Writing this review is rather like trying to put together a puzzle. But I can’t find the corner pieces, or the nice neat pieces that go around the edge of the picture. To envision the eight year old child, Marguerite, speechless after her rape and the Maya Angelou, 86 years old at her death in 2014 an articulate, wise and honoured woman there seems to be no one ‘picture’. In graphic detail, her experiences, both emotionally and physically are displayed in a voice that really seems very kind. As a young child, and then as an adolescent that kindness still had to develop. With each of her experiences, from the abuse at eight, to the brutal travel to Mexico with her father, the overt or hidden racism that every black person of any age has to deal with, Maya Angelou has not only stepped out of the cage that society had forced her into, but developed a strong and wise voice in story and poetry. Each time she survived an attack on her being, whether physically or emotionally, she learned the lessons of resilience. She had the benefit of having strong, loving female relationships ~ her grandmother (Momma) in Stamps, Arkansas ~ staunchly religious and owner of the local general store, her mother, Vivian Baxter (Mother Dearest), independent and fun loving, in San Francisco as well as Mrs. Bertha Flowers, a local teacher in Stamps who helped little Maya regain her voice after several years of silence. Her other stalwart was her brother Bailey, who was her confidant, until he was at the grand old age of sixteen.
At fifteen, Maya went against rigid societal norms in San Francisco and became the first black female street car conductor. She questioned her sexuality after reading The Well of Loneliness, a lesbian novel (1928) and realizing that she was tall, deep voiced and not as developed as her friends. Another societal norm to puzzle about until learning she was pregnant. All in all, Maya Angelou, climbed through, over or around what life had to throw at her. Fear, anger, wonder, curiosity, and determination bolstered her all along the way.
“She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.”
~ Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Title: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Author: Maya Angelou
Copyright: 1969
Copyright renewed: 1997 by Maya Angelou
Forward Copyright: 2015 by Oprah Winfrey
Publisher: Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House company of New York
Type: Autobiography
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-345-51440-0
ebook ISBN: 978-1-5883-6925-3
No comments:
Post a Comment