Episode 124 Happy Birthday Maya Angelou!

Today we are celebrating Maya Angelou's birthday. Maya was a famous Black American writer, poet, speaker, actor. civil rights activist and so many things in her life, including professor. Today we're going to read one of her most famous poems: 'Still I rise.' I would suggest you take some time to go and listen to Maya read this poem, she has a wonderful voice and her reading is filled with character and emotion. You can find Maya reading Still I Rise here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qviM_GnJbOM In the podcast I made a mistake about the name of Maya's first book. I said it was 'I don't know why the caged bird sings', but of course the whole point of the book is that Maya did know! The correct title is 'I know why the caged bird sings.' Vocabulary prolific - describes someone who puts out a large amount of work shot to fame - idiom - describes someone who becomes famous very quickly autobiography - a book written by someone about their own life tumultuous - loud or confused noise, can also mean a life filled with ups and downs, tragedy, chaos, success, joy. values driven life - phrase meaning she had strong values and lived with them in mind anecdotes - another word for stories, usually life stories bitter twisted lies - commonly occurring phrase meaning bad and of course, incorrect and often hateful lies sassiness - this word is heavily gendered. It is used almost entirely to describe women. Online dictionaries vary in their definitions from positive (Cambridge: confident; Merriam Webster: vigorous, lively, smart and stylish) to very negative (Vocabulary.com: improperly forward or bold, impertinent, impudent; Cambridge: rude and cheeky; Dictionary.com: disrespectful, insolent). The Urban dictionary describes it as: someone who is full of themselves, but in a good way. beset with gloom - 'beset' means a problem, so in this case it means we are feeling very depressed and sad bowed head - in western culture bowing is rare, anyone who bows their head is being respectful and usually to someone who has power over them. It was common for slaves to bow their heads to their masters, here Maya is saying 'I won't bow!' haughtiness - acting arrogant, and superior sexiness - being considered to be sexually attractive wondrously - wonderous means amazing, fabulous or full of wonder, that feeling of 'WOW!'