When did Maya Angelou win the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
In 2010, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., by President Barack Obama. More than thirty health care and medical facilities have been named after Angelou.
Why is Maya Angelou so important?
Maya Angelou was an American author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, poet and civil rights activist best known for her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction bestseller by an African American woman.
What is Maya Angelou’s most famous work?
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Why does a caged bird sing?
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a 1969 autobiography describing the early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou. Angelou uses her autobiography to explore subjects such as identity, rape, racism, and literacy. She also writes in new ways about women’s lives in a male-dominated society.
Who is Maya Angelou and why is she inspirational?
A poet, singer, autobiographer, and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou inspires us with both the beauty and the call to action of her words. Her most famous work is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an autobiography about her childhood. The book is a testament to the need for resilience in the face of discrimination.
What does Maya Angelou talk about in her poems?
Angelou explores many of the same themes throughout all her writings, in both her autobiographies and poetry. These themes include love, painful loss, music, discrimination and racism, and struggle.
What is the poem Still I Rise mainly about?
Still I Rise” is primarily about self-respect and confidence. In the poem, Angelou reveals how she will overcome anything through her self-esteem. She shows how nothing can get her down. She will rise to any occasion and nothing, not even her skin color, will hold her back.
What is Maya Angelou famous poem?
Angelou’s most famous work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), deals with her early years in Long Beach, St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas, where she lived with her brother and paternal grandmother.
What poems has Maya Angelou written?
Poetry
- Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie (1971). New York: Random House.
- Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well (1975). New York: Random House.
- And Still I Rise (1978).
- Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? (
- Poems (1986).
- Now Sheba Sings the Song (1987).
- I Shall Not Be Moved (1990).
- On the Pulse of Morning (1993).
How many things did Maya Angelou write?
But while Maya Angelou best known today for her writing — as the author of more than 30 books and the recipient of more than 50 honorary degrees — she had many different careers before becoming a writer, and all before the age of 40, as TIME pointed out in her 2014 obituary.