I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

**"The Inspiring Life of Maya Angelou"**

Maya Angelou's life was a remarkable journey filled with both hardships and triumphs. As a child, her talent to endure stemmed from ignorance of alternatives. But when she grew up and discovered the harsh realities, she became a powerful voice. Nominated for numerous awards, she was a beloved champion of her people. Oprah Winfrey was astounded to read a story so similar to her own in Angelou's work.

Angelou was born Marguerite and renamed by her brother. Her parents' calamitous marriage ended, and she and Bailey were sent to live with their grandmother in Arkansas. In that poor, segregated community, the children had a unique perspective on whites. Despite the difficulties, she had fond memories of growing up under her grandmother's rules.

Later in her teens on the West coast, she found herself in a junkyard but was welcomed into a community of diverse young people. Their mutual respect and support changed her thinking and gave her a sense of belonging. This is just the beginning of her seven-book autobiography, which is an easy and insightful read, offering valuable lessons about life and tolerance, regardless of one's interest in history.

5★

I'm truly ashamed that it has taken me such a long time to read this book. Maya Angelou is an inspiration to countless people, and thus, reading about her childhood and adolescence was truly a special experience.

Her autobiography is both tragic and hopeful simultaneously. So much has changed since Angelou's childhood. Segregation, for instance, which was a harsh reality back then, has largely been overcome. Additionally, colourism within the black community has also lessened to some extent.

The fact that she lived through that difficult period of history and is still alive to witness the election of the first Black president in US history is simply remarkable. It serves as a testament to her strength and perseverance.

Reading her story has made me appreciate the progress that has been made and has also given me a deeper understanding of the challenges that she and others like her had to face. It is a powerful reminder of the importance of never giving up and of fighting for a better future.

UPDATE from the third reading: It's still beautiful, and I keep discovering new details and new accents in it. Notice how Maya Angelou writes about light when she describes Momma's Store. It's always bright there. And how it contrasts with the darkness that descends upon it when the Klan is about to come. And notice how beautifully Maya Angelou writes about the women who raised her. In Maya Angelou's life, there were many traumatic situations, yet she had a community that supported and understood her. This tenderness in describing relationships amazes me. I will keep coming back to it.

I highly recommend you to listen to episode number 118 :) There is an interview with the translator, there are amazements, there is a piece of history, there is about language, about emotions - listen and read.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7b6X...

Maya Angelou. A writer, an activist, a campaigner, a poet, and in her autobiography, in this first volume, a child, and later a young woman who feels too much, looks sensitively, and masterfully manipulates language to show a larger, more complex picture through details. There is a lot that could be said about this book (and I will definitely do so in the podcast with the translator (whom I really love :D)), but what amazes me the most is Maya Angelou's attention to moments. We all have experienced moments in our lives that were crucial for us, that we somehow remembered. But when it comes to saying what was so important in those moments, what made them shape us, it becomes more difficult. Maya Angelou looks at her life precisely through such moments, which she can masterfully sketch and show the reader not only the individual event but also the entire complexity of her experience. This is a book that gains with each reading. This was my second approach to this book, the first in Polish in a great translation. There will surely be more.

4.5 "lyrical, poignant, honest" stars !!!

2018 Honorable Mention Read.

This was a beautifully written start to Ms. Angelou's six-volume autobiography. For many years, I had been eager to read this, and Jean's magnificent review finally convinced me to add it to my shortlist. Ms. Angelou's writing seems effortless and clear. The emotions and honesty shine through, and you accompany her through her childhood, feeling her pain, sharing her laughter, and cheering her on her adventures. I love how she portrays herself with both anger and compassion and speaks frankly about sexual abuse, abandonment, poverty, race relations, jealousy, desire, perseverance, and a deep and uncompromising individuality. I will leave you with one of her painful rants about her race and the races of others: "It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species we were an abomination. All of us."

I look forward to reading the second volume at some point. Rest in peace, Ms. Angelou, and thank you for your contributions to poetry and race relations.

I think this is one of the greatest books ever written, and its perch on the American canon is absolutely well deserved.

“In order to avoid this bitter end, we would all have to be born again, and born with the knowledge of alternatives” - Maya Angelou.

Dr Angelou's Memoir #1 is a masterpiece of coming of age and one of the greatest pieces of non-fiction I've ever read. When I first read it for a graduate school course, I was among white students who didn't care for the book. Some, I suspect, out of jealousy or even racism. I followed suit and said it was good but not excellent. I even thought it was cliched and inferior to the works of Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, whom I adored.

I was a literary snob, often around New Yorkers who dismissed Maya Angelou as a celebrity and a cliched spokeswoman for the black experience. I didn't know then that she was a "sister" to Professor Morrison, who truly loved and treasured her talent and their friendship.

Revisiting this classic memoir brought even more pleasure and chuckles. I'm teaching it again and seeing my students engage with this humorous and harrowing story makes me marvel at how fresh and relevant it remains. Angelou's words, "The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power," resonate deeply.

Dr. Angelou weaves a spell with her accurate setting, vivid imagery, and simple sentences that hide heartache. The characters, like Vivian Baxter, Bailey Johnson, Daddy Bailey, Annie "Momma" Henderson, Willie, and Mrs. Flowers, all shape her love of life and literature.

Maya and Bailey face the heartache of racism, the KKK, and the threat of lynching. She writes bravely about her sexual assault at age 8 and the trauma that followed. Despite this, she writes with forgiveness and candor about her search for love, sex, acceptance, and her conflicted relationships.

For me, it's Mrs. Flowers who shows her the power of books and truly shapes her ethos. Words help Angelou process her hurt and learn to talk again. She didn't stop writing and talking until her death in 2014.

The book ends perfectly, taking us through scenes of small town life, the hustle and bustle of different cities, and her journey of coming of age. It's one of the best coming of age books I've read, showing us what a treasure Maya Angelou was and why she's so inspiring.

The first installment of Angelou's series of autobiographies offers a compelling and powerful account of her growing up and coming of age in America during the 1930s and 1940s. Against this backdrop, themes of racism, violence against women, and the complex issue of identity take center stage. The writing is clear and forceful, leaving no room to hide from the harsh realities described within the pages.

Summarizing the book or outlining its contents would be superfluous; it is a work that demands to be read. Instead, I will offer a few thoughts and reflections. Due to the strong brother/sister relationship depicted, it has been compared to "The Mill on the Floss" by George Eliot. However, I did not see this connection as clearly. The relationship between Maggie and Tom Tulliver is far more fractured and damaged by their upbringing, in a way that Maya and Bailey's was not.

I understand that this book has caused controversy when taught in American schools. While I can see why (though I do not approve), the sexual violence described is indeed powerful. Angelou, however, is something of an iconoclast, taking aim at a number of sacred cows, particularly in relation to religion. Part of her genius lies in the seamless way she combines comedy, painful memories, and tragedy.

When reading this, I was reminded of Hartley's memorable quote: "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there." There are times when I think (and hope) this is the case when it comes to racism. I remember my youth and the casual racism that existed, even on TV. Looking at today, I see improvement, but I wonder how much of it is merely on the surface. Perhaps I am a little pessimistic, but I do believe we must treat books like this as living, breathing entities, rather than simply historical documents about a foreign past.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” holds a special place as Maya Angelou’s first book. As I delved into its pages, I was struck by how revolutionary it must have been upon its release. There exists (and still does) a vast number of people with limited understanding of the experiences endured by southern, rural black people before and during the civil rights movement. Although I have read more on this topic than some, I still consider myself among those who can benefit from this portrayal. Seeing that time and place so vividly reflected in the book is undeniably of great value to many, both those who lived through it and those who did not.

In addition, Angelou’s depiction of the events and emotions surrounding her childhood rape is both striking and groundbreaking. It must have been truly astonishing when it first appeared in print. I can also clearly observe how this memoir has influenced subsequent generations of writers and filmmakers. Its importance cannot be overemphasized.

However, as a reading experience, it was a bit more complex for me. Some of the writing was beautiful and vivid, with a strong sense of place and character. But there were also parts that felt a little rough and choppy. The episodic nature of the book, in my opinion, didn’t work as well as it could have. For a first book, these are forgivable flaws. I would never discourage anyone from reading this memoir. In fact, I firmly believe that everyone should read it. What it mainly did for me was ignite my desire to explore Angelou’s later works, where presumably she has fully harnessed the writerly powers that are just beginning to emerge in this book.

Now that I've delved deep into researching, reading, and reviewing a plethora of banned and challenged books, it comes as no surprise to me that writing about sex, especially from a young woman's perspective, has the power to incite fear and suppression.

Maya Angelou's childhood memoir is rife with such content. It commences with her harrowing experience of being raped at the tender age of 9 by her mother's live-in boyfriend. This is followed by her vivid descriptions of her mother's life as a prostitute, her own adventures in Mexico while her father visits a whorehouse, her teenage fears of being a lesbian, and her first self-initiated sexual encounter which leads to her pregnancy at 16.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. She also pokes fun at her grandmother's old-fashioned Arkansas Christianity and morality, glorifies inner-city black lawlessness and crime, lives in a junkyard for a month with other homeless children, and is scornful of white people. Worst of all, from the censors' standpoint, I suspect, is that she refuses to accept her place. She is smart, determined, and has an air of uppityness.

As for Maya Angelou's own writing, I must admit that while she managed to captivate me throughout the first two-thirds of the book, she unfortunately lost me during the last third. I transitioned from being completely absorbed and engaged to simply reading out of academic interest. From the moment she runs away from her father in Los Angeles, the tone of her writing undergoes a significant change. The detailed recollections of her childhood, which were filled with fascinating details, humor, and astute observations of character, suddenly come to a halt. Instead, Maya's memoir becomes compressed, rushed, and vague.

Huge and important events occur afterwards. Her brother runs away from home, she becomes the first black streetcar employee in San Francisco, she decides to prove she is not a "pervert" (in her own words) by asking a neighbor boy to have sex with her, and she becomes pregnant and has a child. However, Maya glosses over all of this in a hurry, almost as if she is writing about someone else. I fail to understand why she abandoned the momentum she had built up during the first two-thirds of her memoir, and this has made me like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings a little less than I initially wanted to.

Nevertheless, it remains an important and ground-breaking book, and there are three very good reasons to read it. Firstly, to tweak the censors' noses. Secondly, to gain an understanding of what it means to be a black girl in America. And thirdly, to hear the voice of a strong black woman who is not Oprah!