Maya Angelou has led a life of various experiences, jobs, and relationships. She has been many ‘firsts’, earned numerous rewards and prestigious honors, and shared her experiences with many people through her written and oral words. Even though she seemingly shares all of the information of her life as the topic of six autobiographical novels and many collections of poems, there are gray areas and gaps in her biography. On one hand, while researching her I found this to be troubling. Were the facts changed in her writing? Why did I find multiple years listed for her personal experiences? On the other hand it makes her seem more real. How often do we ‘rewrite’ incidents in our lives? Memory is human, not robotic. It changes to fit our needs, and influences how we perceive situations.
Maya’s universal appeal is her unaffected manner. Her stories show her search for identity. Each take place in a different era with different characters, but all show her desire to learn and grow. Her development is shown to be an ongoing process. She then uses her experiences to write her poems. This curriculum will examine six of her poems. These are broken down into three categories; effect of family members, experiences she faced, and lastly her character and attitude toward life.
In the next several pages, I will explore six different poems. These poems were chosen for the relevance to my students’ lives. My explanations are those I would use to jump start class discussions. The poems are not directly quotes due to copy right restrictions. The poems are all available in The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou. ‘Phenomenal Woman’, ‘Willie’, ‘Still I Rise’ are available in the collection of poems And Still I Rise. ‘Avec Merci, Mother’, ‘Contemporary Announcement’, ‘My life has turned to Blue’ are available in the collection Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?
