Harlem Hopscotch Poem Summary

“Harlem Hopscotch”, by Maya Angelou. The comparison in this poem is a game of hopscotch being compared to life. In life people are battling themselves to make it from the bottom to the top with other people watching, sometimes judging. In hopscotch you battle yourself to make it from the bottom of the triangle to the top, with people watching you play the game. Due to Maya Angelou using this metaphor rather than just talking about life’s ups and downs, gives the poem a unique style of writing. It gives the poem a rhythm versus just reading boring line after line and with that gives a better understanding of what is being read.
Some lines in this poem that supports that the comparison to the game of hopscotch is life are, “Cross the line, they count you out. That’s what hopping’s all about”. If we break down that line, when you cross the line in life from poverty to finally making it somewhere,
The comparison fits perfect between the two. But for the speaker to take a pause from writing to come up with this comparison gives even more meaning to the poem. I believe the poem is an escape for our speaker. The speaker may have been writing a book or a long paper and to see that speck opened another creative side of the brain, and gave a break to the original writing. It was definitely a different reading for the audience. “A speck that would have been beneath my sight”, say’s the speaker, which proves that it took lot to not only notice this speck but to create a whole poem comparing it to a living insect. It can prove that the speaker needed an escape, and found one in a speck on the piece of paper. That is something that can only come alive with figurative language, it gave him the tools needed to draw the reader in and have to look deeper than the surface. It is amazing and truly