Maya Angelou Poems

 Word Count: 352

"But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams 

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream   

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied   

so he opens his throat to sing."

I chose to analyze this particular poem of Maya Angelou called "Caged Bird" as I felt it demonstrated a strong contrast between someone who is free and someone who is restricted from life in some way. Angelou created a tone in her poem that represented freedom and happiness felt by the free bird and a tone that represented loneliness and sadness felt by the trapped bird. The use of imagery in Maya Angelou's poems greatly helps readers to envision their own version and interpretation of the poem. In this particular poem, the reader begins reading the poem with the imagery presented to represent a bird flying through the sky with the sun shining on it as it meant to represent freedom and happiness. She then changes the mood completely by representing imagery of a bird that is trapped in a cage and there is a sense of sadness and depression because this bird is unable to do anything but sing out for freedom because its wings are clipped and its feet are tied so it is not free to fly like the other bird. In the quote I chose, the first part of the quote is new and there is a metaphor that the trapped bird does not fly free like the free bird but lives on a grave of dreams because all the trapped bird will ever do before its death is dream of freedom. This trapped bird can only sing for freedom which she relates to a nightmares scream. The last part of the quote I chose is repeated from the beginning to stress all that was taken from this trapped bird like its ability to fly and all it can do is sing out with desire for freedom. This poem overall is very sad and can be interpreted in many ways what Maya Angelou may have hoped to represent by contrasting the free and trapped bird.

Comments

  1. Hope BobbittApril 13, 2021 at 12:22 PM

    I also talked about imagery in my blog post and how Maya Angelou does such a great job at bringing these poems to life. I agree there are so many different ways to interpret this poem but I do see some connections to women's struggles and just general connections to our class and how a lot of stories we read or authors have I'm sure felt similar to the bird in the cage with their lives and the oppression and restrictions they lived under.

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  2. Krystina TannerApril 13, 2021 at 5:15 PM

    I actually choose to write about this poem as well, because it certainly really stood out to me most. I also agree with what Hope said about how well Maya Angelou incorporated imagery into her writings because it really did indeed help her poems come to life. I also wrote about how I though the main purpose of this poem was to represent someone who is a free vs. someone who is restricted from doing almost everything.

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  3. Noelle RheaumeApril 19, 2021 at 3:03 PM

    This poem reminded me of The Duchess in the sense that the bird was free at the beginning of the story and then the mood changes because the bird is trapped in a cage. Before Georgiana got married to the Duke, she was happy and could do what she wanted. However, when she got married she became trapped in her marriage. She was unhappy and "lived on a grave of dreams." All she would ever do before she died is dream of freedom which she never got. This is a great poem to represent what it was like for women and how they were oppressed and restricted their whole life.

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