Maya Angelou

For English class we had to choose a top twenty poet from Poets.org, summarize a biography of that poet, copy a poem, and analyze the poem. For a full description, click here.

Biography
Maya Angelou was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents divorced when she was three. Thus, she and her four year old brother were sent to stay with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Here she took a few dance classes, but after four years she and her brother were taken back into her mother’s care. During her stay back home, she confessed to her uncles that her mother’s boyfriend had abused her. When her uncles heard, they beat the man to death. After this Maya turned mute because she thought that her words had caused someone’s death. She remained this way for five years until the age of thirteen. Later on, in 1940, she spent summer with her father in Los Angeles, but was attacked by her father’s girlfriend. She then ran away and lived in a junkyard which was a home for other homeless children. She eventually called her mother and was sent a bus ticket to come back to live with her mother. Even though it had only been a month without a home, she still had a large change in the way she saw the world. When she turned sixteen, she became pregnant with a son she named Guy Johnson who also became a poet. In order to pay for her and her baby, she sang at a nightclub in San Francisco. In 1952 she married a Greek sailor named Tosh Angelos. She is still alive today and is currently 78 years old.

During her lifetime, Maya Angelou tackled many different jobs. She was an author, poet, songwriter, director, and civil rights activist in addition to many others. From 1961 to 1962 she traveled to Cairo, Egypt where she worked as an associate editor of the Arab Observer which was an English language news agency in the Middle East. She also visited Ghana from 1964 - 1966 as an editor for the African Review. Additionally, Maya wrote and read one of her poems, “On the Pulse of the Morning” at Bill Clinton’s request at his inauguration. This was only the second time a poet had been asked to read at a president’s inauguration. She also wrote the screenplay for the show Georgia, Georgia and has accomplished many other of her goals.

Alone
^{By Maya Angelou}
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Analyze
I liked this poem because it talks about a topic that practically everyone understands and sends a message. It’s saying that no matter what, if you’re alone in the world, you’re not going to make it. It makes a reference to millionaires who have money they can’t use which I feel is true because if you’re by yourself, then money won’t make any difference in life. I also liked this poem because of the figurative language Maya Angelou uses. This is because she uses figurative language that I don’t often use such as end rhymes and alliteration. What I don’t like about this poem is that it repeats lines quite a bit and some sound very similar; however, I guess that’s what also makes it sound better and poetic.

A question that I have about this poem is what is Maya Angelou talking about in her second last stanza? I think she’s telling us that mankind is suffering, but what does that have to do with the poem? Everyone is still staying together, and no one is totally alone except for the few hermits. However, because I don’t fully understand that stanza, I may have misinterpreted it.

In this poem, Maya Angelou used a few different types of figurative language. She used personification when she wrote, “Where water is not thirsty” since water can’t be thirsty. When she wrote, “Alone, all alone” she used alliteration. In that same line she used repetition by repeating the word, “alone”. Furthermore, she had some similes in the line, “Their wives run round like banshees” because it’s comparing wives of millionaires to banshees. Maya Angelou also used repetition throughout her poem with the words “nobody” and “alone”. Finally, she had end rhymes with an /a/b/a/b/ pattern. Some of these are in the lines “How to find my soul a home/And bread loaf is not stone”, “With money they can’t use/Their children sing the blues”, “I’ll tell you what I know/ The wind is gonna blow”, “Storm clouds are gathering/The race of man is suffering”.