A Global Renaissance WomanMAYA ANGELOU

Presented by Atileo Tedoldi

Who is Maya Angelou?

Maya Angelou as a Writer

Still I Rise: Poem and Analysis

Closing Remarks

Questions

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Born April 4th 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri

• Raised in Stamps, Arkansas

• Experienced lots of racial discrimination but grew stronger because of it

• Her love for the arts got her a Scholarship to study dance and drama at San Fransico’s Labour School

• Dropped out at 14

• Finished High School later, and gave birth to Guy

• Was a waitress and cook to support her family

WHO IS MAYA ANGELOU?

• 1954-1955: Toured Europe with the opera Porgy and Bess

• Studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on TV Variety Shows

• Recorded her first album, Calypso Lady

• Moved to NYC

• Joined the Harlem Writers Guild

• Acted in the Off Broadway Production The Blacks

• Wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom

WHO IS MAYA ANGELOU?

• Moved to Cairo, Egypt to serve as editor of the Arab Observer

• A year later, she moved to Ghana and taught at the University of Ghana’s School of Music and Drama, worked as an editor for The African Review, and wrote for The Ghanaian Times

• Met Malcolm X in Ghana

• Returned to America to help build an organization of African American Unity

WHO IS MAYA ANGELOU?

• After Malcolm X was assassinated, the organization dissolved

• Soon after, Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Angelou to serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Conference

• King was assassinated on her birthday, leaving her devastated

WHO IS MAYA ANGELOU?

• With her friend, James Baldwin she worked on her book, I know why the Caged Bird Sings

• Published in 1970• Very Sucessful • Has 30 Bestselling titles• Wrote the screenplay for Georgia, Georgia in 1972• Her script was the first script written by an African-American woman to

be filmed• Served on two presidential committees• Awarded the Presidental Medal of Arts in 2000• Awarded Lincoln Medan in 2008• 3 time Grammy award winner• 50 honorary degrees • Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University

MAYA AS A WRITER

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15623

STILL I RISE

• Use of rhyme to accentuate important phrases, and as a guide through the poem

• Repetition – To show that the Speaker has overcome and continues to overcome

• Imagery – Rising Dust

• Serious, yet playful

ANALYSIS

CLOSING REMARKS

QUESTIONS?