Maya Angelou was a famous writer and civil rights activist; as such, her works are driven and passionate, written for a specific purpose. Her poems are often overlooked in favor of her more popular works such as her autobiographies and essays. Despite this lack of attention, Angelou's poems have important messages to convey, and they do so with striking force and clarity.
Angelou was most famously an activist for the rights of those suffering oppression, which she herself did in many forms during her lifetime, being an African-American woman who had been routinely sexually abused. Accordingly, many of her poems speak up for these oppressed people groups, and many do so with great clarity and vigor. Poems such as "On the Pulse of Morning" alert people to the oppression happening in the world, calling them to stop it: "You, created only a little lower than / The angels, have crouched too long in / The bruising darkness / Have lain too long / Facedown in ignorance, / Your mouths spilling words / Armed for slaughter."
Some, like "Harlem Hopscotch" and "Awaking in New York," give a brutally honest picture of the quality of life for African-American people living in the lower-end residences in the city. Others, such as "Phenomenal Woman," celebrate the power of womanhood in the face of gender discrimination. "Caged Bird" is a stunning description of a life lived under oppressive constraints, and "Still I Rise" is a powerful declaration of strength and perseverance, a call for those who are oppressed to rise up and a proclamation of the inevitability of a brighter tomorrow.
Angelou's poems may be under-appreciated, but they are certainly not without their merits, and they can be powerful tools for change in a world of injustice.
