Maya Angelou, along with writing poetry, was a civil right activist and produced most of her poems from the late 1960’s until the early 2000’s. Because of her involvement in the Civil Rights movement and the time period in which she lived, almost all of her poems are about common instances of that time. The message of most of these poems relate to social issues that developed during the middle to late 1900’s, whether they pertain to race, gender, or other matters. These poems are a way of informing people of those issues and hopefully able to cause a change. Some of Maya Angelou’s works address more than one problem and have many different interpretations while others have a more straightforward way of revealing their meaning to the reader. She writes from a certain perspective so that most people can understand the poem’s message and central idea. …show more content…
Like other issues developing in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, Maya Angelou’s poems aimed to catch people’s attention and raise awareness. Her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is centered around the struggle that black women faced. “In her book, Angelou provides instances of racial and sexual inequity related to physicality” (Hembrough 174). Maya Angelou explains the struggle of black women through retelling the events of her life and including situations in the autobiography that most women encountered during that time. The poem “Still I Rise” shows the standard at which black women were