CAGED BIRD

A free bird leaps

on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
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.

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.

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.

BIOGRAPHY
1. Maya Angelou is a celebrated poet, novelist, educator, historian and civil-rights activist during
the years of 1955 to 1968
2. Angelou was one of the first African American who discussed about her life publicly and is highly
respected as a representation for Black people and women
3. She was born (Marguerite Ann Johnson ) in the 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri
4. She lived in a segregation childhood and grew up in a discrimination society
5. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated falling on her birthday, it left her devastated
6. With the guidance of her friend, James Baldwin the novelist, she then began working on a book,
called I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, that was then published in the 1970 for the
expression of Maya Angelou's feelings about the discrimination happening in the USA
a. She wrote the poem Caged Bird before she began working on the memoir, I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings, because people, her friends, encouraged her to write a memoir of her life
7. Now, she is seen as the celebrated Dr. Angelou from her doing supporting the African American
Civil Rights Movements (1955 1968) with over 30 honorary degrees and is a Reynolds
Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University
8. Dr. Angelou's actions and words continue to heal our hearts and stir our souls

INTRODUCTION
1. The whole poem is a metaphor that portrays the idea of how African Americans had gone
through the racial discrimination and domination
2. When Angelou was young, her mother was called by cruel names by the children in the
neighborhood, but she was unable to talk back since it would violate the law since children
were white; she wrote the poem of a caged bird to express the feelings of her mother about
the racial society she lived in.
3. The poem was written in a lyrical poetry genre
a. lyrical poetry is a genre in poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings
b. it doesn't need to rhyme, doesn't need to be set on music nor beat
4. The poem does not have any specific meter or rhyming scheme but there are a few
noticeable rhymes in the poem

THEMES
1. Racism and Segregation
a. Maya confronts racism and segregation in American at a very young age
b. She had the idea that blond hair is beautiful and that shes a fat black girl trapped in a
nightmare
c. In her state, which was Stamps, Arkansas, it was thoroughly segregated that at a young
age, she did not quite believe that white people exist
d. As she grew older, she really had to face to the discrimination happening in America and
personal incidents
i.
In school, a white speakers condescending address at her eight-grade graduation
ii.
When she got her first job, her white boss insisted to call her Mary
iii.
A white dentist refused to treat her
e. The unjust society back then restricted and demean Maya and her relatives
f. She had to learn how to live in the pressures of the racist society as it profoundly shape
who she is and her family

g. The poem demonstrates the hope of the black community that someday the society might
be the same for them like the white race
2. Resistance to Racism
a. Black peoples resistance to racism takes many forms in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Momma maintains her dignity by seeing things realistically and keeping to herself. Big
Bailey buys flashy clothes and drives a fancy car to proclaim his worth and runs around
with women to assert his masculinity in the face of dehumanizing and emasculating
racism. Daddy Clidells friends learn to use white peoples prejudice against them in
elaborate and lucrative cons. Vivians family cultivates toughness and establishes
connections to underground forces that deter any harassment. Maya first experiments
with resistance when she breaks her white employers heirloom china. Her bravest act of
defiance happens when she becomes the first black streetcar conductor in San Francisco.
Blacks also used the church as a venue of subversive resistance. At the revival, the
preacher gives a thinly veiled sermon criticizing whites charity, and the community revels
in the idea of white people burning in hell for their actions.
3. Strong Black Women
a. Though Maya struggles with insecurity and displacement throughout her childhood, she
has a remarkable number of strong female role models in her family and community.
Momma, Vivian, Grandmother Baxter, and Bertha Flowers have very different personalities
and views on life, but they all chart their own paths and manage to maintain their dignity
and self-respect. None of them ever capitulates to racist indignities.
b. Maya also charts her own path, fighting to become the first black streetcar conductor in
San Francisco, and she does so with the support and encouragement of her female
predecessors. Maya notes at the end of Chapter 34 that the towering character of the
black American woman should be seen as the predictable outcome of a hard-fought
struggle. Many black women fall along the way. The ones who can weather the storm of
sexism and racism obviously will shine with greatness. They have survived, and therefore
by definition they are survivors.
4. Debilitating Displacement
a. Maya is shuttled around to seven different homes between the ages of three and sixteen:
from California to Stamps to St. Louis to Stamps to Los Angeles to Oakland to San
Francisco to Los Angeles to San Francisco. As expressed in the poem she tries to recite on
Easter, the statement I didnt come to stay becomes her shield against the cold reality
of her rootlessness. Besieged by the tripartite crossfire of racism, sexism, and power,
young Maya is belittled and degraded at every turn, making her unable to put down her
shield and feel comfortable staying in one place. When she is thirteen and moves to San
Francisco with her mother, Bailey, and Daddy Clidell, she feels that she belongs
somewhere for the first time. Maya identifies with the city as a town full of displaced
people.
b. Mayas personal displacement echoes the larger societal forces that displaced blacks all
across the country. She realizes that thousands of other terrified black children made the
same journey as she and Bailey, traveling on their own to newly affluent parents in
northern cities, or back to southern towns when the North failed to supply the economic
prosperity it had promised. African Americans descended from slaves who were displaced
from their homes and homelands in Africa, and following the Emancipation Proclamation in
1862, blacks continued to struggle to find their place in a country still hostile to their
heritage.
METAPHORS

VOCABULARY