of these things frighten her either.

Poetic elements are used to enhance the intended impact of the seemingly simple texts. Maya Angelou has added a variety of powerful poetic diction to make her poem a worth read. She has used imagery, symbolism, metaphor, and various other literary elements to convey a message of fearlessness and confidence. Life Doesn't Frighten Me" review activity printable - print all section questions at once (options for multiple keys) And then there is the end of the poem. What is the ‘magic charm’ kept up the speaker’s ‘sleeve’? Is it nothing more than the message of the poem itself: that life cannot and will not frighten her, something that she repeats to herself so that it becomes true? And is she repeating it to herself so often because she is trying to convince herself, but, despite the poem’s reassurances, her fearlessness is not quite so secure as she is making out? Angelou also makes use of anaphora, or the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of multiple lines, usually in succession. This technique is often used to create emphasis. A list of phrases, items, or actions may be created through its implementation. For example, the lines in stanza five that begin with “I” or the lines in stanza thirteen that begin with “Not”. This poem I believe is great for children because it showcases how when life gets roughed we as human beings tend to become cowards and hide away from our problems which isn't a great decision but a normal responses when we are clueless to solving our problems. With this poem it helps the reader to realize that yes life can we difficult in different periods of our life but at the end of the day we must face our problems head on and look for the silver-lining or the rainbow at the end of a storm.

The poem begins with imagery of shadows on the wall and noises down the hall, setting a tone of eerie and unsettling surroundings. The poem’s imagery and repetition create a firm conviction in the speaker’s words. For instance, the use of vivid imagery helps her describe her actions in response to these supposed scares, such as “I go boo, make them shoo” and “I won’t cry, so they fly.” This imagery adds a playful and childlike tone to the poem, further emphasizing the speaker’s fearlessness. The last two lines of the eleventh stanza admit that she might sometimes be afraid, but it’s only in her dreams. There, she can’t control what she feels.