Sister Flowers By Maya Angelou Analysis
Week 2 Journal
Brittany Darran
ENG 121
Instructor Nelson
January 19, 2015
Week 2 Journal I In the essay, “Sister Flowers,” the writer, Maya Angelou, shares a personal experience and tells us a beautiful story. The girl in the story, Marguerite, visits an older woman in her community who shows an interest in her personal development. Sister Flowers makes Marguerite feel special. The older woman has observed Marguerite’s interest in words and books and invites her to share the written word vocally as well as in print.
Sister Flowers reads Marguerite a passage from a book and the language that is used to describe the scene is beautifully descriptive. Maya Angelou (n.d.) writes, “Her voice slid in and curved down through
and over the words. She was nearly singing. I wanted to look at the pages. Were they the same that I had read? Or were there notes, music lined on the pages, as in a hymn book? Her sounds began cascading. I knew from listening to a thousand preachers that she was nearing the end of the reading, and I hadn’t really heard, heard to understand, a single word.”
This passage is beautiful. The way she describes the older woman’s reading voice makes me feel like I was there; listening to it myself. I would like to be able to describe things with elegant words and still have them accurately portray the moment I am writing about. To me, that is what makes a writer truly notable.
References
Angelou, M. (n.d.). Sister flowers. Retrieved from http://www.nexuslearning.net/books/holteol2/Collection%201/flowers1.htm
Brittany Darran
ENG 121
Instructor Nelson
January 19, 2015
Week 2 Journal I In the essay, “Sister Flowers,” the writer, Maya Angelou, shares a personal experience and tells us a beautiful story. The girl in the story, Marguerite, visits an older woman in her community who shows an interest in her personal development. Sister Flowers makes Marguerite feel special. The older woman has observed Marguerite’s interest in words and books and invites her to share the written word vocally as well as in print.
Sister Flowers reads Marguerite a passage from a book and the language that is used to describe the scene is beautifully descriptive. Maya Angelou (n.d.) writes, “Her voice slid in and curved down through
and over the words. She was nearly singing. I wanted to look at the pages. Were they the same that I had read? Or were there notes, music lined on the pages, as in a hymn book? Her sounds began cascading. I knew from listening to a thousand preachers that she was nearing the end of the reading, and I hadn’t really heard, heard to understand, a single word.”
This passage is beautiful. The way she describes the older woman’s reading voice makes me feel like I was there; listening to it myself. I would like to be able to describe things with elegant words and still have them accurately portray the moment I am writing about. To me, that is what makes a writer truly notable.
References
Angelou, M. (n.d.). Sister flowers. Retrieved from http://www.nexuslearning.net/books/holteol2/Collection%201/flowers1.htm