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Maya Angelou's Autobiography #1
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.
317 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1969
About the author
Maya Angelou
244 books13.9k followersAutobiographical novels of best American poet and playwright Maya Angelou, originally Marguerite Johnson include
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
(1970).
Maya Angelou, a memoirist and actress, importantly figured in the civil rights movement. In 2001, Ladies Home Journal named her among the thirty most powerful women. Maya Angelou started her series of six with her magnum opus and nominee for a national book award. People nominated Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Die , her volume in 1971, for the Pulitzer Prize.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_An...
Maya Angelou, a memoirist and actress, importantly figured in the civil rights movement. In 2001, Ladies Home Journal named her among the thirty most powerful women. Maya Angelou started her series of six with her magnum opus and nominee for a national book award. People nominated Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Die , her volume in 1971, for the Pulitzer Prize.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_An...
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February 7, 2024I must confess I've read precious little Angelou in my time, but I'll never forget the day she tipped me $20.
It was some random gray day in Marquette, Michigan, must've been the winter of '00, and I was washing dishes as usual at the downtown Landmark Inn. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, "hey, there's a VIP coming in, put on your bellboy hat and head out front." I didn't put on my bellboy hat because I didn't have one — just the same dirty, drenched apron I wore every day in that year or two between high school and college, at least whenever I wasn't sitting in my shitty little apartment, or else wasting time and brain cells someplace else.
Stepping out into the sub-zero winds, I saw before me the grandest tour bus I'd ever seen in my whole entire life. Even to this day, I've still yet to see a grander one. In fact, the only thing grander than the bus itself was the mink coat on the elderly black woman exiting it, and I'll never forget the words she spoke to my soaked skinny ass, there on the frozen sidewalk of my youth:
"Boy, you'll catch yo' death out here"
If I'd remained outdoors another hour or so, I suppose I may've proven her right. Instead, I hauled her six or seven massive bags inside, into the elevator, and up to her room on the fifth floor of the historic Landmark Inn.
Maya Angelou tipped me $20, and I never even read her fucking book.
It was some random gray day in Marquette, Michigan, must've been the winter of '00, and I was washing dishes as usual at the downtown Landmark Inn. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, "hey, there's a VIP coming in, put on your bellboy hat and head out front." I didn't put on my bellboy hat because I didn't have one — just the same dirty, drenched apron I wore every day in that year or two between high school and college, at least whenever I wasn't sitting in my shitty little apartment, or else wasting time and brain cells someplace else.
Stepping out into the sub-zero winds, I saw before me the grandest tour bus I'd ever seen in my whole entire life. Even to this day, I've still yet to see a grander one. In fact, the only thing grander than the bus itself was the mink coat on the elderly black woman exiting it, and I'll never forget the words she spoke to my soaked skinny ass, there on the frozen sidewalk of my youth:
"Boy, you'll catch yo' death out here"
If I'd remained outdoors another hour or so, I suppose I may've proven her right. Instead, I hauled her six or seven massive bags inside, into the elevator, and up to her room on the fifth floor of the historic Landmark Inn.
Maya Angelou tipped me $20, and I never even read her fucking book.
June 27, 2008
I really enjoyed this book. It was required reading for a University course I took on Adolescent Literature.
This book has been placed on banned book lists by needlessly close-minded people for it's real life content.
The book tastefully addresses issues of molestation, rape, racism. But it does so within the context of the trials and tribulations of growing up as well.
The book presents things in a direct and extremely vivid fashion, but it is not garishly or needlessly graphic. These are issues that need to be addressed and talked about with adolescents. In fact, earlier generations could have likely benefited from a little more open discussion about such matters.
In any regard, the book is not about these issues, it simply addresses them within the context, which is Maya Angelou's early life from somewhere around age 6 up to about 17 or 18 I believe.
Worth reading, worth having your kids read. Just be sure to discuss it's content with them......like a parent should anyway.
This book has been placed on banned book lists by needlessly close-minded people for it's real life content.
The book tastefully addresses issues of molestation, rape, racism. But it does so within the context of the trials and tribulations of growing up as well.
The book presents things in a direct and extremely vivid fashion, but it is not garishly or needlessly graphic. These are issues that need to be addressed and talked about with adolescents. In fact, earlier generations could have likely benefited from a little more open discussion about such matters.
In any regard, the book is not about these issues, it simply addresses them within the context, which is Maya Angelou's early life from somewhere around age 6 up to about 17 or 18 I believe.
Worth reading, worth having your kids read. Just be sure to discuss it's content with them......like a parent should anyway.
December 7, 2023
in the greatest title of all time rankings, this one's a pretty big contender.
it's also, perhaps more importantly, a truly stunning memoir. this is blazingly honest and beautifully written even in its moments of describing life's ugliness, and is altogether an unrelenting read.
not a hot take, but: i recommend this one!
bottom line: worth the decades of hype.
4.5
it's also, perhaps more importantly, a truly stunning memoir. this is blazingly honest and beautifully written even in its moments of describing life's ugliness, and is altogether an unrelenting read.
not a hot take, but: i recommend this one!
bottom line: worth the decades of hype.
4.5
February 12, 2017
Maya Angelou was a poet and Nobel laureate who once gave an address at President Clinton's inauguration. Before she won her multitudes of awards and honors, Maya was raised in rural Stamps, Arkansas by her grandmother and uncle during the depression. First published in 1969 and now considered a modern classic, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings details Angelou's tumultuous childhood in poignant detail.
Born Marguerite Johnson and often called Ritie, Maya and her older brother Bailey were taken to live with their grandmother at young ages following their parents' divorce. Even though the south was still in the throes of Jim Crow and Stamps was at the forefront of segregation, young Maya appeared to enjoy a loving childhood. Raised by a strict, church going grandmother and uncle, Maya and Bailey turned to both books and each other for comfort. Devouring books like candy, both children quickly advanced through the Stamps educational system, two grades ahead of schedule.
When Maya was eight and Bailey nine, their father came to Arkansas and brought them to live with their mother in St Louis. Coming from a multi racial family, members of Maya's maternal family were light skinned enough to pass for white and some integrated into the German community. It was in St Louis, a city that should have afforded Maya more opportunities than rural Stamps, that she experienced the low point in her childhood. Physically abused by her mother's fiancé, Maya recovered and returned to Stamps and a loving environment. She and Bailey continued to live with their grandmother until they had advanced beyond what the education system offered them in the segregated south. With no future other than a house servant or cotton picker, the two were returned to their mother, now living in desegregated California.
While in California, Maya experienced highs and lows as well as Jim Crow rearing its ugly head, the low point of which was living in a car in a junk yard for a month. These experiences, including being reunited with both parents and establishing relationships with them, made for events that Maya could reflect on later on in life in this volume. I find it extraordinary that Maya could overcome being abused as a young child and still manage to graduate school two years ahead of schedule at a high academic level. This is a testament to her grandmother as well as her personal fabric. This fabric lead her to be the first colored streetcar operator in San Francisco and later on the poet laureate that people recognize to this day.
Maya Angelou noted her writing influences as Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, as well as Booker T Washington who encouraged a generation of African Americans to achieve employment through a stellar education. In her dedication, Angelou also cites her parents as being positive influences in her life after they reconciled. A gifted author and poet who was advanced well beyond her years as a child, Maya graced us with her powerful prose in all of her works of literature. A poignant look into a childhood in the Jim Crow, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings reveals the upbringing of a remarkable American woman. A courageous glimpse into Angelou's life, this first memoir of hers easily merits 5 bright stars.
Born Marguerite Johnson and often called Ritie, Maya and her older brother Bailey were taken to live with their grandmother at young ages following their parents' divorce. Even though the south was still in the throes of Jim Crow and Stamps was at the forefront of segregation, young Maya appeared to enjoy a loving childhood. Raised by a strict, church going grandmother and uncle, Maya and Bailey turned to both books and each other for comfort. Devouring books like candy, both children quickly advanced through the Stamps educational system, two grades ahead of schedule.
When Maya was eight and Bailey nine, their father came to Arkansas and brought them to live with their mother in St Louis. Coming from a multi racial family, members of Maya's maternal family were light skinned enough to pass for white and some integrated into the German community. It was in St Louis, a city that should have afforded Maya more opportunities than rural Stamps, that she experienced the low point in her childhood. Physically abused by her mother's fiancé, Maya recovered and returned to Stamps and a loving environment. She and Bailey continued to live with their grandmother until they had advanced beyond what the education system offered them in the segregated south. With no future other than a house servant or cotton picker, the two were returned to their mother, now living in desegregated California.
While in California, Maya experienced highs and lows as well as Jim Crow rearing its ugly head, the low point of which was living in a car in a junk yard for a month. These experiences, including being reunited with both parents and establishing relationships with them, made for events that Maya could reflect on later on in life in this volume. I find it extraordinary that Maya could overcome being abused as a young child and still manage to graduate school two years ahead of schedule at a high academic level. This is a testament to her grandmother as well as her personal fabric. This fabric lead her to be the first colored streetcar operator in San Francisco and later on the poet laureate that people recognize to this day.
Maya Angelou noted her writing influences as Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, as well as Booker T Washington who encouraged a generation of African Americans to achieve employment through a stellar education. In her dedication, Angelou also cites her parents as being positive influences in her life after they reconciled. A gifted author and poet who was advanced well beyond her years as a child, Maya graced us with her powerful prose in all of her works of literature. A poignant look into a childhood in the Jim Crow, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings reveals the upbringing of a remarkable American woman. A courageous glimpse into Angelou's life, this first memoir of hers easily merits 5 bright stars.
August 31, 2024
I have only ever given 5 stars to two autobiographies. One was written by a white English man; the other by a black American woman. On the surface you would think they could have very little in common, yet they do. They both have insight and compassion, which comes through in every sentence. They have both shown enormous courage in almost intolerable situations. In short, they have a common humanity. The white man is Terry Waite. The black woman, Maya Angelou.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou is a book which will play on your emotions. It is not a manipulative book; it is a raw and honest account, eloquently expressed. But if you did not take a deep breath sometimes before starting another page, you would not be human.
It is galling to think that this description of poverty and unreasoning prejudice is within living memory, in a so-called “free” country. In the United States, the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity was set up in 1961, prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It precedes the Race Relations Act of 1965, which was the first legislation in the United Kingdom to address racial discrimination. Yet the differences of perception and attitudes between the two countries for the early and middle parts of the 20th Century are enormous.
Perhaps it is the sheer size of the US, but the racial segregation which was ever-present - at least in the Southern States - was never a feature of English life, or life in Great Britain. There was prejudice certainly, and when there was an influx of black people in the 1960's to fulfil specific job vacancies, such as nursing or bus drivers and conductors, some black people suffered much abuse and humiliation from some members of the indigenous white public, such as landladies putting cards saying “no coloureds” in their windows. But the discrimination was never institutionalised. Unlike South Africa and the Southern States of America, there were no separate schools, townships or public toilets. The UK was not a racist society as such, although some individual members of it certainly were.
What comes across in this book, especially to a non-American, is that the racial segregation was condoned. It was the norm at all points. It seems so entrenched that it is startling that any progress could be made from such a point. For this appalling account of ignorance and prejudice is surprisingly recent. Maya Angelou was born in 1928, and was therefore slightly younger than my own mother. And she was describing events which were closer in time to when she was writing them, than we now are ahead in time. It ends in 1944, before the end of World War II. This is the first part of her autobiography, which finally ran to seven volumes, the final volume being published in 2013.
I knew of Maya Angelou's works of course, but somehow had never got around to reading them. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings had been sitting on my bookshelf for 20 years unread. Perhaps part of me suspected it would be a harrowing read, but I had not anticipated its wry humour. Maya Angelou died last year, in 2014. There’s a sort of poignancy in discovering a writer after they have just died. Sometimes it happens because for a short time they achieve more prominence generally. When the reaction is so positive, the experience is tinged with slight regret, nonsensical though it is. For so many long-dead classic authors that opportunity is not open to us from the start. It would have been nice to appreciate them more during their lifetime. Will I carry on reading the continuing parts? Certainly. The five stars are not awarded solely to the person. They are awarded to the work, as they should be. It is an extraordinary first book, especially considering that the author is someone who feels the voice is essential for meaning, someone who was always recognised as a passionate performance poet. From this book alone,
“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”
Here is her memory of an inspired natural teacher, Sister Flowers,
“I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life ... her voice slid in and curved down through and over the words. She was nearly singing.”
“As I ate she began the first of what we later called “my lessons in living.” She said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors. She encouraged me to listen carefully to what country people called mother wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations ... I wanted to look at the pages. Were they the same that I had read? Or were there notes, music, lined on pages”
Perhaps then it is not so surprising to find a poetic turn of phrase, such lyrical prose as,
“in the dying sunlight the people dragged rather than their empty sacks”
or a beautifully evocative description. But be warned. Not everything which is graphic here is beautiful imagery,
“I remember the sense of fear which filled my mouth with hot, dry air, and made my body light”
“If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.
It is an unnecessary insult.”
The blurb itself, should you read it, will tell the reader of some very disturbing events which are described, but those parts will prompt a deep emotional reaction. The work also puts much of her poetry in context; the anger and prominent themes in her poetry become all of a piece with the unfolding account of her life. And in this, the staggered telling of her tale is also very effective. She alternated a book of poetry with a book of autobiography, and these memoirs are far more expressive and revealing than one static book of past autobiography could be. The gradual telling of her tale feels more in the present, than it does reflection.
The first volume starts with the author, then called “Marguerite Johnson" at 3 years old, being sent on a train journey with her 4 year old brother. Neither had any idea why they were being sent South to live with their grandmother, “Momma" in the tiny town of “Stamps", Arkansas. Most of this first part is about her life there; her strict upbringing by the poor, but proud and upright, religious woman, who devoted herself to making as good a life as she could for her disabled son and grandchildren,
“I was liked, and what a difference it made.”
The store served the needs of all those in Stamps, mostly workers in the cotton fields. The recent history of slavery is virtually palpable. The conditions at times seemed little better than the past. Each day the workers started with optimism, but they were trapped in a life from which realistically they could never escape; never being paid enough for their work to get out of debt. Yet nearly all these people were hard-working and honest,
“Although there was always generosity in the Negro neighborhood, it was indulged on pain of sacrifice. Whatever was given by Black people to other Blacks was most probably needed as desperately by the donor as by the receiver. A fact which made the giving or receiving a rich exchange.”
There are wonderful descriptions of her grandmother’s store. It is a hub for the community, a working business, but for young Marguerite it is a cornucopia of smells and sights,
“the store was my favorite place to be. Alone and empty in the mornings, it looked like an unopened present from a stranger”
She remembers the days here, the pride of her handicapped Uncle Willy, the immensely strict regime she and her brother Bailey Junior were expected to cope with. Her grandmother, a businesswoman, was much respected in the exclusively black area of Stamps,
“I remember never believing that whites were really real ... These others, the strong pale creatures that lived in their alien unlife, weren't considered folks. They were white-folks.”
“People in Stamps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn’t buy vanilla ice cream"
She escaped whenever possible into her fantasy world of books,
“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare. He was my first white love ... ‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes.’ It was a state with which I felt myself most familiar"
“Because I was really white and because a cruel fairy stepmother, who was understandably jealous of my beauty, had turned me into a too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil.”
As the author grew older, her perception of bigotry, her indignation at the racial unfairness which pervaded everything in her experience, grew. She accepted without understanding the submissive attitudes she was expected to make, and subservience she had to show, observing of Momma,
“She didn’t cotton to the idea that white folks could be talked to at all without risking one’s life. And certainly they couldn't be spoken to insolently”
But her grandmother wanted the best for the two children,
“I swear to God, I rather you have a good mind than a cute behind.”
There is much about loneliness and alienation in this first novel. Maya Angelou tried to cultivate a philosophical attitude to her experiences,
“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between”
“Like most children, I thought if I could face the worst danger voluntarily, and triumph, I would forever have power over it”
But the instances piled one on top of another. Even the wild, neglected and dirty “powhitetrash” children jeered, made fun of, and looked down on all the people in the the black neighbourhood. A doctor, a dentist - people who should have been literally indebted to her grandmother because of the financial help she had afforded them in the past - showed truly shocking insulting behaviour when appealed to for help. The white people almost exclusively treated the black people worse than they would treat their animals. It is difficult to convey without telling the story how each tiny instance was compounded. During a court case,
“The judge had really made a gaffe calling a Negro woman ‘Mrs’”
because, of course, a white person’s perception was that a black person did not deserve the status of respect.
The book seems to escalate until the reader feels that something has to give.
The author reflects that it was perhaps one instance of profound prejudice, which severely affected her brother emotionally, which led to their being sent away from Arkansas. They had only lived there a couple of years, when the two children were collected by their father, a cultured giant of a man, and taken back to live with their mother - “Mother Dear” as Bailey called her - in St. Louis. Their lives from this point take a sudden turn, living with this impulsive beautiful butterfly of a woman with her film-star looks. A crime is committed when Maya is just eight years old. This is brutal; an appalling account to read, both a physically and psychologically raw and graphic description. The child is the victim, but as so often happens, the victim is convinced that she is somehow guilty. Circumstances force her to tell a small lie, and for this too, she cannot forgive herself. The children return to Momma.
The next few years are chronicled in the book with much movement between the adults in the family. They have to cope with extremes in moral codes. From the earliest chapters the reader has been stunned by the extremist Christian doctrine of their grandmother. Beating a child for saying “by the way”, because - never mind whether the child understands or not - it was considered to be blasphemy. Another small incident which haunts the reader, is Bailey Junior being beaten for yearning so much for his mum, that he watched a similar-looking film star, and was late home. There are countless such examples. These are very hard to accept, because these two things were perpetrated by the good people - the ones with a sense of duty and responsibility. The ignorant prejudice in the wider community, outside the town of Stamps, was oddly easier to read about than this, which felt like a betrayal by the adults whom the children trusted.
But later, the moral code is turned on its head. Both Maya’s mother and father were city folk working in a very different world. Her father in Mexico had friends who were almost gangsters, with a completely different sense of morality, although in itself the ethical code was just as strong,
“The needs of a society determine its ethics”.
These parts are very entertaining to read, and must have been an eye-opener to a young teenager from such a narrow background.
The book ends when Maya Angelou is 17. Although her given name was “Marguerite”, she was always called “Maya” because her brother called her “My-a”, trying to say the words “my sister”. To the little girl, that felt like her true identity, not what others called her. There is one episode in the book, where a white woman tried to call her “Mary” for her own personal convenience - “because it was shorter”. That is a hugely emotional part of the book. The reader can sense the profound insult; the hidden history of “ownership”. I gave a mental cheer when Maya managed to turn this around.
At 12 Maya had had her graduation from Lafayette County Training School. I personally found this almost the most affecting part of the book. Maya was a supremely talented and hard-working child. The reader senses her feelings bubbling over - her well-earned pride in her achievements. But yet again, because of an incident involving an ignorant white person, her whole world comes crashing down around her ears,
“Graduation, the hush-hush magic time of frills and gifts and congratulations and diplomas, was finished for me before my name was called. The accomplishment was nothing. The meticulous maps, drawn in three colors of ink, learning and spelling decasyllabic words, memorizing the whole of The Rape of Lucrece - it was for nothing. Donleavy had exposed us. We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous.”
Maya Angelou had somehow recovered from the terrible crime against her at 8 years old. How could she possibly recover from this one? How can one person continue to have courage, strength and fight? Isn't it easier just to give up and say, “Yes Ma’am”?
“The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time. She is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.”
This is a book that will sometimes make you ashamed to be a member of the human race. It is in part a catalogue of Man’s inhumanity to man, woman’s inhumanity to woman. It will also, however, make you proud of what can be achieved. One hopes it was cathartic to write, but it is far more than the plague of misery sagas which have descended onto our bookshelves in recent years. It is nonfiction, but it is as entertaining as a novel; parts of it reading like lyrical prose. It has some devastating descriptions of brutality, yes, but there is much to smile over too, often in her wry little asides,
“The custom of letting obedient children be seen but not heard was so agreeable to me that I went one step further: Obedient children should not see or hear if they chose not to do so”
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an important, defining, incredibly brave work for its time of 1969. From a relatively unknown author, a world was firmly introduced to the reality of racial tensions and prejudice in the Southern United States. It was a book which would have been very hard to read without the author’s strength and humour coming through, and it remains so, over 45 years later.
The book grips you from its start. Maya Angelou has a unique ability to make any reader identify with a poor black child, to experience what they experience, from whatever point the reader is in their own life. There is much talk nowadays of the “Black Voice”. Maya Angelou does not alienate. She does not seek to select her audience; she speaks to us all. Her book is self-evidently from a black perspective, but she skilfully makes it the reader’s own, putting us all firmly in the mind of herself as a child. She conveys her various feelings of confusion, pride, hatred, despair, guilt and rage, expressing so well the reasoning behind them at the time.
Her use of dialect is perfectly balanced for a general reader. It is authentic and essential, yet at no point is the reader likely to have to pause, reread and try to interpret. I personally have had far more difficulty with my experience of classic books which attempt to include a written representation of my own native, regional Yorkshire speech. This is part of her great skill as a writer - it flows. She concentrates on our common humanity. This is a book which can, perhaps should, be read by everyone at least once in their lifetime. It shows how far both an individual and a society can progress within one person’s lifetime.
“The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic admiration.”
As tiny Marguerite Johnson might have said - although she would have “corrected” her own grammar, as all people have different vernaculars for different situations, and black people of that time had one “language” for school and academic pursuits, another for their community, and a third to reinforce white people’s expectations of them ...
“We all doin’ well.”
“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, while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us.”
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou is a book which will play on your emotions. It is not a manipulative book; it is a raw and honest account, eloquently expressed. But if you did not take a deep breath sometimes before starting another page, you would not be human.
It is galling to think that this description of poverty and unreasoning prejudice is within living memory, in a so-called “free” country. In the United States, the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity was set up in 1961, prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It precedes the Race Relations Act of 1965, which was the first legislation in the United Kingdom to address racial discrimination. Yet the differences of perception and attitudes between the two countries for the early and middle parts of the 20th Century are enormous.
Perhaps it is the sheer size of the US, but the racial segregation which was ever-present - at least in the Southern States - was never a feature of English life, or life in Great Britain. There was prejudice certainly, and when there was an influx of black people in the 1960's to fulfil specific job vacancies, such as nursing or bus drivers and conductors, some black people suffered much abuse and humiliation from some members of the indigenous white public, such as landladies putting cards saying “no coloureds” in their windows. But the discrimination was never institutionalised. Unlike South Africa and the Southern States of America, there were no separate schools, townships or public toilets. The UK was not a racist society as such, although some individual members of it certainly were.
What comes across in this book, especially to a non-American, is that the racial segregation was condoned. It was the norm at all points. It seems so entrenched that it is startling that any progress could be made from such a point. For this appalling account of ignorance and prejudice is surprisingly recent. Maya Angelou was born in 1928, and was therefore slightly younger than my own mother. And she was describing events which were closer in time to when she was writing them, than we now are ahead in time. It ends in 1944, before the end of World War II. This is the first part of her autobiography, which finally ran to seven volumes, the final volume being published in 2013.
I knew of Maya Angelou's works of course, but somehow had never got around to reading them. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings had been sitting on my bookshelf for 20 years unread. Perhaps part of me suspected it would be a harrowing read, but I had not anticipated its wry humour. Maya Angelou died last year, in 2014. There’s a sort of poignancy in discovering a writer after they have just died. Sometimes it happens because for a short time they achieve more prominence generally. When the reaction is so positive, the experience is tinged with slight regret, nonsensical though it is. For so many long-dead classic authors that opportunity is not open to us from the start. It would have been nice to appreciate them more during their lifetime. Will I carry on reading the continuing parts? Certainly. The five stars are not awarded solely to the person. They are awarded to the work, as they should be. It is an extraordinary first book, especially considering that the author is someone who feels the voice is essential for meaning, someone who was always recognised as a passionate performance poet. From this book alone,
“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”
Here is her memory of an inspired natural teacher, Sister Flowers,
“I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life ... her voice slid in and curved down through and over the words. She was nearly singing.”
“As I ate she began the first of what we later called “my lessons in living.” She said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors. She encouraged me to listen carefully to what country people called mother wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations ... I wanted to look at the pages. Were they the same that I had read? Or were there notes, music, lined on pages”
Perhaps then it is not so surprising to find a poetic turn of phrase, such lyrical prose as,
“in the dying sunlight the people dragged rather than their empty sacks”
or a beautifully evocative description. But be warned. Not everything which is graphic here is beautiful imagery,
“I remember the sense of fear which filled my mouth with hot, dry air, and made my body light”
“If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.
It is an unnecessary insult.”
The blurb itself, should you read it, will tell the reader of some very disturbing events which are described, but those parts will prompt a deep emotional reaction. The work also puts much of her poetry in context; the anger and prominent themes in her poetry become all of a piece with the unfolding account of her life. And in this, the staggered telling of her tale is also very effective. She alternated a book of poetry with a book of autobiography, and these memoirs are far more expressive and revealing than one static book of past autobiography could be. The gradual telling of her tale feels more in the present, than it does reflection.
The first volume starts with the author, then called “Marguerite Johnson" at 3 years old, being sent on a train journey with her 4 year old brother. Neither had any idea why they were being sent South to live with their grandmother, “Momma" in the tiny town of “Stamps", Arkansas. Most of this first part is about her life there; her strict upbringing by the poor, but proud and upright, religious woman, who devoted herself to making as good a life as she could for her disabled son and grandchildren,
“I was liked, and what a difference it made.”
The store served the needs of all those in Stamps, mostly workers in the cotton fields. The recent history of slavery is virtually palpable. The conditions at times seemed little better than the past. Each day the workers started with optimism, but they were trapped in a life from which realistically they could never escape; never being paid enough for their work to get out of debt. Yet nearly all these people were hard-working and honest,
“Although there was always generosity in the Negro neighborhood, it was indulged on pain of sacrifice. Whatever was given by Black people to other Blacks was most probably needed as desperately by the donor as by the receiver. A fact which made the giving or receiving a rich exchange.”
There are wonderful descriptions of her grandmother’s store. It is a hub for the community, a working business, but for young Marguerite it is a cornucopia of smells and sights,
“the store was my favorite place to be. Alone and empty in the mornings, it looked like an unopened present from a stranger”
She remembers the days here, the pride of her handicapped Uncle Willy, the immensely strict regime she and her brother Bailey Junior were expected to cope with. Her grandmother, a businesswoman, was much respected in the exclusively black area of Stamps,
“I remember never believing that whites were really real ... These others, the strong pale creatures that lived in their alien unlife, weren't considered folks. They were white-folks.”
“People in Stamps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn’t buy vanilla ice cream"
She escaped whenever possible into her fantasy world of books,
“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare. He was my first white love ... ‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes.’ It was a state with which I felt myself most familiar"
“Because I was really white and because a cruel fairy stepmother, who was understandably jealous of my beauty, had turned me into a too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil.”
As the author grew older, her perception of bigotry, her indignation at the racial unfairness which pervaded everything in her experience, grew. She accepted without understanding the submissive attitudes she was expected to make, and subservience she had to show, observing of Momma,
“She didn’t cotton to the idea that white folks could be talked to at all without risking one’s life. And certainly they couldn't be spoken to insolently”
But her grandmother wanted the best for the two children,
“I swear to God, I rather you have a good mind than a cute behind.”
There is much about loneliness and alienation in this first novel. Maya Angelou tried to cultivate a philosophical attitude to her experiences,
“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between”
“Like most children, I thought if I could face the worst danger voluntarily, and triumph, I would forever have power over it”
But the instances piled one on top of another. Even the wild, neglected and dirty “powhitetrash” children jeered, made fun of, and looked down on all the people in the the black neighbourhood. A doctor, a dentist - people who should have been literally indebted to her grandmother because of the financial help she had afforded them in the past - showed truly shocking insulting behaviour when appealed to for help. The white people almost exclusively treated the black people worse than they would treat their animals. It is difficult to convey without telling the story how each tiny instance was compounded. During a court case,
“The judge had really made a gaffe calling a Negro woman ‘Mrs’”
because, of course, a white person’s perception was that a black person did not deserve the status of respect.
The book seems to escalate until the reader feels that something has to give.
The author reflects that it was perhaps one instance of profound prejudice, which severely affected her brother emotionally, which led to their being sent away from Arkansas. They had only lived there a couple of years, when the two children were collected by their father, a cultured giant of a man, and taken back to live with their mother - “Mother Dear” as Bailey called her - in St. Louis. Their lives from this point take a sudden turn, living with this impulsive beautiful butterfly of a woman with her film-star looks. A crime is committed when Maya is just eight years old. This is brutal; an appalling account to read, both a physically and psychologically raw and graphic description. The child is the victim, but as so often happens, the victim is convinced that she is somehow guilty. Circumstances force her to tell a small lie, and for this too, she cannot forgive herself. The children return to Momma.
The next few years are chronicled in the book with much movement between the adults in the family. They have to cope with extremes in moral codes. From the earliest chapters the reader has been stunned by the extremist Christian doctrine of their grandmother. Beating a child for saying “by the way”, because - never mind whether the child understands or not - it was considered to be blasphemy. Another small incident which haunts the reader, is Bailey Junior being beaten for yearning so much for his mum, that he watched a similar-looking film star, and was late home. There are countless such examples. These are very hard to accept, because these two things were perpetrated by the good people - the ones with a sense of duty and responsibility. The ignorant prejudice in the wider community, outside the town of Stamps, was oddly easier to read about than this, which felt like a betrayal by the adults whom the children trusted.
But later, the moral code is turned on its head. Both Maya’s mother and father were city folk working in a very different world. Her father in Mexico had friends who were almost gangsters, with a completely different sense of morality, although in itself the ethical code was just as strong,
“The needs of a society determine its ethics”.
These parts are very entertaining to read, and must have been an eye-opener to a young teenager from such a narrow background.
The book ends when Maya Angelou is 17. Although her given name was “Marguerite”, she was always called “Maya” because her brother called her “My-a”, trying to say the words “my sister”. To the little girl, that felt like her true identity, not what others called her. There is one episode in the book, where a white woman tried to call her “Mary” for her own personal convenience - “because it was shorter”. That is a hugely emotional part of the book. The reader can sense the profound insult; the hidden history of “ownership”. I gave a mental cheer when Maya managed to turn this around.
At 12 Maya had had her graduation from Lafayette County Training School. I personally found this almost the most affecting part of the book. Maya was a supremely talented and hard-working child. The reader senses her feelings bubbling over - her well-earned pride in her achievements. But yet again, because of an incident involving an ignorant white person, her whole world comes crashing down around her ears,
“Graduation, the hush-hush magic time of frills and gifts and congratulations and diplomas, was finished for me before my name was called. The accomplishment was nothing. The meticulous maps, drawn in three colors of ink, learning and spelling decasyllabic words, memorizing the whole of The Rape of Lucrece - it was for nothing. Donleavy had exposed us. We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous.”
Maya Angelou had somehow recovered from the terrible crime against her at 8 years old. How could she possibly recover from this one? How can one person continue to have courage, strength and fight? Isn't it easier just to give up and say, “Yes Ma’am”?
“The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time. She is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.”
This is a book that will sometimes make you ashamed to be a member of the human race. It is in part a catalogue of Man’s inhumanity to man, woman’s inhumanity to woman. It will also, however, make you proud of what can be achieved. One hopes it was cathartic to write, but it is far more than the plague of misery sagas which have descended onto our bookshelves in recent years. It is nonfiction, but it is as entertaining as a novel; parts of it reading like lyrical prose. It has some devastating descriptions of brutality, yes, but there is much to smile over too, often in her wry little asides,
“The custom of letting obedient children be seen but not heard was so agreeable to me that I went one step further: Obedient children should not see or hear if they chose not to do so”
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an important, defining, incredibly brave work for its time of 1969. From a relatively unknown author, a world was firmly introduced to the reality of racial tensions and prejudice in the Southern United States. It was a book which would have been very hard to read without the author’s strength and humour coming through, and it remains so, over 45 years later.
The book grips you from its start. Maya Angelou has a unique ability to make any reader identify with a poor black child, to experience what they experience, from whatever point the reader is in their own life. There is much talk nowadays of the “Black Voice”. Maya Angelou does not alienate. She does not seek to select her audience; she speaks to us all. Her book is self-evidently from a black perspective, but she skilfully makes it the reader’s own, putting us all firmly in the mind of herself as a child. She conveys her various feelings of confusion, pride, hatred, despair, guilt and rage, expressing so well the reasoning behind them at the time.
Her use of dialect is perfectly balanced for a general reader. It is authentic and essential, yet at no point is the reader likely to have to pause, reread and try to interpret. I personally have had far more difficulty with my experience of classic books which attempt to include a written representation of my own native, regional Yorkshire speech. This is part of her great skill as a writer - it flows. She concentrates on our common humanity. This is a book which can, perhaps should, be read by everyone at least once in their lifetime. It shows how far both an individual and a society can progress within one person’s lifetime.
“The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic admiration.”
As tiny Marguerite Johnson might have said - although she would have “corrected” her own grammar, as all people have different vernaculars for different situations, and black people of that time had one “language” for school and academic pursuits, another for their community, and a third to reinforce white people’s expectations of them ...
“We all doin’ well.”
“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, while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us.”
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom
May 28, 2014
My mother could never really speak to me about the abuse she suffered as a little girl - the closest we came to talking about her experiences occurred when we read this painful and important book together. I imagine that Maya's book has allowed countless women who have suffered similar horrors an opportunity to know they will never be alone in their pain. And perhaps, like my mother, an opportunity to begin to heal by sharing their story with a loved one.
RIP, Maya. Your words have made this planet a better place. If only the rest of us could be half as decent as you.
September 10, 2015
Caged Bird
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The above poem by Maya Angelou (not from this book, BTW) encapsulates in a few lines why the voices of protest are the loudest, and the literature the most powerful when it is forcefully suppressed. Because the only thing the caged bird can do is sing, he will keep on doing it, lest he go mad. Poetry will keep on flowing out of the decapitated head of Orpheus.
I understand that this book has been banned multiple times. Not surprising, considering that the words of the poet have more power than swords or bullets, as proved time and again by history.
----------------------------------------------------------
Maya Angelou (born Marguerite Johnson) and her brother Bailey were sent to live with their paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas when their parents' marriage fell apart. It was the early thirties, and the North and the South of USA were poles apart as far as coloured people were concerned; in the North, they were part of the society (albeit an insular one) while in the South, they were the despised 'niggers'.
Maya spent most of the formative part of her childhood down south. Her grandmother ('Momma') was a singularly resourceful woman who owned a store: they managed to live in relative comfort even during the Depression era. However, this material comfort was offset by the fact that they were always the hated 'other' - the 'whitefolk' who lived apart (almost a mythical race, in Maya's young mind) were powerful and whimsical gods who could visit death and destruction any time on any black man or woman. Even the 'powhitetrash', the drifters and squatters who had the fortune to be born into the Anglo-Saxon race, could insult even the propertied black people with impunity.
When she was eight years old, Maya's father took her brother and herself to their mother, Vivian Baxter, in St. Louis. Here the incident which was to become the turning point of her life happened. The eight-year old girl was raped by her mother's current boyfriend, Mr. Freeman: he managed to wiggle out of jail only to be murdered, presumably by Maya's maternal uncles who were also the town toughs. As a result of this, she became a virtual mute for almost five years.
Sent back to Stamps, Maya continued her zombie-like existence until she was brought back into the world of the living by Bertha Flowers, a teacher and family friend - she did this by the expedient of introducing the girl to books. Maya found refuge in the world of imagination, and slowly came back to normal.
She again went to live with her mother in California when she was 15. During this sojourn, she visited her father in Southern California where another traumatic even in her life took place. After a frightening journey across the border into Mexico along with her father (when she was forced to drive a car back to the US in the night with him passed out in the back – even though she was not a qualified driver!), Maya was attacked and stabbed by her father’s girlfriend. She quit home and lived for a month in a junkyard, with similar social drop-outs, before returning to her mother.
A month of living in the rough had emboldened the shy and withdrawn girl. Maya decided to get a job as a streetcar conductor, even though the occupation was closed to blacks, and succeeded: the activist and rebel were just emerging. The first instalment of this extended autobiography ends with the picture of Maya as a teen mother, of a child conceived out of a casual sexual encounter which she had just to satisfy that she was ‘normal’ (that is, heterosexual)!
----------------------------------------------------------
Maya writes with a disarming honesty and a genuine sense of humour. Even the most distressing events are discussed casually – the child’s eye view is done really well. The book is eminently readable. Still, is this a great book? I would not say so. Good, yes: genuinely great, no.
The causal tone, for me, took away most of the poignancy. Even the extremely distressing rape incident – though described in gory detail – fails to really make an impact. My personal feeling is that this is the author’s way of coping with personal trauma: you take the emotion out of it. However, it might come across to people that her mother never cared much (I have found this view expressed on one or two of the one-star reviews for this book on this site).
However, I salute Maya’s courage in writing this explicit memoir. Being a black woman, she feels disadvantaged thrice, as she says:
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.
So maybe, the best defence is to attack. Throw the hypocrisy of society back in its face. Say: “This is I. Accept me for what I am, whether you like what you see or not!”
March 17, 2019
Even before I started listening to this audio book, I could hear Angelou’s voice, deep and distinctive. I remember seeing her on tv at some point in the past and notably, even though a while ago, when she read a poem she had written for President Clinton’s inauguration. This autobiography of her early years from age four through sixteen makes for a tough story at times, but an amazing telling of it. At four years old, she and her brother Bailey are sent to Stamps, Arkansas to live with their paternal grandmother, a staunchly religious and savvy store owner and their disabled Uncle Willy. They help at the store , go to school and live through times of ugly racism. Four years later they go to live with their mother and at eight years old Maya is raped by her mother’s boyfriend. The children return to live with their grandmother, but Maya is so scarred by the attack that she stops speaking for several years.
Yet, amid the bad times in this depiction of the Jim Crow south, there are times of happiness and revelation of what life has to offer. It is back in Stamps that she develops a love of reading and she calls Shakespeare her first white love. She shares the joy of making her first friend and her unconditional love for her brother Bailey. The descriptions of the revival meeting and the church picnic and the days at her grandmother’s store are poetic and she took me there with her wonderful story telling. A few years later, they move back with their mother and it is here in California that we see the impact of the past on her and also see her come of age at sixteen, on her journey to becoming the renown activist, writer, poet. Angelou does nothing short of bare her heart and soul in this deeply personal and affecting narrative.
November 2, 2022
4.5 "lyrical, poignant, honest" stars !!!
2018 Honorable Mention Read.
This was a wonderfully written beginning to Ms. Angelou's six volume autobiography. I had been wanting to read this for many years and Jean's gorgeous review pushed me over the edge to add this to my shortlist.
Ms. Angelou's writing appears effortless and clear. The emotions and honesty ring through and you walk alongside her childhood and feel for her pain, enjoy her laughs and cheer her on her adventures.
I love that she portrays herself with her anger alongside her compassion and speaks honestly 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 race 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 bless you for your contributions to poetry and race relations.
2018 Honorable Mention Read.
This was a wonderfully written beginning to Ms. Angelou's six volume autobiography. I had been wanting to read this for many years and Jean's gorgeous review pushed me over the edge to add this to my shortlist.
Ms. Angelou's writing appears effortless and clear. The emotions and honesty ring through and you walk alongside her childhood and feel for her pain, enjoy her laughs and cheer her on her adventures.
I love that she portrays herself with her anger alongside her compassion and speaks honestly 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 race 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 bless you for your contributions to poetry and race relations.
February 7, 2023
To put it simply, I adored this!
August 12, 2016
May 2014: I wrote this review a year and a half ago. It is written from the perspective of a parent who cares about what her teenage children read in school. I hope it may be useful to other parents, teens, and anyone else who cares about content and wants to make informed decisions about what they read. I received mostly negative reactions to my review, but also a few positive comments which encouraged me. After a year of dealing with it all, I wanted to be done and move on, so I closed the comment section. If you wish to read through the comments, you'll see a few posts I wrote in reply. My final comments are in the last two posts. This is my personal reaction to the book, and I support your right to make your own choices about what you read, too.
I read this book because my teenage son was going to be required to read it in his English class at school. I did not want to read the book because I was aware of its content. But I felt it necessary in order to be able to talk to the teacher about my objections. So I did not like this book. My degree in Comparative Literature enables me to recognize some literary value in Caged Bird, as well as historical and social value. I believe Maya Angelou is a talented writer. I admire some of her poetry. But her series of autobiographical books includes too much explicit and disturbing sexual content for me. And I certainly did not want my 15 year old son to have to read it! He did not want to read it and my husband and I completely supported his choice.
The most graphic and disturbing sexual material in Caged Bird involves the rape of the author as an eight year old girl. This horrible experience deeply affects her life. But I believe our teenage children can understand that terrible things like this happen, without needing to be dragged through the muck of the sordid details. Ms. Angelou writes vividly. My son does not want those images in his head, and I fully support him. I can see this book being taught at the college level, but I strongly feel that it is not appropriate for high school required reading. In my son's advanced English class, this book was one of six main texts. In the regular English class, there are only two main texts, and this is one of them. How sad, when there are so many other great literary works to choose from which are clean.
My son's teacher was nice and professional about it. Another English teacher was not so nice. She acted surprised that I would characterize the book as "R-rated." She said that we could see worse things on prime-time TV. Our (my husband's and my) response was "That's why we choose not to watch those TV shows!" It bothered me that she would try to use the "everybody's doing it" excuse. Just because our society's standards of decency continue to plummet, is no reason to embrace them! It is an American Lit class, so I suggested a couple of other texts as options if the purpose was to address the African American experience. But this book is obviously one of that teacher's favorites, so she defended it. The teachers did say that our son could choose to read a different book. However, because the class structure was centered on discussion, we and our son chose to have him read an 'edited version' of Caged Bird instead. I just told him which chapters to skip. And I'm glad that our son happened to have the more sympathetic teacher.
So I'm done with my rant now. Just needed to get that out. I'm glad that I love to read so I can be alert to what my children are exposed to at school. I know other parents who would also object to this book if they were more aware of the content. And I understand that it's hard to keep up with our kids sometimes. I expect we'll run into this problem again at the high school. But on the bright side, I also get to enjoy discussing good books with my children!
I read this book because my teenage son was going to be required to read it in his English class at school. I did not want to read the book because I was aware of its content. But I felt it necessary in order to be able to talk to the teacher about my objections. So I did not like this book. My degree in Comparative Literature enables me to recognize some literary value in Caged Bird, as well as historical and social value. I believe Maya Angelou is a talented writer. I admire some of her poetry. But her series of autobiographical books includes too much explicit and disturbing sexual content for me. And I certainly did not want my 15 year old son to have to read it! He did not want to read it and my husband and I completely supported his choice.
The most graphic and disturbing sexual material in Caged Bird involves the rape of the author as an eight year old girl. This horrible experience deeply affects her life. But I believe our teenage children can understand that terrible things like this happen, without needing to be dragged through the muck of the sordid details. Ms. Angelou writes vividly. My son does not want those images in his head, and I fully support him. I can see this book being taught at the college level, but I strongly feel that it is not appropriate for high school required reading. In my son's advanced English class, this book was one of six main texts. In the regular English class, there are only two main texts, and this is one of them. How sad, when there are so many other great literary works to choose from which are clean.
My son's teacher was nice and professional about it. Another English teacher was not so nice. She acted surprised that I would characterize the book as "R-rated." She said that we could see worse things on prime-time TV. Our (my husband's and my) response was "That's why we choose not to watch those TV shows!" It bothered me that she would try to use the "everybody's doing it" excuse. Just because our society's standards of decency continue to plummet, is no reason to embrace them! It is an American Lit class, so I suggested a couple of other texts as options if the purpose was to address the African American experience. But this book is obviously one of that teacher's favorites, so she defended it. The teachers did say that our son could choose to read a different book. However, because the class structure was centered on discussion, we and our son chose to have him read an 'edited version' of Caged Bird instead. I just told him which chapters to skip. And I'm glad that our son happened to have the more sympathetic teacher.
So I'm done with my rant now. Just needed to get that out. I'm glad that I love to read so I can be alert to what my children are exposed to at school. I know other parents who would also object to this book if they were more aware of the content. And I understand that it's hard to keep up with our kids sometimes. I expect we'll run into this problem again at the high school. But on the bright side, I also get to enjoy discussing good books with my children!
December 24, 2020
" My tears were not for Bailey or Mother or even myself but for the helplessness of mortals who live on the sufferance of life"
How apt are these words and how true they ring? People really do take their lives for granted. It is of course a suffering. From birth to death. We should be shedding tears for the complete ignorance we carry ourselves for the reality the world offers which we fail to see, yet is it worth it? All those tears.
It would be considered in a certain fact that reading this book during the current turbulent days is certainly fitting in a certain manner but some might think one is trying to be part of something they are not. Truth be told being a brown girl (as we've been constantly labeled) in a brown country surrounded by the ocean and other brown countries, I personally have not faced racism. In fact I have been brought up in my own cocoon. I am part of the majority that inhabit our tiny island, thus I have not received any judgement from any. The first time I felt out of my box was around 2 years ago. I was in Italy happily travelling by train from Milan to Switzerland when a certain Italian boy was curiously looking at me. I thought I was mistaken and ignored it. Later it came to my attention that he went as far as pointing at me and telling something to his mother. Me with zero knowledge of that language just smiled at him. I did not suspect anything until my aunt came to me and turned me away from them and took me away from there and told to just ignore them. Although she did not explicitly mention what was conversed between mother and child, I knew it was nothing good. This was my first time I ever felt as if I was an alien in another planet. It was the first time I felt as I was not accepted. Although this was for a very brief moment I felt a certain level of sadness, not anger but sadness. Not even knowing what they were saying I felt that I was accused of a crime I cannot even help. Now that I read this book, I cannot even fathom what colored people, let them be black, brown or yellow feel at a regular basis.
Now that I have called myself brown and given the term yellow and black to others, what do I really try to achieve? Am I not putting the same labels that they have forced upon us? At times looking at the situation in the world a certain fear runs through my blood. Would we be next? Will there be a day that all colored people would be washed out of the world? Reasons are truly unfathomable for me. So many questions run through my mind when I see the blatant disgust people have towards each other.
Why are we dirty?
Black, brown, yellow, why are we so different from them?
At the end aren't we all the same?
Strip us down to the bones, won't we all be the same?
Aren't we all made of the same tiny atoms?
It is not that I am trying to bring up an argument by raising these questions, neither am I accusing anyone but in the end there is a certain kind of sadness that courses through my blood. No one deserves this. Why is it that even almost a century after these happening in the book that we have not changed at all?
I will admit that I am speaking about things in general rather than book here but I do not think there is much to say about this. Maya Angelou has proven herself worthy of the praise. I am only sad that I did not pick this book up earlier. I do not know if it was the captivating words or lilting prose in the book but I truly felt as if I was in the embrace of a motherly bosom and listening to a fairy-tale while I was reading this. It truly captivated me and sent me to another realm. The story started with a simple yet small girl and ended with that small girl becoming woman when she was not a woman at all. At times I felt anger towards my own ignorance of the world and at time I felt anger at the world in general but I can easily discern that this book really was an eye opener and it truly did change my world. In the end I was not left with that anger but a bitter sadness in my heart. Will it ever end?
”All asked the same questions. How long, oh God? How long”
How apt are these words and how true they ring? People really do take their lives for granted. It is of course a suffering. From birth to death. We should be shedding tears for the complete ignorance we carry ourselves for the reality the world offers which we fail to see, yet is it worth it? All those tears.
It would be considered in a certain fact that reading this book during the current turbulent days is certainly fitting in a certain manner but some might think one is trying to be part of something they are not. Truth be told being a brown girl (as we've been constantly labeled) in a brown country surrounded by the ocean and other brown countries, I personally have not faced racism. In fact I have been brought up in my own cocoon. I am part of the majority that inhabit our tiny island, thus I have not received any judgement from any. The first time I felt out of my box was around 2 years ago. I was in Italy happily travelling by train from Milan to Switzerland when a certain Italian boy was curiously looking at me. I thought I was mistaken and ignored it. Later it came to my attention that he went as far as pointing at me and telling something to his mother. Me with zero knowledge of that language just smiled at him. I did not suspect anything until my aunt came to me and turned me away from them and took me away from there and told to just ignore them. Although she did not explicitly mention what was conversed between mother and child, I knew it was nothing good. This was my first time I ever felt as if I was an alien in another planet. It was the first time I felt as I was not accepted. Although this was for a very brief moment I felt a certain level of sadness, not anger but sadness. Not even knowing what they were saying I felt that I was accused of a crime I cannot even help. Now that I read this book, I cannot even fathom what colored people, let them be black, brown or yellow feel at a regular basis.
Now that I have called myself brown and given the term yellow and black to others, what do I really try to achieve? Am I not putting the same labels that they have forced upon us? At times looking at the situation in the world a certain fear runs through my blood. Would we be next? Will there be a day that all colored people would be washed out of the world? Reasons are truly unfathomable for me. So many questions run through my mind when I see the blatant disgust people have towards each other.
Why are we dirty?
Black, brown, yellow, why are we so different from them?
At the end aren't we all the same?
Strip us down to the bones, won't we all be the same?
Aren't we all made of the same tiny atoms?
It is not that I am trying to bring up an argument by raising these questions, neither am I accusing anyone but in the end there is a certain kind of sadness that courses through my blood. No one deserves this. Why is it that even almost a century after these happening in the book that we have not changed at all?
I will admit that I am speaking about things in general rather than book here but I do not think there is much to say about this. Maya Angelou has proven herself worthy of the praise. I am only sad that I did not pick this book up earlier. I do not know if it was the captivating words or lilting prose in the book but I truly felt as if I was in the embrace of a motherly bosom and listening to a fairy-tale while I was reading this. It truly captivated me and sent me to another realm. The story started with a simple yet small girl and ended with that small girl becoming woman when she was not a woman at all. At times I felt anger towards my own ignorance of the world and at time I felt anger at the world in general but I can easily discern that this book really was an eye opener and it truly did change my world. In the end I was not left with that anger but a bitter sadness in my heart. Will it ever end?
”All asked the same questions. How long, oh God? How long”
October 13, 2017
I was sitting on a bench as I enjoyed the last bits of warm sunlight the dying summer was oozing out, scrutinizing a newspaper while calculatedly assuming a thoughtful gaze.
This little girl ran up to me. She said "Mister, mister, I know why the caged bird sings!"
I looked up from reading the financial news. "That's great kid. Now run along, can't you see I'm busy?"
I turned back to reading on how poorly the economy was doing. There’s nothing like reading bad news to feed the intellect.
"But mister, mister, the caged bird sings and I know why! I know why, la-di-da, la-di-doo, and so should you!"
She skipped and danced excitedly. A bunch of people were standing around, bestowing benign smiles on the girl and throwing eager looks in my direction as an emphatic plea to hear her out. I heaved a sigh, put down the paper and said:
"Alright little one, tell me all about that bird of yours."
So she started talking. About her grandmother Momma, how strong she was, about her momma Mother Dear, such a beautiful lady, about handsome and kind Brother Bailey and big and absent Father Bailey, about her little life in a little corner of a little shop. The corner, despite its size, offers the perfect vantage point to see what goes on in that big world and in the little minds that inhabit it. She tells excitedly of her sweet childhood memories and shares her keen observations. She offers an insider's view on a part of the world, a part of society, I was completely unfamiliar with. I'd heard about cotton pickers, of course. I saw them depicted in popular culture. But what I saw through her tales were not mere depictions but real life people, worn out by the burdens of their tasks. I saw their fatigue through the small spasms of pain surrounding their lips and quavering shoulders, the absence of the glint in their eyes as they were telling their jokes. But even as I looked into this unknown world many of it felt familiar to me and I realised that this unknown world is my world, our world, only there's this wall. Who put that stupid thing there? The little girl showed me the window in that wall and her generous spirit has left it wide open as the breeze of her story wafted through it.
I willed her to keep talking and she did, with passion and patience.
Suddenly the girl stopped dancing. Looking down at the ground she said, with a voice as tiny as a cat's whisker: "A big man hurt me. Real bad."
She looked up. The playful twinkle was gone. I was ready to stand up, hold her in my arms and tell her things would be fine. Her eyes, defiant, filled with pride and intelligence, told me she would have none of that. She started dancing again, slowly and more deliberately.
More memories ensued. The tale matured into one dealing with one of society's biggest embarrassments, of black people not being allowed to work on tramcars, of dentists not wanting to treat little children with a specific ethnic background. But despite the enormity of all this humiliation, the little girl kept center stage, through her courage, wit and wisdom. Her pace quickened and I heard a melody of personal memories, powerful anecdotes and fiery statements of indignation.
She sang “The house was smudged with unspoken thoughts.”
A bit later she said: “The unsaid words pushed roughly against the thoughts that we had no craft to verbalize, and crowded the room to uneasiness.”
Her apparent eloquence made the melodious statement all the more profound.
The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.
My relief melted my fears and they liquidly stole down my face.
And then, a momentous description of the wall of racism. The girl just told me about how a lady receptionist wouldn’t allow her to file a candidacy for a job she was coveting. The reasons were hidden yet obvious. The girl then sang:
The miserable little encounter had nothing to do with me, the me of me, any more than it had to do with that silly clerk. The incident was a recurring dream, concocted years ago by stupid whites and it eternally came back to haunt us all. The secretary and I were like Hamlet and Laertes in the final scene, where, because of harm done by one ancestor to another, we were bound to duel to the death. Also because the play must end somewhere.
I went further than forgiving the clerk, I accepted her as a fellow victim of the same puppeteer..
I was awestruck, but she was obviously waiting for me to say something.
"What a wonderful tale! You’re giving that clerk an easy pass there, but I’m sure that once you’re a bit older you’ll reconsider this imagery, however beautiful it is. But how about that bird, little girl? You didn't mention it, let alone the reasons for its singing?"
"I ain’t no little girl no more, mister!"
And with that, she stomped off in a fit of pique and out of my sight.
I wonder if I'll ever see her again.
I sure hope so.
I want to know about that bird.
This little girl ran up to me. She said "Mister, mister, I know why the caged bird sings!"
I looked up from reading the financial news. "That's great kid. Now run along, can't you see I'm busy?"
I turned back to reading on how poorly the economy was doing. There’s nothing like reading bad news to feed the intellect.
"But mister, mister, the caged bird sings and I know why! I know why, la-di-da, la-di-doo, and so should you!"
She skipped and danced excitedly. A bunch of people were standing around, bestowing benign smiles on the girl and throwing eager looks in my direction as an emphatic plea to hear her out. I heaved a sigh, put down the paper and said:
"Alright little one, tell me all about that bird of yours."
So she started talking. About her grandmother Momma, how strong she was, about her momma Mother Dear, such a beautiful lady, about handsome and kind Brother Bailey and big and absent Father Bailey, about her little life in a little corner of a little shop. The corner, despite its size, offers the perfect vantage point to see what goes on in that big world and in the little minds that inhabit it. She tells excitedly of her sweet childhood memories and shares her keen observations. She offers an insider's view on a part of the world, a part of society, I was completely unfamiliar with. I'd heard about cotton pickers, of course. I saw them depicted in popular culture. But what I saw through her tales were not mere depictions but real life people, worn out by the burdens of their tasks. I saw their fatigue through the small spasms of pain surrounding their lips and quavering shoulders, the absence of the glint in their eyes as they were telling their jokes. But even as I looked into this unknown world many of it felt familiar to me and I realised that this unknown world is my world, our world, only there's this wall. Who put that stupid thing there? The little girl showed me the window in that wall and her generous spirit has left it wide open as the breeze of her story wafted through it.
I willed her to keep talking and she did, with passion and patience.
Suddenly the girl stopped dancing. Looking down at the ground she said, with a voice as tiny as a cat's whisker: "A big man hurt me. Real bad."
She looked up. The playful twinkle was gone. I was ready to stand up, hold her in my arms and tell her things would be fine. Her eyes, defiant, filled with pride and intelligence, told me she would have none of that. She started dancing again, slowly and more deliberately.
More memories ensued. The tale matured into one dealing with one of society's biggest embarrassments, of black people not being allowed to work on tramcars, of dentists not wanting to treat little children with a specific ethnic background. But despite the enormity of all this humiliation, the little girl kept center stage, through her courage, wit and wisdom. Her pace quickened and I heard a melody of personal memories, powerful anecdotes and fiery statements of indignation.
She sang “The house was smudged with unspoken thoughts.”
A bit later she said: “The unsaid words pushed roughly against the thoughts that we had no craft to verbalize, and crowded the room to uneasiness.”
Her apparent eloquence made the melodious statement all the more profound.
The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.
My relief melted my fears and they liquidly stole down my face.
And then, a momentous description of the wall of racism. The girl just told me about how a lady receptionist wouldn’t allow her to file a candidacy for a job she was coveting. The reasons were hidden yet obvious. The girl then sang:
The miserable little encounter had nothing to do with me, the me of me, any more than it had to do with that silly clerk. The incident was a recurring dream, concocted years ago by stupid whites and it eternally came back to haunt us all. The secretary and I were like Hamlet and Laertes in the final scene, where, because of harm done by one ancestor to another, we were bound to duel to the death. Also because the play must end somewhere.
I went further than forgiving the clerk, I accepted her as a fellow victim of the same puppeteer..
I was awestruck, but she was obviously waiting for me to say something.
"What a wonderful tale! You’re giving that clerk an easy pass there, but I’m sure that once you’re a bit older you’ll reconsider this imagery, however beautiful it is. But how about that bird, little girl? You didn't mention it, let alone the reasons for its singing?"
"I ain’t no little girl no more, mister!"
And with that, she stomped off in a fit of pique and out of my sight.
I wonder if I'll ever see her again.
I sure hope so.
I want to know about that bird.
October 28, 2018
Audiobook...read by Maya Angelou
I wasn’t a passionate reader in High School- -the handful of books I did read (“Valley of The Dolls”, “The Catcher in the Rye”, “Franny and Zooey”, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, and “I Know Why Bird Caged Sings”,), were each books I ‘do’ remember reading that stayed with me all these years.
Always on the lookout for good Audiobooks these days...(fitting nicely with my daily-to-do’s - especially with my duties as house keeper & gardener maintenance of our busy AirBnB in the back of our house)...
I was inspired when I read a review by *Suzy*... here on Goodreads. She ‘listened’ to the Audiobook. ( great idea I thought - and it sure was)...
“An American Classic”...that once was a book people wanted banned from schools.
Of course we always picked up new things when we read or listen to a book again....
And something that really stood out for me this time around was that Deuteronomy was Maya’s favorite book in the Bible.
I knew that Shakespeare was her favorite author - but I hadn’t remembered about Deuteronomy and why. As a young child Maya believed if people wanted to avoid hell, all they had to do was memorized Deuteronomy and follow its teachings word for word.
When I went through B’nai Mitzvah and studied the Torah - Deuteronomy was my least favorite section. I didn’t like ‘the laws’ and I remember being happy that our daughters both had Genesis, ( dealings with creation), as their portion of focus for their Bat Mitzvah.
But... recently I dived into Deuteronomy.... which was inspired from reading “Bitter Orange”, by Claire Fuller. ( a Priest wanted to leave the church in the story - and I wanted to understand why). I concluded he interpreted Deuteronomy more like a Jew than a Christian.
Back to Maya....
She wasn’t able to avoid hell. A child who saw abandonment, racism,
Social injustice, Discrimination every day as a child in the south, slavery, rape...( at 8 years of age)....she somehow became a legendary survivor ...
“Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware.
And The worst part of my awareness was that I wasn’t aware of what I was aware of”.
This book is timeless...
Insightful - culturally historical... and Maya’s autobiography.
The little happy parts that had me smiling was when Marguerite and Baily were children - reading books - playing as little kids do...
The ‘meals’ that came out of grandmas kitchen were abundant.
I laughed at a breakfast visual of ham - eggs- potatoes -tomatoes - with so much ham fat poured on top of the tomatoes that they turned white.
Our diets have change through history ....
But so much importance in this gem of a book hasn’t.
Thanks, Suzy.., for the Audiobook ‘inspiration’!
Maya’s voice was like having grandma read a bedtime story ...
She could tell a story.
Beautiful prose.
I wasn’t a passionate reader in High School- -the handful of books I did read (“Valley of The Dolls”, “The Catcher in the Rye”, “Franny and Zooey”, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, and “I Know Why Bird Caged Sings”,), were each books I ‘do’ remember reading that stayed with me all these years.
Always on the lookout for good Audiobooks these days...(fitting nicely with my daily-to-do’s - especially with my duties as house keeper & gardener maintenance of our busy AirBnB in the back of our house)...
I was inspired when I read a review by *Suzy*... here on Goodreads. She ‘listened’ to the Audiobook. ( great idea I thought - and it sure was)...
“An American Classic”...that once was a book people wanted banned from schools.
Of course we always picked up new things when we read or listen to a book again....
And something that really stood out for me this time around was that Deuteronomy was Maya’s favorite book in the Bible.
I knew that Shakespeare was her favorite author - but I hadn’t remembered about Deuteronomy and why. As a young child Maya believed if people wanted to avoid hell, all they had to do was memorized Deuteronomy and follow its teachings word for word.
When I went through B’nai Mitzvah and studied the Torah - Deuteronomy was my least favorite section. I didn’t like ‘the laws’ and I remember being happy that our daughters both had Genesis, ( dealings with creation), as their portion of focus for their Bat Mitzvah.
But... recently I dived into Deuteronomy.... which was inspired from reading “Bitter Orange”, by Claire Fuller. ( a Priest wanted to leave the church in the story - and I wanted to understand why). I concluded he interpreted Deuteronomy more like a Jew than a Christian.
Back to Maya....
She wasn’t able to avoid hell. A child who saw abandonment, racism,
Social injustice, Discrimination every day as a child in the south, slavery, rape...( at 8 years of age)....she somehow became a legendary survivor ...
“Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware.
And The worst part of my awareness was that I wasn’t aware of what I was aware of”.
This book is timeless...
Insightful - culturally historical... and Maya’s autobiography.
The little happy parts that had me smiling was when Marguerite and Baily were children - reading books - playing as little kids do...
The ‘meals’ that came out of grandmas kitchen were abundant.
I laughed at a breakfast visual of ham - eggs- potatoes -tomatoes - with so much ham fat poured on top of the tomatoes that they turned white.
Our diets have change through history ....
But so much importance in this gem of a book hasn’t.
Thanks, Suzy.., for the Audiobook ‘inspiration’!
Maya’s voice was like having grandma read a bedtime story ...
She could tell a story.
Beautiful prose.
March 27, 2017
The first of a series of autobiographies by Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is simultaneously heartrending and inspiring. This beautiful memoir of Ms. Angelou’s years as a child up to the age of seventeen exemplifies the resilience of a strong human spirit. Living with her grandmother, uncle, and brother in the segregated state of Arkansas during the 1930’s and early 1940’s, Maya, or Marguerite as she was called, was forced to deal with abandonment, racial prejudices, and grievous abuse. And yet, Marguerite showed astonishing strength and courage through all this pain and hardship and emerged as a powerful role model for anyone that has suffered from hatred, injustice, or misfortune.
Growing up, Marguerite reflects on what it was like to be a young black girl living during these times, as well as her insecurities regarding her own image. Not uncommon to many young girls, she felt awkward and plain. When describing her excitement over a new dress for church, Marguerite notes “I was going to look like one of the sweet little white girls who were everybody’s dream of what was right with the world”, and later …”I thought that if she was planning to marry our father she must have been horrified to find herself with a nearly six-foot prospective stepdaughter who was not even pretty.”
I especially enjoyed Maya’s descriptions of her love for books. Reading provided a refuge for little Marguerite, as well as an inspiration for her writing in her adult life. I could easily envision such cozy descriptions as “There was going to be a storm and it was a perfect night for rereading Jane Eyre. Bailey had finished his chores and was already behind the stove with Mark Twain… Pots rattled in the kitchen where Momma was frying corn cakes to go with vegetable soup for supper, and the homey sounds and scents cushioned me as I read of Jane Eyre in the cold English mansion of a colder English gentleman.” Food was a comfort for Marguerite as well and also provided for some very mouthwatering narrative. Humor and sarcasm were not lacking within the pages of Ms. Angelou’s memoir either. Many of these moments seemed to have occurred while attending weekly church services or occasional revival meetings. Marguerite recalls going to church one morning while Reverend Thomas was preaching the words “Great God of Mount Nebo” and Sister Thomas, given to bouts of shouting and jerking when feeling the spirit, approached the Reverend, hit him with her purse, and knocked out his false teeth. “The grinning uppers and lowers lay by my right shoe, looking empty and at the same time appearing to contain all the emptiness in the world.” I could not keep myself from snickering along with Marguerite’s contagious and hysterical laughter.
Despite the books, the food and the humor, Marguerite suffered as well. One could not read this book without your heart going out to her when she experienced rage, loneliness, and physical and emotional pain. The retelling of some of the more horrific incidents in her life is astonishing, graphic, and brutal. But throughout this very personal account of Maya Angelou’s early and formative years, we can see her little triumphs and celebrate with her. Reflecting on her graduation from the eighth grade, Maya says “We were on top again. As always, again. We survived. The depths had been icy and dark, but now a bright sun spoke to our souls. I was no longer simply a member of the proud graduating class of 1940; I was a proud member of the wonderful, beautiful Negro race.” Maya did survive and her numerous achievements point to her victory over adversity and injustice. I look forward to reading the next “chapter” in this inspirational woman’s life story.
Growing up, Marguerite reflects on what it was like to be a young black girl living during these times, as well as her insecurities regarding her own image. Not uncommon to many young girls, she felt awkward and plain. When describing her excitement over a new dress for church, Marguerite notes “I was going to look like one of the sweet little white girls who were everybody’s dream of what was right with the world”, and later …”I thought that if she was planning to marry our father she must have been horrified to find herself with a nearly six-foot prospective stepdaughter who was not even pretty.”
I especially enjoyed Maya’s descriptions of her love for books. Reading provided a refuge for little Marguerite, as well as an inspiration for her writing in her adult life. I could easily envision such cozy descriptions as “There was going to be a storm and it was a perfect night for rereading Jane Eyre. Bailey had finished his chores and was already behind the stove with Mark Twain… Pots rattled in the kitchen where Momma was frying corn cakes to go with vegetable soup for supper, and the homey sounds and scents cushioned me as I read of Jane Eyre in the cold English mansion of a colder English gentleman.” Food was a comfort for Marguerite as well and also provided for some very mouthwatering narrative. Humor and sarcasm were not lacking within the pages of Ms. Angelou’s memoir either. Many of these moments seemed to have occurred while attending weekly church services or occasional revival meetings. Marguerite recalls going to church one morning while Reverend Thomas was preaching the words “Great God of Mount Nebo” and Sister Thomas, given to bouts of shouting and jerking when feeling the spirit, approached the Reverend, hit him with her purse, and knocked out his false teeth. “The grinning uppers and lowers lay by my right shoe, looking empty and at the same time appearing to contain all the emptiness in the world.” I could not keep myself from snickering along with Marguerite’s contagious and hysterical laughter.
Despite the books, the food and the humor, Marguerite suffered as well. One could not read this book without your heart going out to her when she experienced rage, loneliness, and physical and emotional pain. The retelling of some of the more horrific incidents in her life is astonishing, graphic, and brutal. But throughout this very personal account of Maya Angelou’s early and formative years, we can see her little triumphs and celebrate with her. Reflecting on her graduation from the eighth grade, Maya says “We were on top again. As always, again. We survived. The depths had been icy and dark, but now a bright sun spoke to our souls. I was no longer simply a member of the proud graduating class of 1940; I was a proud member of the wonderful, beautiful Negro race.” Maya did survive and her numerous achievements point to her victory over adversity and injustice. I look forward to reading the next “chapter” in this inspirational woman’s life story.
November 14, 2012
I'm quite ashamed that it's taken me this long to read this book. Maya Angelou is so inspirational to many people so reading about her childhood and adolescence was really special. I found her autobiography tragic and also hopeful at the same time. Things have changed a lot since Angelou's childhood, such as segregation, and colourism in the black community (to an extent). The fact that she went through that period of history and is alive to see the first Black president in US history is just wonderful.
February 10, 2020
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the first of Maya Angelou's seven autobiographies, is an engaging and remarkable memoir. It is the story of Maya (Marguerite) from the age of three until sixteen (along with her one-year older brother, Bailey Jr.). After the collapse of their parents' marriage, Maya and Bailey are sent to Depression-era Stamps, Arkansas with tags on their wrists addressed to "To whom it may concern." No one, relatives included, seem much concerned with their comings and goings. The feeling that these children are on their own is reinforced along with the accompanying realization that, despite those lack of bonds, they are not free.
Much of the story of segregated Stamps, Arkansas centers on prejudice at the hands of "powhitetrash" and how that impacts one's sense of self and place in society. Of course, this racism is also a big part of why freedom can be elusive even for someone with Maya's strength and resilience. Much of the second half of the book follows Maya's early teenage years in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Angelou writes this engaging memoir with sensitivity and beauty as well as a uniquely powerful voice. 4.25 stars
“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the first of Maya Angelou's seven autobiographies, is an engaging and remarkable memoir. It is the story of Maya (Marguerite) from the age of three until sixteen (along with her one-year older brother, Bailey Jr.). After the collapse of their parents' marriage, Maya and Bailey are sent to Depression-era Stamps, Arkansas with tags on their wrists addressed to "To whom it may concern." No one, relatives included, seem much concerned with their comings and goings. The feeling that these children are on their own is reinforced along with the accompanying realization that, despite those lack of bonds, they are not free.
Much of the story of segregated Stamps, Arkansas centers on prejudice at the hands of "powhitetrash" and how that impacts one's sense of self and place in society. Of course, this racism is also a big part of why freedom can be elusive even for someone with Maya's strength and resilience. Much of the second half of the book follows Maya's early teenage years in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Angelou writes this engaging memoir with sensitivity and beauty as well as a uniquely powerful voice. 4.25 stars
January 10, 2018
قد نعتقد واهمين بأن العنصرية، كما تصورها الأفلام والروايات، ضد السود قد ولت وانتهت بعد أن أصبح الإنسان أكثر تحضرًا وتمدّنًا. وعليه قد يبدو الاطلاع على هذه الأفلام والروايات نوعًا من أنواع اللذة المازوخية التي يطيب لنا أن ننغمس فيها بين فينة وأخرى.
ولكننا في الحقيقة استطعنا التخلص من العنصرية كسلوك فقط، وهذا بدوره محل جدل، بينما لغتنا لا تزال تحافظ على تراث هائل من المفردات والتعابير العنصرية.
قرأت قبل سنوات كتاب "أبو قلم" للكاتب والمحامي الإماراتي أحمد أميري، وأدعو من لم يقرأه إلى الاطلاع عليه، وضح في أحد فصوله كيف أن لغتنا عنصرية ومتحيزة ض�� اللون الأسود، حتى لو كانت على سبيل المجاز ولا يقصد بها المعنى الحرفي، وضرب أمثلة على صيغ لغوية نستخدمها جميعًا دون وعي .. وربما بوعي أحيانًا، منها عبارة "تبييض الأموال" التي تعني بأن الأموال غير الشرعية سوداء اللون ويجب أن نقوم بتبييضها لاكسابها الشرعية، وعندما نتحدث عن أفريقيا نصفها بالقارة السوداء، نسبة للون سكانها، مع أنها في الواقع خضراء، ولا نقول عن أوروبا بأنها قارة حمراء نسبة إلى لون سكانها، ونصف القائمة التي تضم الأشخاص الخطرين بالقائمة السوداء، ونصف من يسارع إلى عمل الخير بأنه صاحب أيدي بيضاء، وكأننا نقول بشكل آخر بأن الأشرار أياديهم سوداء.
أذكر كذلك أنني عندما كنت في المدرسة الإبتدائية كان مدرس اللغة العربية وهو يشرح درس التشبيه والكناية والاستعارات .. إلخ ضرب مثالاً بالغًا في العنصرية، حين قال بأننا عندما نشبه فتاة بالقمر فذلك يحتمل أمرين، إما أنها جميلة وبيضاء كنصف القمر المضئ، أو قبيحة وسوداء كنصفه المعتم.
أصبحت مع الأيام أكثر حذرًا في استخدام مفردة السواد، وكنت، حتى وقت قريب، أصف الأشخاص السود بأصحاب البشرة السمراء،وكأن اللون الأسود شتيمة قد تجرح أحاسيسهم. أدركت بعد ذلك، بأننا إن كنا جادين في نبذ العنصرية فعلينا في البداية أن نتوقف عن استخدام التعابير اللغوية المتحيزة التي تنسب كل ما هو سيء إلى اللون الأسود، ومن ثم علينا ألا نشعر بالحرج من استخدام كلمة "الأسود" لوصف الأشخاص السود.
السواد ليس عيبًا بل هو مجرد لون آخر، وإنما العيب أن نعتقد بأنه لون أقل من بقية الألوان.
شاهدت قبل فترة فيلمًا وثائقيًا عن الكنائس في إفريقيا، واستغربت أن المسيح في التماثيل والصور التي تملأ الكنائس أسود اللون، ولكنني عندما أفكر في الأمر مليًا، أجدني مقتنعًا بأن المسيح لم يكن له أن يكون إلا أسودًا. على امتداد التاريخ البشري كان اللون الأسود مسيحًا صغيرًا، يحمل على ظهره الواهن صليبه، بينما ترشقه بقية الألوان بالشتائم واللعنات والحجارة وهو يخطو في طريق الآلام.
قرأت الكثير من الروايات العظيمة التي عالجت مسألة العنصرية ضد السود مثل رواية "أن تقتل طائرًا بريئًا" و"كوخ العم توم" و"ليكن الرب في عون الطفلة"، ولكن هذه الرواية مختلفة ومميزة لأنها ليست مجرد رواية، بل سيرة روائية لطفلة اكتشفت بأن العالم الذي ولدت فيه لم يكن يرى فيها إلا كائنًا قبيحًا بسبب لونها، فقررت بجرأة وصراحة شديدتين أن تدير المرآة للعالم لينظر فيها إلى وجهه شديد القبح والبشاعة.
ولكننا في الحقيقة استطعنا التخلص من العنصرية كسلوك فقط، وهذا بدوره محل جدل، بينما لغتنا لا تزال تحافظ على تراث هائل من المفردات والتعابير العنصرية.
قرأت قبل سنوات كتاب "أبو قلم" للكاتب والمحامي الإماراتي أحمد أميري، وأدعو من لم يقرأه إلى الاطلاع عليه، وضح في أحد فصوله كيف أن لغتنا عنصرية ومتحيزة ض�� اللون الأسود، حتى لو كانت على سبيل المجاز ولا يقصد بها المعنى الحرفي، وضرب أمثلة على صيغ لغوية نستخدمها جميعًا دون وعي .. وربما بوعي أحيانًا، منها عبارة "تبييض الأموال" التي تعني بأن الأموال غير الشرعية سوداء اللون ويجب أن نقوم بتبييضها لاكسابها الشرعية، وعندما نتحدث عن أفريقيا نصفها بالقارة السوداء، نسبة للون سكانها، مع أنها في الواقع خضراء، ولا نقول عن أوروبا بأنها قارة حمراء نسبة إلى لون سكانها، ونصف القائمة التي تضم الأشخاص الخطرين بالقائمة السوداء، ونصف من يسارع إلى عمل الخير بأنه صاحب أيدي بيضاء، وكأننا نقول بشكل آخر بأن الأشرار أياديهم سوداء.
أذكر كذلك أنني عندما كنت في المدرسة الإبتدائية كان مدرس اللغة العربية وهو يشرح درس التشبيه والكناية والاستعارات .. إلخ ضرب مثالاً بالغًا في العنصرية، حين قال بأننا عندما نشبه فتاة بالقمر فذلك يحتمل أمرين، إما أنها جميلة وبيضاء كنصف القمر المضئ، أو قبيحة وسوداء كنصفه المعتم.
أصبحت مع الأيام أكثر حذرًا في استخدام مفردة السواد، وكنت، حتى وقت قريب، أصف الأشخاص السود بأصحاب البشرة السمراء،وكأن اللون الأسود شتيمة قد تجرح أحاسيسهم. أدركت بعد ذلك، بأننا إن كنا جادين في نبذ العنصرية فعلينا في البداية أن نتوقف عن استخدام التعابير اللغوية المتحيزة التي تنسب كل ما هو سيء إلى اللون الأسود، ومن ثم علينا ألا نشعر بالحرج من استخدام كلمة "الأسود" لوصف الأشخاص السود.
السواد ليس عيبًا بل هو مجرد لون آخر، وإنما العيب أن نعتقد بأنه لون أقل من بقية الألوان.
شاهدت قبل فترة فيلمًا وثائقيًا عن الكنائس في إفريقيا، واستغربت أن المسيح في التماثيل والصور التي تملأ الكنائس أسود اللون، ولكنني عندما أفكر في الأمر مليًا، أجدني مقتنعًا بأن المسيح لم يكن له أن يكون إلا أسودًا. على امتداد التاريخ البشري كان اللون الأسود مسيحًا صغيرًا، يحمل على ظهره الواهن صليبه، بينما ترشقه بقية الألوان بالشتائم واللعنات والحجارة وهو يخطو في طريق الآلام.
قرأت الكثير من الروايات العظيمة التي عالجت مسألة العنصرية ضد السود مثل رواية "أن تقتل طائرًا بريئًا" و"كوخ العم توم" و"ليكن الرب في عون الطفلة"، ولكن هذه الرواية مختلفة ومميزة لأنها ليست مجرد رواية، بل سيرة روائية لطفلة اكتشفت بأن العالم الذي ولدت فيه لم يكن يرى فيها إلا كائنًا قبيحًا بسبب لونها، فقررت بجرأة وصراحة شديدتين أن تدير المرآة للعالم لينظر فيها إلى وجهه شديد القبح والبشاعة.
October 7, 2018
Maya Angelou ends her story of her youth with the birth of her son and that is a fitting ending for with a child comes an adult's responsibilities; although, she was only a teenager when she had him and had only had one very hasty and unsatisfying, almost impersonal, sexual experience to gain that son. It feels a bit abrupt when you are reading it, I had a son, the end.
She had a disjointed upbringing with much movement between households, all over the country, ending up in San Francisco, by way of the deep South and other states along the way. Her mother and father divorced early and her first memories are of her father's mother who raised her. She and her brother, Bailey were moved to St. Louis to her mother's mother's house, then she moved with her mother, brother and a Mr. Freeman to an apartment in St. Louis. Since her mother was out working a lot, Mr. Freeman sexually assaulted her and eventually raped her. She was 8. Little girls and boys left alone with "boyfriends" often suffer this way. In this case she did eventually tell on him and there was a trial and he was found guilty, but only served one day in jail. He was found dead shortly after. Angelou thinks her uncles killed him.
She loses her voice then literally and doesn't speak for years. She says it's because her speaking made a man lose his life, but maybe part of the reason was because she was traumatized and angry and she knew her relatives resented her for becoming a different child afterwards, sullen and sad, and they expected her to get over it and move on. Her silence was the answer to that.
This is a moving memoir and very dark and she does move on, because she has to or give up. She turns to school and the power of words when nudged in that direction by a few gentle angels she meets along the way, teachers and good neighbors who bring light to the darkness.
She had a disjointed upbringing with much movement between households, all over the country, ending up in San Francisco, by way of the deep South and other states along the way. Her mother and father divorced early and her first memories are of her father's mother who raised her. She and her brother, Bailey were moved to St. Louis to her mother's mother's house, then she moved with her mother, brother and a Mr. Freeman to an apartment in St. Louis. Since her mother was out working a lot, Mr. Freeman sexually assaulted her and eventually raped her. She was 8. Little girls and boys left alone with "boyfriends" often suffer this way. In this case she did eventually tell on him and there was a trial and he was found guilty, but only served one day in jail. He was found dead shortly after. Angelou thinks her uncles killed him.
She loses her voice then literally and doesn't speak for years. She says it's because her speaking made a man lose his life, but maybe part of the reason was because she was traumatized and angry and she knew her relatives resented her for becoming a different child afterwards, sullen and sad, and they expected her to get over it and move on. Her silence was the answer to that.
This is a moving memoir and very dark and she does move on, because she has to or give up. She turns to school and the power of words when nudged in that direction by a few gentle angels she meets along the way, teachers and good neighbors who bring light to the darkness.
May 2, 2018
Perfect. A Masterpiece.
Hype Lit Bookclub.
Around the Year In 52 Books: A book inspired by real events.
2018 Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book with an animal in the title.
Hype Lit Bookclub.
Around the Year In 52 Books: A book inspired by real events.
2018 Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book with an animal in the title.
December 17, 2020
I have little interest in the conventional autobiography. It's a genre I associate with celebrities on the make for more publicity and more cash. There's also the sense a good novelist could condense all the relevant information in any autobiography into a couple of chapters and save us the chore of wading through 350 pages. It seems strange that through an autobiography we can, superficially, learn more about a stranger than we know about our own mother and father. It feels strange and it also feels bogus. A novel is essentially a writer getting us to believe a series of lies is the truth. An autobiography on the other hand is an individual claiming to tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That in itself is an unrealistic claim. I think this is why we all love novels with an unreliable narrator. Because there's something fundamentally true about that perspective. Truth from one only perspective - monologue - is often unreliable because life after all is relationship.
I know next to nothing about Maya Angelou. I don't know why she chose to write autobiography rather than fiction. I read this because I kept coming across fabulous quotes by her. Unfortunately none of those quotes cropped up in this book. There's nothing wrong with this book except perhaps the material is spread rather thinly but I had hoped the quality of the writing itself would be more exciting. Also she limits herself to the perspective of the person she was at the time and she's never older than seventeen in this book so there was little of her adult wisdom which was another disappointment.
I know next to nothing about Maya Angelou. I don't know why she chose to write autobiography rather than fiction. I read this because I kept coming across fabulous quotes by her. Unfortunately none of those quotes cropped up in this book. There's nothing wrong with this book except perhaps the material is spread rather thinly but I had hoped the quality of the writing itself would be more exciting. Also she limits herself to the perspective of the person she was at the time and she's never older than seventeen in this book so there was little of her adult wisdom which was another disappointment.
June 3, 2017
Honest story, inspiring.
Childhood memories, living in Arkansas with grandmother, later in St. Louis with mother. Sexual abuse when she was eight years old. Brother Bailey, there love and support, hopes for the future. Back to San Francisco with mother, questioning herself about her sexuality. She was the first African-American to be hired to work on the the transportation department at the age of seventeen.
Childhood memories, living in Arkansas with grandmother, later in St. Louis with mother. Sexual abuse when she was eight years old. Brother Bailey, there love and support, hopes for the future. Back to San Francisco with mother, questioning herself about her sexuality. She was the first African-American to be hired to work on the the transportation department at the age of seventeen.
June 5, 2024
retry.
Loved it the second time. ❤️🩹
Loved it the second time. ❤️🩹
February 13, 2017
Read along with a friend.
Enjoyed it but it was another coming of age story which I have read a lot recently. Got a little boring for me at times. Loved the writing but probs wont pick up the next couple of books.
Enjoyed it but it was another coming of age story which I have read a lot recently. Got a little boring for me at times. Loved the writing but probs wont pick up the next couple of books.
August 28, 2018
The first of Angelou's series of autobiographies and a powerful account of growing up and coming of age in 1930s/40s America. In the background and foreground are racism, violence against women and the problem of identity. It is written with clarity and great force; there is no hiding from what you are reading.
It would be superfluous to sum up the book or outline its contents; it should be read. So I will just add a few thoughts and reflections.
Beacuse of the strong brother/sister relationship, it has been compared to The Mill on the Floss. That connection I didn't really see; Maggie and Tom Tulliver's relationship is too fractured and damaged by growing up, in a way that Maya and Bailey's was not.
I understand that this is one of those books that has caused controversy when taught in school's in America. I can understand why that is (though I don't approve); the sexual violence is powerful, but Angelou is a bit of iconoclast and takes a swipe at a number of sacred cows. This is especially the case in relation to religion. Part of Angelou's genius is the way she seamlessly 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 in relation to racism when I think (and hope) that is the case. I remember my youth and the casual racism that existed, even on TV. I look at today and see improvement and wonder how much of this is on the surface. Maybe I am a little pessimistic. But I do think we have to treat books like this as living breathing things; not as historical documents about a foreign past.
It would be superfluous to sum up the book or outline its contents; it should be read. So I will just add a few thoughts and reflections.
Beacuse of the strong brother/sister relationship, it has been compared to The Mill on the Floss. That connection I didn't really see; Maggie and Tom Tulliver's relationship is too fractured and damaged by growing up, in a way that Maya and Bailey's was not.
I understand that this is one of those books that has caused controversy when taught in school's in America. I can understand why that is (though I don't approve); the sexual violence is powerful, but Angelou is a bit of iconoclast and takes a swipe at a number of sacred cows. This is especially the case in relation to religion. Part of Angelou's genius is the way she seamlessly 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 in relation to racism when I think (and hope) that is the case. I remember my youth and the casual racism that existed, even on TV. I look at today and see improvement and wonder how much of this is on the surface. Maybe I am a little pessimistic. But I do think we have to treat books like this as living breathing things; not as historical documents about a foreign past.
April 4, 2019
In this first in her series of autobiographies, Maya Angelou shares the story of the early years of her life up to the age of seventeen. This memoir is more than just your average story, or even an average memoir because it’s so poignant, so honest and yet shared through such lovely prose that it is hard for me to categorize it as just any one thing.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, to her father, Bailey Johnson, who was a naval dietician and her mother, Vivian Baxter Johnson, a nurse, her given name was Marguerite Annie Johnson, but her older brother, Bailey Jr., christened her “Maya” in his way of calling her as “my sister.”
Such an incredibly inspiring and courageous woman, this was a joy to read at times, and heartbreaking to read at others, but what really stood out to me was how resilient she was, and yet how distressing it was that she had needed to be that strong.
”When I was three, and Bailey four, we had arrived in the musty little town, wearing tags on our wrists which instructed—“To Whom It May Concern”—that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson, Jr., from Long Beach, California, en route to Stamps, Arkansas, c/o Mrs. Annie Henderson.
“Our parents had decided to put an end to their calamitous marriage, and Father shipped us home to his mother. A porter had been charged with our welfare—he got off the train the next day in Arizona—and our tickets were pinned to my brother’s inside coat pocket.”
Abandonment seems to haunt both Maya and Bailey even though there isn’t much said in words, but they seem inured to it, as though they feel it is their lot in life to be left here, sent there. There are other lifelong scars, as well—sexual abuse, the racially divided, impoverished area they live in. Still, she manages to turn the roadblocks of her life into a life lived with inner and outer dignity and grace, inspiring so many along the way.
After the deaths of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, who died on the fourth of April fifty-one years ago, in 1968, James Baldwin encouraged Maya Angelou to write her personal story. With that, she began this first installment in the story, or stories, of her life.
I listened to this on audio, and also read this on my kindle, sometimes at the same time, and sometimes not. There’s something about her voice, so soothing, I felt her words reach into my heart as though she’s personally planted them there. Such a lovely way to take this journey along with her.
Ninety-one years have passed since the day she was born, were she still alive, she would be celebrating her 91st birthday today. Fortunately, she’s left us with her words, which live on. I raise a glass to Ms. Angelou, in gratitude to the gift of herself, her poetry and her stories, that she shared with all.
October 10, 2014
When I picked up I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou I knew two things:
1. The author is friends with Oprah and the Clintons.
2. The book is considered a classic.
The book is mostly set in the tiny town of Stamps, Arkansas. I lived much of my childhood within an hour's drive of Stamps so I found that detail very interesting.
The account of life as a Negro (the term Ms. Angelou uses) in rural Arkansas was fascinating. Some of it brought to mind memories of my own childhood (though I am "lily white"). Ms. Angelou's detailed description of food left my mouth watering. Barbecue. Mmm! Fried chicken. Oh, yeah! Where can I get some of that?!
I felt outrage at the shoddy treatment Maya and other Negoes in her community received at the hands of Whites. I sympathized with the fear of lynchings (which I confess I've never learned much about). And I admired their ability to feel proud and strong under oppressive circumstances.
That's what I liked about the book.
I did NOT appreciate the explicit descriptions of Maya's rape at age 8 by her mother's boyfriend. Or those of her 11 year old brother "playing family" in a tent in the backyard. Or of her emotionless experience with a teenage neighbor which leaves Maya pregnant.
These accounts left me feeling sick to my stomach and in need of some way to cleanse my mind. I realize that these acts were horrendous but it seemed that Ms. Angelou went out of her way to make them as vulgar and disgusting as possible, which wasn't necessary to get her point across.
It is outrageous to me is that this book is used in 9th and 10th grade English classrooms. This book is NOT appropriate for teenagers! I won't quote you the explicit details Ms. Angelou uses. Trust me, I've read trashy romance novels that had less detail than this book.
So, because of the explicit portions of the book, I cannot recommend it to anyone. Not adult. Definitely NOT teenager.
Edited October 2014:
About once a year I come to this review and read all of the comments that people have left. The older I get (now 40 yrs old) and the older my kids get (currently 6-11 yrs old) the more I stand by my review.
This book is disturbing. The descriptions of sexual abuse are graphic. The thing about words and images is they burn themselves into our minds. They influence our thinking and our decision-making, often without us realizing it. If they didn't influence us then there would be no purpose for their existence. That's why we must be careful about what we expose ourselves to!
I am saddened that the overwhelming argument in the comments FOR tweens/teens reading this book is that it's no worse than what they are exposed to in their interactions with friends, or what they view on TV/movies. Just because they've already learned about rape doesn't make that knowledge healthy or good for them!
That's called 'desensitization.' When you are exposed to something over and over it eventually loses it's power to influence you; it impacts your emotions and thoughts differently than when you were first exposed. Eventually you lose the sense of shock, horror, and outrage. You become numb or calloused.
I do not want to ever become numb or calloused to the horror of sexual abuse. To do so would dishonor my real life friends who endured sexual abuse. It would belittle the 8 yr old victim of the level two child molester living in my neighborhood (that I learned about today).
The other argument for this book is to educate about the terribleness of sexual abuse. Education of this nature should always have a purpose.
Knowledge just for the sake of knowledge is only good if you are a contestant on a game show.
Reading this book influenced me in two ways: it made me more committed to choose age-appropriate materials for my children AND to empower my children to handle inappropriate situations.
We talk a lot about how private parts of your body are ONLY for you and if anyone asks to see them or touches them you tell your parents. We discuss NOT going somewhere alone with an adult. We also explain that some movies/TV shows are not appropriate for them at their current ages.
We make these choices for our children because an education of this graphic level would have no purpose. It would only horrify and frighten them. Eventually we will educate our children about the proliferation of child pornography, about child sexual abuse, about the sex slave trade that is alive in well in our country and around the world. We won't need to go into graphic detail because the horror of such activities is natural.
After they are educated we will offer them outlets for their outrage. We will provide a list of organizations that fight these atrocities that we can support with our time and money. We will teach them to write letters to government officials on behalf of good legislation.
In other words we will give them the means to DO something with their horror; to act on their education. Which ought to be the purpose of all education.
Okay, so you read the book. You are now 'educated.' What are you going to DO with that education? How has this education changed you, your thinking, motivated your actions? How does this knowledge influence you?
1. The author is friends with Oprah and the Clintons.
2. The book is considered a classic.
The book is mostly set in the tiny town of Stamps, Arkansas. I lived much of my childhood within an hour's drive of Stamps so I found that detail very interesting.
The account of life as a Negro (the term Ms. Angelou uses) in rural Arkansas was fascinating. Some of it brought to mind memories of my own childhood (though I am "lily white"). Ms. Angelou's detailed description of food left my mouth watering. Barbecue. Mmm! Fried chicken. Oh, yeah! Where can I get some of that?!
I felt outrage at the shoddy treatment Maya and other Negoes in her community received at the hands of Whites. I sympathized with the fear of lynchings (which I confess I've never learned much about). And I admired their ability to feel proud and strong under oppressive circumstances.
That's what I liked about the book.
I did NOT appreciate the explicit descriptions of Maya's rape at age 8 by her mother's boyfriend. Or those of her 11 year old brother "playing family" in a tent in the backyard. Or of her emotionless experience with a teenage neighbor which leaves Maya pregnant.
These accounts left me feeling sick to my stomach and in need of some way to cleanse my mind. I realize that these acts were horrendous but it seemed that Ms. Angelou went out of her way to make them as vulgar and disgusting as possible, which wasn't necessary to get her point across.
It is outrageous to me is that this book is used in 9th and 10th grade English classrooms. This book is NOT appropriate for teenagers! I won't quote you the explicit details Ms. Angelou uses. Trust me, I've read trashy romance novels that had less detail than this book.
So, because of the explicit portions of the book, I cannot recommend it to anyone. Not adult. Definitely NOT teenager.
Edited October 2014:
About once a year I come to this review and read all of the comments that people have left. The older I get (now 40 yrs old) and the older my kids get (currently 6-11 yrs old) the more I stand by my review.
This book is disturbing. The descriptions of sexual abuse are graphic. The thing about words and images is they burn themselves into our minds. They influence our thinking and our decision-making, often without us realizing it. If they didn't influence us then there would be no purpose for their existence. That's why we must be careful about what we expose ourselves to!
I am saddened that the overwhelming argument in the comments FOR tweens/teens reading this book is that it's no worse than what they are exposed to in their interactions with friends, or what they view on TV/movies. Just because they've already learned about rape doesn't make that knowledge healthy or good for them!
That's called 'desensitization.' When you are exposed to something over and over it eventually loses it's power to influence you; it impacts your emotions and thoughts differently than when you were first exposed. Eventually you lose the sense of shock, horror, and outrage. You become numb or calloused.
I do not want to ever become numb or calloused to the horror of sexual abuse. To do so would dishonor my real life friends who endured sexual abuse. It would belittle the 8 yr old victim of the level two child molester living in my neighborhood (that I learned about today).
The other argument for this book is to educate about the terribleness of sexual abuse. Education of this nature should always have a purpose.
Knowledge just for the sake of knowledge is only good if you are a contestant on a game show.
Reading this book influenced me in two ways: it made me more committed to choose age-appropriate materials for my children AND to empower my children to handle inappropriate situations.
We talk a lot about how private parts of your body are ONLY for you and if anyone asks to see them or touches them you tell your parents. We discuss NOT going somewhere alone with an adult. We also explain that some movies/TV shows are not appropriate for them at their current ages.
We make these choices for our children because an education of this graphic level would have no purpose. It would only horrify and frighten them. Eventually we will educate our children about the proliferation of child pornography, about child sexual abuse, about the sex slave trade that is alive in well in our country and around the world. We won't need to go into graphic detail because the horror of such activities is natural.
After they are educated we will offer them outlets for their outrage. We will provide a list of organizations that fight these atrocities that we can support with our time and money. We will teach them to write letters to government officials on behalf of good legislation.
In other words we will give them the means to DO something with their horror; to act on their education. Which ought to be the purpose of all education.
Okay, so you read the book. You are now 'educated.' What are you going to DO with that education? How has this education changed you, your thinking, motivated your actions? How does this knowledge influence you?
December 12, 2016
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was Maya Angelou’s first book, and as I was reading I recognized how revolutionary it must have been when it was released. There was (and still is) a whole world of people with little conception of what southern, rural black people went through before and during the civil rights movement (and while I’ve read more on this topic than some, I would include myself in that number), so seeing that time and place reflected here has undeniably been extremely valuable for many—both those who lived it and those who did not. In addition, her depiction of the events and emotions leading up to and following her childhood rape was quite striking and must have been astoundingly groundbreaking when it first appeared in print. I could also see quite clearly how this memoir has influenced subsequent generations of writers and filmmakers. Its importance cannot be overstated. As a reading experience, however, it was a bit more mixed for me. Some of the writing was beautiful and vivid, with a strong sense of place and character, but some was a little more rough and choppy, and the episodic nature of the book didn’t work particularly well, in my opinion. For a first book, these are forgivable flaws, and I would never discourage anyone from reading this memoir—in fact, I think everyone should read it. But for me what it mainly did was make me want to read Angelou’s later books, where presumably she gains full possession of the writerly powers beginning to emerge here.
February 6, 2011
Now that I've researched, read, and reviewed a number of banned and challenged books, I'm no longer surprised that writing about sex, particularly from a young woman's point of view, whips up fear and suppression. And there's plenty of sex in Maya Angelou's childhood memoir, starting with her rape, at the age of 9, by her mother's live-in boyfriend, continuing with her description of her mother's life as a prostitute, her adventures in Mexico while her father visits a whorehouse, her teen-aged fear of being a lesbian, and her first self-initiated sexual encounter and subsequent pregnancy at the age of 16. But that's not all: she pokes fun at her grandmother's old-fashioned Arkansas Christianity and morality; she glorifies inner-city black lawlessness and crime; she lives in a junkyard for a month with other homeless children; she's scornful of white people. Worst of all from the censors' view, I suspect, is that she does not accept her place: she's smart, determined, and uppity. As far as Maya Angelou's own writing, I have to say that while she captured me throughout first two-thirds of the book, she lost me during the last third . . . I went from being absorbed and engaged to merely reading out of academic interest. From the time she runs away from her father in Los Angeles, the tone of her writing changes: detailed recollections of childhood, filled with fascinating detail, humor, and astute observations of character, suddenly stop, and Maya's memoir becomes compressed, rushed, and vague. Huge and important things happen afterward: 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" (her own word) by asking a neighbor boy to have sex with her; she becomes pregnant and has a child -- but Maya covers all this in a hurry, almost as if she's writing about someone else. I don't understand why she put aside the momentum she'd built up during the first two-thirds of her memoir, and that makes me like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings a little less than I want to. Still, it's an important, ground-breaking book, and there are three very good reasons to read it: one, to tweak the censors' noses; two, to learn something of what it is to be a black girl in America; three, to hear the voice of a strong black woman who is not Oprah!
June 23, 2023
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson in 1928, was an African-American poet, singer, actress, writer, director, producer, composer, and civil rights activist. This first book of Angelou's seven-part autobiography covers her childhood and adolescence, up to the age of seventeen.
Angelou had a turbulent childhood, beginning with her parents' divorce when she was three years old. At that time, Marguerite and her beloved four-year-old brother Bailey were sent from their father's home in California to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their paternal grandmother Annie Henderson.
Little Marguerite Annie Johnson
Map showing Stamps, Arkansas
Stamps was a southern town, and Angelou notes, "In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most black children didn't really, absolutely know what whites looked like." Unfortunately, Marguerite's limited interaction with the racist white population made an everlasting impression on her.
Marguerite and Bailey's grandmother, whom the children called Momma, was an entrepreneur. She owned a plot of land and lived in her shop, called The Store, which sold food and candy to the Negro population of Stamps.
Momma was strict, and Marguerite and Bailey were expected to go to school, do their homework, finish their chores, and help in The Store before going out to play or perusing their books. The children were avid readers who knew their multiplication tables by heart thanks to crippled Uncle Willie - who tested them regularly. Marguerite's favorite treats from the shop were foil covered chocolate kisses and canned pineapple - which was a very rare treat.
Momma was a devout Christian who prayed each morning and took the children to Church every Sunday. In addition, Momma periodically hosted Reverend Howard Thomas (Elder Thomas) who presided over the local church district. Elder Thomas visited Stamps every few months, and ate and slept at Momma's house. Marguerite and Bailey disliked the man because he was big and pompous and prayed so long over breakfast that the food became cold and congealed.
Marguerite became anxious when she had an errand in the white part of town because she was frightened of whites - who disdained and mistreated Negroes. This impudent attitude even extended to white trash youngsters, who - when they bought snacks in Momma's Store - were rude and insolent. Once, when a few shabby, grime-covered little white girls made fun of Momma, Marguerite was reduced to tears.
Stamps was especially dangerous for black men, who were in constant danger of being lynched.
When a 'friendly sheriff' came by to warn Momma that a group of white men was looking for a black troublemaker, Grandmother hid disabled Uncle Willie deep under the produce in a vegetable bin. It was good that the white men didn't come by, because Uncle Willie moaned loudly all night.
All this prejudice and hatred had a profound impact on young Marguerite, who sometimes fantasized that she was a pretty white girl with silky blonde hair.
When Marguerite was eight, her father came to get her and Bailey, and brought them to their mother Vivian in St. Louis, Missouri. Marguerite didn't want to go, but upon arrival was charmed by her beautiful vivacious 'Mother Dear.' Unlike Momma, Vivian smoked, laughed, joked, danced, and made parties.
Vivian Baxter (Maya Angelou's mother)
Young Marguerite, who had nightmares, would sometimes sleep with Vivian and her boyfriend Mr. Freeman. Unfortunately - when Vivian left for work - Mr. Freeman would touch Marguerite inappropriately.....and he eventually raped her. Mr. Freeman threatened 8-year-old Marguerite with dire consequences if she told anyone, so the terrified child kept mum.
Marguerite at age nine
Vivian found out anyway, which resulted in an arrest, a trial, and EXTREME vigilante justice by Marguerite's uncles. Afterwards, Marguerite and Bailey were sent back to Stamps, but the girl was so freaked out - thinking her testimony had led to Mr. Freeman's death - that she stopped speaking for several years.
It took finesse - and books - from a caring educator called Mrs. Bertha Flowers to get Marguerite talking again, and perhaps to foster the girl's interest in a literary career.
Before leaving Stamps for good Marguerite had another unpleasant encounter with a white person. Marguerite's habit of sneaking candy bars from Momma's store resulted in horrific tooth decay and an excruciating toothache - so bad that Marguerite hoped the house would collapse on her jaw.
There was no black dentist in Stamps, so Momma took Marguerite to the white dentist, Dr. Lincoln - who had borrowed money from Grandmother during the Depression. Dr. Lincoln didn't even look at the suffering child, and told Momma, "I'd rather stick my hand in a dog's mouth than in a n*****r's." Grandmother then shamed 10 dollars of "interest" out of the nasty man, and took Marguerite to a Negro dentist in Texarkana.
A few years later, after teenage Bailey was horrified by the bloated body of a Negro killed by whites, Momma decided the children had to leave Stamps for good. Grandmother made sure the children got settled with their mother in San Francisco, where glamorous Vivian ran gambling clubs, hung out with a wild crowd, and lived with her beau (and later husband) Daddy Clidell. Unlike Mr. Freeman, Daddy Clidell was a fine man who was good to Marguerite.
Marguerite continued attending school and - at 15 years of age - became the first black conductress on the streetcars of San Francisco. To get the job, Marguerite claimed to be 19 and lobbied hard for weeks, showing the mettle that served her so well in life.
Conductress Marguerite
Afterwards, during a summer visit with her father Bailey Sr. and his girlfriend Dolores in southern California, Marguerite had a wild adventure in Mexico. Marguerite and her dad went across the border to 'buy tortillas' and - after a raucous night of drinking and philandering - Bailey Sr. was completely knocked out. Marguerite loaded him into the back seat of their car, and - though she'd never driven before - transported Bailey Sr. 50 miles down the mountain before she had a minor accident.
This incident was followed by a physical altercation with Dad's jealous girlfriend Dolores, who cut Marguerite badly. Teenage Marguerite then ran away and lived on the streets of southern California for a month, where she made friends with other homeless kids and slept in junkyard cars. Finally, Marguerite returned to San Francisco to continue school.
Meanwhile Bailey Jr. - observing his mother's unconventional lifestyle and feeling jealous of her zoot-suited friends - started acting out. He became surly, took up with an old prostitute, and acted like he was a big man - though he was only 17. This got Bailey Jr. thrown out of the house.....much to Marguerite's dismay.
Man wearing a zoot suit
Lack of proper sex education left Marguerite confused about her sexuality, and physical changes in her vagina made the girl think she might be 'becoming a lesbian.' To put the matter to rest, 16-year-old Marguerite seduced a handsome young neighbor boy....and promptly became pregnant.
Marguerite's mom Vivian, busy working - and opening a club in Alaska - noticed nothing until the girl was very far along. When Vivian finally learned of her daughter's pregnancy, she stepped up and became a solicitous and helpful grandma. The birth of Marguerite's son ends the book.
There are many additional scenes and people in the autobiography, including young Marguerite's best friend Louise; pre-teen Bailey Jr.'s first girlfriend Joyce (a 'loose' gal); sketches from the Depression; Marguerite's proud 8th grade graduation; and much more. All this gives us a good feel for the children's early years. Sadly, Marguerite and her brother were damaged by their parents' casual neglect, and made to feel inferior by blatant white bigotry. This deeply affected Marguerite for her entire life.
You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot....
Angelou had a turbulent childhood, beginning with her parents' divorce when she was three years old. At that time, Marguerite and her beloved four-year-old brother Bailey were sent from their father's home in California to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their paternal grandmother Annie Henderson.
Little Marguerite Annie Johnson
Map showing Stamps, Arkansas
Stamps was a southern town, and Angelou notes, "In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most black children didn't really, absolutely know what whites looked like." Unfortunately, Marguerite's limited interaction with the racist white population made an everlasting impression on her.
Marguerite and Bailey's grandmother, whom the children called Momma, was an entrepreneur. She owned a plot of land and lived in her shop, called The Store, which sold food and candy to the Negro population of Stamps.
Momma was strict, and Marguerite and Bailey were expected to go to school, do their homework, finish their chores, and help in The Store before going out to play or perusing their books. The children were avid readers who knew their multiplication tables by heart thanks to crippled Uncle Willie - who tested them regularly. Marguerite's favorite treats from the shop were foil covered chocolate kisses and canned pineapple - which was a very rare treat.
Momma was a devout Christian who prayed each morning and took the children to Church every Sunday. In addition, Momma periodically hosted Reverend Howard Thomas (Elder Thomas) who presided over the local church district. Elder Thomas visited Stamps every few months, and ate and slept at Momma's house. Marguerite and Bailey disliked the man because he was big and pompous and prayed so long over breakfast that the food became cold and congealed.
Marguerite became anxious when she had an errand in the white part of town because she was frightened of whites - who disdained and mistreated Negroes. This impudent attitude even extended to white trash youngsters, who - when they bought snacks in Momma's Store - were rude and insolent. Once, when a few shabby, grime-covered little white girls made fun of Momma, Marguerite was reduced to tears.
Stamps was especially dangerous for black men, who were in constant danger of being lynched.
When a 'friendly sheriff' came by to warn Momma that a group of white men was looking for a black troublemaker, Grandmother hid disabled Uncle Willie deep under the produce in a vegetable bin. It was good that the white men didn't come by, because Uncle Willie moaned loudly all night.
All this prejudice and hatred had a profound impact on young Marguerite, who sometimes fantasized that she was a pretty white girl with silky blonde hair.
When Marguerite was eight, her father came to get her and Bailey, and brought them to their mother Vivian in St. Louis, Missouri. Marguerite didn't want to go, but upon arrival was charmed by her beautiful vivacious 'Mother Dear.' Unlike Momma, Vivian smoked, laughed, joked, danced, and made parties.
Vivian Baxter (Maya Angelou's mother)
Young Marguerite, who had nightmares, would sometimes sleep with Vivian and her boyfriend Mr. Freeman. Unfortunately - when Vivian left for work - Mr. Freeman would touch Marguerite inappropriately.....and he eventually raped her. Mr. Freeman threatened 8-year-old Marguerite with dire consequences if she told anyone, so the terrified child kept mum.
Marguerite at age nine
Vivian found out anyway, which resulted in an arrest, a trial, and EXTREME vigilante justice by Marguerite's uncles. Afterwards, Marguerite and Bailey were sent back to Stamps, but the girl was so freaked out - thinking her testimony had led to Mr. Freeman's death - that she stopped speaking for several years.
It took finesse - and books - from a caring educator called Mrs. Bertha Flowers to get Marguerite talking again, and perhaps to foster the girl's interest in a literary career.
Before leaving Stamps for good Marguerite had another unpleasant encounter with a white person. Marguerite's habit of sneaking candy bars from Momma's store resulted in horrific tooth decay and an excruciating toothache - so bad that Marguerite hoped the house would collapse on her jaw.
There was no black dentist in Stamps, so Momma took Marguerite to the white dentist, Dr. Lincoln - who had borrowed money from Grandmother during the Depression. Dr. Lincoln didn't even look at the suffering child, and told Momma, "I'd rather stick my hand in a dog's mouth than in a n*****r's." Grandmother then shamed 10 dollars of "interest" out of the nasty man, and took Marguerite to a Negro dentist in Texarkana.
A few years later, after teenage Bailey was horrified by the bloated body of a Negro killed by whites, Momma decided the children had to leave Stamps for good. Grandmother made sure the children got settled with their mother in San Francisco, where glamorous Vivian ran gambling clubs, hung out with a wild crowd, and lived with her beau (and later husband) Daddy Clidell. Unlike Mr. Freeman, Daddy Clidell was a fine man who was good to Marguerite.
Marguerite continued attending school and - at 15 years of age - became the first black conductress on the streetcars of San Francisco. To get the job, Marguerite claimed to be 19 and lobbied hard for weeks, showing the mettle that served her so well in life.
Conductress Marguerite
Afterwards, during a summer visit with her father Bailey Sr. and his girlfriend Dolores in southern California, Marguerite had a wild adventure in Mexico. Marguerite and her dad went across the border to 'buy tortillas' and - after a raucous night of drinking and philandering - Bailey Sr. was completely knocked out. Marguerite loaded him into the back seat of their car, and - though she'd never driven before - transported Bailey Sr. 50 miles down the mountain before she had a minor accident.
This incident was followed by a physical altercation with Dad's jealous girlfriend Dolores, who cut Marguerite badly. Teenage Marguerite then ran away and lived on the streets of southern California for a month, where she made friends with other homeless kids and slept in junkyard cars. Finally, Marguerite returned to San Francisco to continue school.
Meanwhile Bailey Jr. - observing his mother's unconventional lifestyle and feeling jealous of her zoot-suited friends - started acting out. He became surly, took up with an old prostitute, and acted like he was a big man - though he was only 17. This got Bailey Jr. thrown out of the house.....much to Marguerite's dismay.
Man wearing a zoot suit
Lack of proper sex education left Marguerite confused about her sexuality, and physical changes in her vagina made the girl think she might be 'becoming a lesbian.' To put the matter to rest, 16-year-old Marguerite seduced a handsome young neighbor boy....and promptly became pregnant.
Marguerite's mom Vivian, busy working - and opening a club in Alaska - noticed nothing until the girl was very far along. When Vivian finally learned of her daughter's pregnancy, she stepped up and became a solicitous and helpful grandma. The birth of Marguerite's son ends the book.
There are many additional scenes and people in the autobiography, including young Marguerite's best friend Louise; pre-teen Bailey Jr.'s first girlfriend Joyce (a 'loose' gal); sketches from the Depression; Marguerite's proud 8th grade graduation; and much more. All this gives us a good feel for the children's early years. Sadly, Marguerite and her brother were damaged by their parents' casual neglect, and made to feel inferior by blatant white bigotry. This deeply affected Marguerite for her entire life.
You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot....
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