Maya Merry-Go-Round
As different things happen in society, people write about different events, and the similar poetic devices are used to tell multiple versions of millions of stories. Poets have the ability to transfer their experiences and history into descriptive poems that readers can interpret in different ways. Poems written about civil rights are often the most confronting, as they are relatable for so many people. Merry-Go-Round by Langston Hughes in 1942 uses a seldom-seen point of view to show the unjust of segregation in America. Civilisation by Oodgeroo of the Noonuccal Tribe in 1964 uses heavy contrast between her people’s traditional culture and the new Western life they were forced into. Caged Bird in 1969 and Still I Rise in 1978 both by Maya
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The theme throughout is innocent, as though a child writes it, and it was first performed when segregation was in full effect and only the beginnings of rebellion was rumbling. Hughes had a difficult relationship with his father growing up, and ultimately left the family at a young age. This trauma could have prompted him to write from a child’s point of view about the Jim Crow laws. Hughes’ father would have influenced him to reach back into his childhood and draw on events he had experienced to add to this poem. It is reported that Hughes …show more content…
These birds that Angelou talk about are the white Americans who can do as they please and live without the major amounts of racism that the “caged” African Americans experience. Still I Rise uses many poetic devices to tell the story of her efforts to stand up to her oppressors, but the most powerful tool she uses is there way she changes her speech to be airy and fighting and then strong and sorrowful in the next line. Although it is difficult to show oral techniques in just text, Angelou expresses primarily in the lines;
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard
By stressing the lines that caused major grief to the African Americans and putting on a stronger voice for the positive stanzas, Angelou puts detail and thought into every syllable of poem. Even after the Freedom Rides, Angelou used poems to share knowledge and stories about what she had experienced in her
The theme throughout is innocent, as though a child writes it, and it was first performed when segregation was in full effect and only the beginnings of rebellion was rumbling. Hughes had a difficult relationship with his father growing up, and ultimately left the family at a young age. This trauma could have prompted him to write from a child’s point of view about the Jim Crow laws. Hughes’ father would have influenced him to reach back into his childhood and draw on events he had experienced to add to this poem. It is reported that Hughes …show more content…
These birds that Angelou talk about are the white Americans who can do as they please and live without the major amounts of racism that the “caged” African Americans experience. Still I Rise uses many poetic devices to tell the story of her efforts to stand up to her oppressors, but the most powerful tool she uses is there way she changes her speech to be airy and fighting and then strong and sorrowful in the next line. Although it is difficult to show oral techniques in just text, Angelou expresses primarily in the lines;
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard
By stressing the lines that caused major grief to the African Americans and putting on a stronger voice for the positive stanzas, Angelou puts detail and thought into every syllable of poem. Even after the Freedom Rides, Angelou used poems to share knowledge and stories about what she had experienced in her