Presentation by Delia Grantham, Mubarak, and Bianca Gutter Maya Angelou Presentation by Delia Grantham, Mubarak, and Bianca Gutter

About The Poem The poem has a rhyme scheme. Poem is an extended metaphor for slavery/ inequality or can be interpreted as different personalities. Theme is hope for a better future.

Literary Devices –Personification Rhyme Imagery Mood: somber/hopeful A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky. But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. Literary Devices –Personification Rhyme Imagery Mood: somber/hopeful Diction: uses lots of imagery and descriptive phrases

Literary Devices Rhyme Shift in rhyme scheme Alliteration The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn and he names the sky his own Literary Devices Rhyme Shift in rhyme scheme Alliteration Each stanza is one sentence.

Literary Devices Rhyme Shift in rhyme scheme But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. Literary Devices Rhyme Shift in rhyme scheme 3rd and 6th stanza are repeated Personification

About the Author She was Born April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri She was a writer and a civil rights activist. She won two NAACP Image Awards in 2005 and 2009. After experiencing a tragic event in her childhood, Angelou became mute for many years. She later began speaking and working again and became the first black female cable car conductor. She wrote a biography in 1969 called I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and it was very successful. Angelou died on May 28, 2014 (Maya Angelou Biography).

“Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in this world, but has not solved one yet.” –Maya Angelou

Works Cited “Maya Angelou Biography.” The Biography.Com website, A&E Television Networks, 6 Feb. 2015, www.biography.com/people/maya-angelou- 9185388. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.