Analyzing Maya Angelo's Poem

Angelou amazingly manages to take racism as chill as possible, and leave the reader in her poem feeling both annoyed and proud at the same time. People are often feeling bad because they are afraid of being judged. Maya Angelo was not one of them. Although she faced difficult obstacles in her life she always laugh her way out of them and never gave up. This poem teaches you how to stand up for your selves.

The main theme of this poem for me is self respect and hope. but each person thinks differently while reading. for example the one with a unmemorable past, it's a poem of second chances. For the one who keeps failing in every circumstances , it's a poem of not quitting. For someone who has been betrayed by others

but regardless of everything, you will still face them knowing that they are wrong. people will continue putting you down but you will still rise up head high and you will laugh it off. In the third stanza when Maya says "Just like moons and like suns",. She compares herself continuing to rise herself up sensitively every day to stay tough, just like how the sun and the moon both rise every day no matter what the conditions are. I want to talk about, another couple of things the mentioned in the 3 and 5 stanza .

The poet writes that she walks “like I’ve got oil wells/ Pumping in my living room” and that she laughs “like I’ve got gold mines/ Digging in my own back yard”. Again, here it makes the poem more powerful than it seems . Though people might think they have ended her by subjecting her to poorness , still she walks like she has all the money in the world.

The last few lines of the poem, the author is comparing her present with the history ''bringing the gifts my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of