UNIT 31 MAYA ANGELOU'S TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL AND ..., Slides of Poetry

Download UNIT 31 MAYA ANGELOU'S TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL AND ... and more Slides Poetry in PDF only on Docsity! 441 UNIT 31 MAYA ANGELOU’S TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL AND MARGE PIERCY’S THE COLORS PASSING THROUGH US Structure 31.0 Objectives 31.1 Introduction: Maya Angelou 31.2 Maya Angelou: Life And Career 31.3 Maya Angelou: Major Works 31.4 A Note On Angelou’s Poetry 31.5 The Text: Touched By An Angel 31.6 Analysis: Touched By An Angel 31.7 Introduction: Marge Piercy 31.8 Marge Piercy: Life And Career 31.9 Marge Piercy: Major Works 31.10 The Text: Colors Passing Through Us 31.11 Analysis: Colors Passing Through Us 31.12 Summing Up 31.13 Check Your Progress: Possible Questions 31.14 Suggested Reading 31.0 OBJECTIVE In this chapter we will discuss two powerful American women poets with reference to their texts that are in the syllabus—Maya Angelou and Marge Piercy. The poems of we have of these authors are Touched by An Angel and Colours Passing through Us. The point of commonality between the two poems is obviously their focus on the various lofty human emotions and humanity as a whole. In the first part of the chapter we will discuss Maya Angelou and proceed to Marge Piercy in the latter part. 31.1 MAYA ANGELOU-INTRODUCTION Maya Angelou (born Marguerite Annie Johnson) was not only a noted poet, playwright and academic, but a civil rights activist as well, whose works have repeatedly protested against the racial as well as gender based discriminations faced by women worldwide. Along with writing seven autobiographies (all of which were bestsellers across nations) and three books of essays, she has also published several collections of poetry and countless articles. She even worked as a journalist in her younger days in Ghana and Egypt during the time the colonial powers were withdrawing from Africa— known better as 442 Contemporary Poetry the ‘decolonization of Africa’. She has been called to speak in universities around America, as an academic, an author as well as an activist. Her work has continuously lent a voice to the African American people (especially women), and its culture. Like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, her books are seen as pieces of literature that has shaped the identity of the black community around America. Several times the authority has tried to ban her books but the global popularity of her works has made it impossible. Her autobiographies, where she talks about not only racial discrimination and financial deprivation, but gender based exploitation as well, have turned her into a messianic figure for the countless voiceless women around the world. Although she is known more for these autobiographies, her poems too, have contributed to shape the identity of the black women. She wrote poetry from a very young age. Some of her poems which have been published later, were written by her when she was working as a performer or singer in her early youth. Like her autobiographies, her poems too focus on nuances of issues like racism, oppression, identity and even human emotions, like love. 31.2 LIFE AND CAREER Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928 to Bailey and Vivian Baxter Johnson. She spent her childhood in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. The name “Maya” was given to her, by her brother Bailey Johnson, Jr. Angelou’s parents got separated when she was only three and a half years old. Then she and her brother were sent to Stamps, Arkansas, where their paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, used to live. Angelou writes about her days in Arkansas in her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which describes at a time in Arkansas when segregation was rampant in the place. The book covers till the time she was seventeen and had become a mother to a son. In Arkansas she attended the Lafayette County training school. After graduating from there she moved to San Francisco with her brother and attended high school there. She was a bright student and was given a two year scholarship to learn dance and drama at the California Labor School. But she could not make much use of the scholarship since in 1944 she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. Angelou had worked many odd jobs while she was growing up, including that of a cook, a waitress, a performer and even a conductor. She got married in the early 1950s to a man named Tosh Angelos, who was a Greek sailor she met in San Francisco. Her surname “Angelou” is a derivation of her husband’s surname. She moved to the New York City after her marriage with Tosh ended, sometime during the late ’50s. It was also the time that she became engaged in the political and literary milieu of New York. In 1959 Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She worked extensively as a journalist around the world in the following years: from 1961 to 1962 she worked as the associate editor of “The Arab Observer” in Cairo, Egypt, which was the lone English-language news weekly in the Middle East; then, from 1964 to 1966 she was appointed the feature editor of the “African Review” in Accra, Ghana. Upon her return to the U.S she was chosen by Gerald Ford to the Bicentennial Commission and later by Jimmy Carter to the Commission for International Woman of 445 Maya Angelou’s Touched By An Angel And Marge Piercy’s The Colors Passing Through Us love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love’s light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free. 31.6 ANALYSIS: TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL It is true that Angelou, through her protest-poetry, became almost like a representative-figure, a spokesperson, for the black women whose voice was methodically suppressed. But at the same time, her other poems should not be relegated to oblivion. She wrote beautiful and poignant poems on human emotions like love, loss and grief. Touched by An Angel is one such poem, where in simple language and through lucid imagery Angelou proclaims the inimitable power of love over human beings. In the poem she plays with the form of a verse stanza too. The first stanza is made of six lines, thus making it a sestet; the second stanza has seven lines in it, thus being a septet and the final stanza has eight lines in it making it an octave. The poem talks about the power love can hold on a human being’s life. With the stanzas there is also a sense of a movement. The first stanza portrays a time when love is yet to arrive and a human being is yet to embrace it wholeheartedly. In the second one, love has already arrived and with it has come the tumultuous changes that are going to shape the life of the person henceforth. And in the third stanza she talks about the ways in which love almost saves us and helps us attain salvation while alive. The first stanza portrays human beings as creatures that have been cast out of light and into the pits of darkness, but only by his very own self. In modern world people prefer to build a wall around themselves and constantly resist others when they attempt to take that wall down. This idea of a walled-in existence reverberates in the image of the life that is “coiled in shells of loneliness”. The poet leaves it ambiguous whether the lack of “courage” comes from previous wounds or a shortage of exposure altogether. But this lack of courage has pushed us into an exile from the realm of happiness. A walled-in existence might save one from the throes of passion and woes of anguish, but it is also a futile existence full of numb and almost deadened senses. The imagery of this shelled existence, which is nothing but a ghost of real life, reminds one of Plato’s the allegory of the cave. The “Allegory of The Cave” is a theory put forward by the Greek philosopher Plato, in regard to human perception. Plato claimed that knowledge gained through the senses is no more than opinion and that, in order to have real knowledge, we must gain it through philosophical reasoning. Similarly, the poet here wants to say that a walled in existence where one loses the touch with another simply for the fear of distress is actually living a lie. Just like the cavemen 446 Contemporary Poetry were watching their shadows play on the wall in front of them and taking it to be the real, the ones who do not venture out for love are also only living a shadow of a life. It is only when he accepts love and embraces it with all its facets, that he can truly be liberated. And it is this liberation from a false existence that will teach him how to live. That is why the poet says—“until love leaves its high holy temple/ and comes into our sight/ to liberate us into life” – we do not acquire the knowledge of living itself. The poet has compared “love” to a God-like figure here, residing in a “holy temple”, thus connoting the idea of a sanctity connected to this exquisite human emotion. In these trying times of hatred, it is only love that, like a God, can be our saviour. We must also remember that in Christianity as well as in other leading religions of the world love has always been prompted as the sole tool with which one can spread God’s words and his ways. If the first stanza tells us about the misery one goes through when devoid of love, the second one portrays that exact juncture in time when this exquisite sentiment enters one’s life. It brings with it “ecstasies”— the first few heady moments of ardour that takes over the human being. We are reminded of John Donne’s poem, The Ecstasy, where Donne praises love in similar words— If any, so by love refin’d That he soul’s language understood, And by good love were grown all mind, Within convenient distance stood, He (though he knew not which soul spake, Because both meant, both spake the same) Might thence a new concoction take And part far purer than he came Donne writes, just like Angelou in this poem, that it is only love that refines us and makes us purer. This feeling of refined feeling of love and affection is what he calls “ecstasy” in his poem. Angelou though, makes it more complex. Along with the pleasures she mentions the “ancient histories of pain” that is brought by the feeling of love as well. This may indicate that she is referring to past relationships where the individual might have gone through a lot of hurt and anguish. But instead of holding back, giving in to the ways of love, is what the poet thinks as the best way to deal with preceding agonies—“Yet if we are bold,/ love strikes away the chains of fear/ from our souls” she writes. Moving out of that shelled-in existence that she talked about in the previous stanza, might seem like a decision that entails a lot of valour but in the end, it is this bravery itself that gives us the vigour to live. If Donne had compared love to the language of the soul, Angelou calls it the freer of the soul. It is only love, according to the concluding part of this stanza, that can liberate our souls from the oppression of fear. In the third and final stanza, the poet proceeds to tell us the beautiful existence that is gifted to us, by this wonderful feeling of love. The very first line of the last stanza once again brings back the words of Donne to our mind. The poet writes “We are weaned from our timidity/ In the flush of love’s light”. The notion of weaning someone away from something is 447 Maya Angelou’s Touched By An Angel And Marge Piercy’s The Colors Passing Through Us to make that person completely independent. Weaning is the procedure of slowly initiating a mammal newborn to what will be its adult diet, so that it is not dependant on the mother for nourishment anymore. The idea weaning, therefore, carries with it the idea of being independent and free. As already expressed in the second stanza it is only love that can liberate our souls and make us truly independent and fearless. Donne has used the idea in his The Good Morrow— I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? –writes Donne while expressing his awe as he praises the feeling of love. Angelou, however, juxtaposes this idea of liberation and independence with the idea of sacrifice—“love costs all we are/ and will ever be.” One cannot be self-centred in love. Sacrifice and compromise are the stepping stone of a well built relationship. And yet this compromising does not affect our individuality, since it is not forced on us but comes to us organically as love teaches us to live in a symbiotic bond. Hence, love in its true form should not hamper our individual freedom, rather “In the flush of love’s light/ we dare be brave”. In these lines love is compared to a source of light. This should be juxtaposed with the darkness of the shelled-in living that the poet mused upon in stanza 1. It is only with the dazzling luminosity of love that we may return from the darkness of the exile. The last two lines of the poem present us with a contradiction. In the lines just prior to the last two lines, the poet tells us about how we give our all when we are in love. Rationally speaking, then, what we should have been left with is nothing but dependence on another individual; but instead “Yet it is only love/ which sets us free.” Thus, it may seem like the poem ends with a contradiction, but on a closer assessment we realise that all she says is that we must surrender our very selves in the service of love; however, in return we will not experience any sense of defeat. On the contrary by submitting our souls to love we will be able to realise true freedom for the first time, as it will free us from all those factors that were denying us the right to lead a fulfilling life. Love, is that ‘angel’ which may touch our lives and turn it to gold like the ancient touchstone found in stories and mythologies. With this simple yet profound deliberation Angelou concludes the poem. The beauty of the romantic poetry of Maya Angelou lies in their ease. The simplicity with which she writes them, her sincerity toward them and her indomitable will to create a profound connection with the humanity, give her poetry an effortless whiff of sublimity. They carry a very straightforward message in their heart—that of compassion. Her poetry, in general, is replete with the themes of love and loss of love, confrontations, resistance and a struggle against discrimination and hatred. Critic and writer Mary Silva Cosgrave traces the uniqueness of her poetry, which effortlessly blends in lofty human emotions with a notion of identity politics, to Angelou’s persona – “She is not afraid to dream, to love, and to be brazenly, saucily, deeply herself. She writes of her past, of grinning, dancing, colorful city folk and sullen suburbanites, of woman’s work, of cotton and sugar cane, and of slaves.” 450 Contemporary Poetry ● Available Light (1988). ● Mars and Her Children (1992). ● What Are Big Girls Made of? (1997) ● The Art of Blessing the Day (1999). ● Early Grrl (1999). ● Colors Passing Through Us (2003). ● The Crooked Inheritace (2006). ● The Hunger Moon (2011). Fiction: ● Going Down Fast (1971). ● Dance The Eagle To Sleep (1971) ● Small Changes (1974) ● Woman On The Edge Of Time (1977). ● The High Cost Of Living, (1979) ● Vida, (1980). ● Braided Lives, (1983). ● Fly Away Home, (1984). ● Gone To Soldiers, (1988). ● Summer People, (1989). ● He, She and It, (1993). ● The Longings of Women, (1994). ● City Of Darkness, City Of Light, (1997). ● Storm Tide (With Ira Wood), (1998). ● Three Women, (1999). ● The Third Child, (2003). ● Sex Wars, (2005). ● Vida, (2011). ● Dance The Eagle To Sleep, (2012). Non-fiction: ● Parti-Colored Blocks for A Quilt, (1982). ● So You Want To Write: How To Master The Craft Of Writing Fiction And The Personal Narrative, (2000). ● Sleeping With Cats, (2003). ● Pesach for The Rest Of Us, (2007). 31.10 THE TEXT: COLORS PASSING THROUGH US Purple as tulips in May, mauve into lush velvet, purple 451 Maya Angelou’s Touched By An Angel And Marge Piercy’s The Colors Passing Through Us as the stain blackberries leave on the lips, on the hands, the purple of ripe grapes sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, like a new flower in a bud vase on your desk. Every day I will paint you, as women color each other with henna on hands and on feet. Red as henna, as cinnamon, as coals after the fire is banked, the cardinal in the feeder, the roses tumbling on the arbor their weight bending the wood the red of the syrup I make from petals. Orange as the perfumed fruit hanging their globes on the glossy tree, orange as pumpkins in the field, orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs who come to eat it, orange as my cat running lithe through the high grass. Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes, yellow as a hill of daffodils, yellow as dandelions by the highway, yellow as butter and egg yolks, yellow as a school bus stopping you, yellow as a slicker in a downpour. Here is my bouquet, here is a sing song of all the things you make me think of, here is oblique praise for the height and depth of you and the width too. Here is my box of new crayons at your feet. Green as mint jelly, green as a frog on a lily pad twanging, the green of cos lettuce upright about to bolt into opulent towers, 452 Contemporary Poetry green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear glass, green as wine bottles. Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums, bachelors’ buttons. Blue as Roquefort, blue as Saga. Blue as still water. Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat. Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop. Cobalt as the midnight sky when day has gone without a trace and we lie in each other’s arms eyes shut and fingers open and all the colors of the world pass through our bodies like strings of fire. 31.11 ANALYSIS: COLORS PASSING THROUGH US The poem is taken from the eponymous collection of poetry, published in 2003. The collection is a celebration of the phenomenon of life itself. The poems in the collection cover a wide array of themes—from nature and love to politics. It contains a poem memorising the lost souls at the 9/11 tragedy, an elegy for her mother, one about her grandmother and also poems that celebrate the beauty of nature and human emotions. The poems are quite subjective in nature, and the same time, carry a fierceness that is tinged with wit. They are bold, sensuous and manifest quite emphatically Piercy’s intense passion for writing. The poem Colors Passing through Us can be read as an almost self-indulgent commemoration of the beauty lying abundant around us. The poem is written in 9 neat sestets, each stanza describing and celebrating a particular colour; except for stanza 2 and 6, which give the poem a more personal touch. The poem does not have a regular metrical scheme, thus highlighting the fluidity of the nature of thought the poet expresses in the poem. The structure also adds to this characteristic by not following a set thematic pattern in all the stanzas (since stanza 2 and 6 break the thematic pattern as discussed before). Colors Passing through Us is essentially a love poem but it also carries the sense that this idea of love is an all-encompassing emotion, not just a restrictive bond between two people. Rather, like the universe itself, it is a feeling that cradles all and everything around us. The poem begins with an imagery of summer –“Tulips in May”. It carries, thus, not only the visual imagery of colour but also almost a tactile sensation of warmth. The images of “mauve in lush velvet”, the “ripe grapes” that are “sunlit and warm as flesh”, further enhance this notion that the world is steeped into a securing sense of warmth. The sun may also stand for the idea of vigour and vitality, ideas that are quite common in other poems of the collection as well. The reference to the “stain” of blackberry on the 455 Maya Angelou’s Touched By An Angel And Marge Piercy’s The Colors Passing Through Us a puddle on the blacktop”) are all extremely familiar images strewn across our daily urban lives but are given a fresh perspective towards, by the poet. The stillness of the water (“Blue as still water”) may refer to the depth of the water and thus in turn, to the intensity of the poet’s emotions. The last stanza provides a fitting conclusion to the poem. The “blue” of the previous stanza transforms into the darker shade of “cobalt” with the reference to the “midnight sky” in the very first line. The stanza, much like stanza 2 and 6 takes a more subjective tone. The day has come to pass and the lovers ate now engrossed into the mellow darkness of the night. As they “lie in each other’s arms” cradled by the blue-black night, their eyes are “shut” but “fingers open”. This imagery is at the same time stark but pleasant. The shut eyes show their deep engagement with the souls of their own, and each other; while the open fingers may signify their welcoming connection with the elements of the universe. The name of the poem finds its justness in this image. The colours that surround them are not merely around them existing as external objects, but rather “passing through” them like a stream. This portrays the lovers almost as a part of their surrounding themselves. They are submerged into the beauty that s around them but not with being a part of the same themselves. The poet ends the poem with the stark imagery of the colours “passing” through their bodies like fire— “all the colors of the world pass through our bodies like strings of fire.” These lines connote the depth of passion that the poet voices in these verse lines, especially the imagery of fire. The concluding image ties all the universal elements in a continuous bond of harmony—almost like the Blakean world of “Innocence” where the elements of nature, the animals and the human beings co-exist in perfect consonance. 31.12 SUMMING UP The poets discussed in this chapter, Maya Angelou and Marge Piercy, are known as leading feminist authors. Their works are lauded as cult texts of feminist literature. However, in this chapter we have discussed two love poems written by them. Both poems celebrate quite boldly and exquisitely, the emotions of love and its effect on human lives. In traditional literature the woman has always been a passive character in love poems, reduced to mostly the recipient of the emotion. Hence, by breaking that pattern these women set an example of women actively voicing their thoughts of love. Both the poems describe love as a liberating experience, instead of a restrictive bond between two people. Both the poets have experimented with styles and forms in their respective poem and have channelized a fluidity that helps the thematic configuration of the poems. The poems also make brilliant use of imagery to express the lofty thoughts the poets have voiced in these poems. 31.13 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS: POSSIBLE QUESTIONS 1. Analyse the thematic progression of the stanzas in Maya Angelou’s “Touched by an Angel”. ……………………………………………………………………… 456 Contemporary Poetry ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… 2. How does Maya Angelou capture the essence of love in “Touched by an Angel”? Explain with references from the text. ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… 3. Analyse the symbols employed by Angelou in her poem “Touched by an Angel”. ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… 4. How, according to Angelou, does love transform the lives of human beings? Answer with references from the text. ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… 5. Critique Marge Piercy’s “Colors Passing through Us” as a love poem. ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… 6. Write a note on the use of imagery in Marge Piercy’s “Colors Passing through us”. ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… 7. How has Piercy used the colour symbolism to build the theme of love in her poem “Colors Passing through Us”. Write with detailed references to the text. ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… 457 Maya Angelou’s Touched By An Angel And Marge Piercy’s The Colors Passing Through Us 31.14 SUGGESTED READING Doherty, Patricia. Marge Piercy: an annotated bibliography. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1997. Print. Gwynn. American Poets since World War II. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992. Print. Lupton, Mary J. Maya Angelou: The Iconic Self. Santa Barbara: Greenwood Press, 2016. Print. Lupton, Mary Jane. Maya Angelou: A Critical Companion. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998. Print. Walker, Sue and Eugenie Hamner. Ways of Knowing: Essays on Marge Piercy. Mobile, Alabama: Negative Capability Press, 1991. Print. Williams, Marry E. Readings on Maya Angelou. New York: Greenhaven Press, 1997. Print.