Maya Angelou Accomplishments

One of the most popular poets of all time, Maya Angelou's poetry was powerful and personal because she was not afraid to cross the lines of race and culture. Angelou once said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Her works expressed her spirit for the cause of liberation, diversity, and empowerment for people everywhere. Trials and errors that occurred in her childhood and adulthood affected the way she wrote and what she wrote about. Maya Angelou was not only a writer, she was a strong voice for freedom and equality. There was no end to her good will. Angelou opposed racism, economic injustice, poverty, and all violations of human rights.
It tells the story of her childhood growing up in Arkansas, Missouri, and California. This book made the international bestseller list and was banned in many schools for her honesty about being sexually abused(Caged Bird Legacy). She wrote about her accomplishment period and her hope for the future in The Heart of a Woman(Academy of American Poets). One of her most well-known poems, Still I Rise, references to her rough past. In stanza nine, she wrote “nights of terror and fear”. Angelou also involves the use of internal rhyme, and the rhyme scheme is an ABCB pattern. Angelou makes the poem more intriguing by using personification in stanza six. For example, “shoot me with your words”. She compares dust to herself, “but still, like dust, I’ll rise. Almost all of her works speak about her brutal past. She is able to make any reader feel what she wants them to feel. In the poem Phenomenal Woman, she wants the readers to know why she always walks with her head held high(The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou). Angelou explains that a woman does not have to do anything loud to get attention. “Rather it is the sound of her heels, the curve in her hair, the palm of her hand making her a ‘phenomenal woman’”. Angelou had an incredible love for music. She wrote lyrics for B.B. King in the film For Love of Ivy(Caged Bird Legacy). She produced an album title with Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson’s vocals along with her spoken words. She won three grammy’s for best-spoken word album. Angelou has won multiple awards. She’s received the National book award, Pulitzer prize, Tony Award, Women of the Year in 1976, and so many more(Chavis 2) There was no end to her