Comparison of Still I Rise and Realities of a Black Woman

Comparison of Still I Rise and Realities of a Black Woman

Compare and Contrast the poems Still I Rise By Maya Angelou and Of

course when they ask about the Realities of black women by Grace

Nichols.

'Still I Rise' written by Maya Angelou and 'Of course when they ask

about the "Realities" of black woman' written by Grace Nichols, are

the two poems that I will be comparing and writing about. These poems

are expressing the opinions of how white people would like to see or

how they see black women.

I understand that the word culture means a wide range of ideas,

knowledge and beliefs. That is usually shared between the people of a

country, place, race, group or religion. The word Culture can also

mean a way of life, or set of every day activities, for example a

Muslim will worship five times a day. I also understand that with in

one culture it is possible to have many different cultures.

Both poems are from a different culture to my own. The poems and poets

come from the same culture, which is black. Grace Nichols originally

came from Guyana and Maya Angelou originally came from Missouri. Both

poets are black each poem suggests this in its own individual way as

in the poem "Still I Rise" the poet Maya Angelou uses the word

"Slaves", and in the past slaves have usually been referred to as

black people. In the poem "Of course when they ask about the

'Realities' of black women" the poet Grace Nichols uses "I like to see

we black women", This suggests that she is not just writing about

black women and that she is a black woman herself as she changes her

language from "I" to "we".

The poem "Still I rise" by Maya Angelou is mainly about one black

woman. In the poem it is saying about a black woman being t...

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...propriately. The line which

didn't work for me was "I am the dream and hope of the slave" this is

because when this poem was written there would have been less slavery

and I do not believe that she is the dream of the slave. The rest I

very much like.

Grace's poem confused me and some part did not make any sense to me so

I found it very hard too follow in what was being said. This poem has

a lot of depth. I think it is not straight to the point, this to gives

the impression that Grace may still fear to speak about her past. The

structure and shape of the poem I didn't like not like. To me it

looked as thou no time had been taken was a rush and burst of thought

all at once.

Over all I preferred Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise2 I think that

she is a very strong black feminist writer. I hope that in the future

we will be looking at more of her work.