Reviews

Poetry for Young People: Maya Angelou by Maya Angelou

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crystal_reading's review

4.0

Some wonderful poetry in this short book. There is a great biography at the beginning and usually there are introductions before the poems to help give the reader some context. That was sometimes annoying to me, but for a young reader, that may be helpful. I liked that there were definitions for the reader at the bottom of the poem, but the introductions weren't always necessary and could be distracting.

They start the collection out with "Little Girl Speakings" which is a great choice because it has a unique voice and is so rhythmic. Young readers can have fun with it and the next one too "Life Doesn't Frighten Me."

I loved these lines from "Woman Work"

Shine on me, sunshine
Rain on me, rain
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.

I wondered what they would do with "Still I Rise." They left out the whole stanza that begins, "Does my sexiness upset you?" That made me wonder what other changes or omissions might there be. I would like it better if when they left out a section or started a poem in the middle that it would have said "from Still I Rise" rather than just having the title at the top of the page. Readers will believe that they know a poem and they only know part of it. That said, I am still glad to have a collection of her poems in my library.

worldlibraries's review

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4.0

This series is so inspiring and so outstanding, I think I will have to read every title in the series. I wish it included poets from all over the world though. Where is Rumi? Kahlil Gibran? Omar Khayyam? Hafiz? Bashō?

I thought of myself as familiar with much of Maya Angelou's oeuvre. I wasn't. Dr. Angelou was a highly productive person and there were so many poems in this collection new to me. Unlike Langston Hughes, there was not a video available of each poem that I could listen to with Dr. Angelou reading - or even someone else reading it. I enjoy reading the text first, and then going to YouTube to listen to all of the different interpretations of a poem.

Moments in life that Maya can take you to immediately in just a few words: a child's pride in her parents in the poem 'Little Girl Speakings:'

'No lady cookinger than my Mommy,
smell that pie,
see I don't lie,
No lady cookinger than my Mommy.'

Or the dignity seen watching a hard-working elder moving about in her poem about her Uncle Willie and 'Song for the Old Ones.' 'Song for the Old Ones' is a sober read. Times were so hard for those who lived through slavery, Maya Angelou celebrates that their accomplishment was 'living on the edge of death / they kept my race alive.' Wow.

A couple of her poems have been enhanced by superb artistic collaborations. 'Life Doesn't Frighten Me' is a poem for those children who are scared but who are NOT going to admit it. I love the Jean-Michel Basquiat drawings that have been matched with this poem in a picture book of the same name.

The music video created of Harlem Hopscotch is so exciting and fun, how could any child not fall in love with poetry after seeing it. Dr. Maya Angelou knows how to create excitement for life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mBHyKECPuA

The pièce de résistance in this book is Maya Angelou's wise, prescient, thoughtful poem written for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, 'A Brave and Startling Truth.' This is exactly the kind of thought-provoking knowledge from a human elder the younger members of humanity, especially those involved in governance, need to hear. I would love to see this poem receive more acclaim and worldwide appreciation.