I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

It shocks me that anyone could read this book and put it down halfway through. Angelou had me wrapped around her finger with her lyrical tone and unbelievable childhood tales. I made the mistake of finishing the story right before bed, and took an extra hour recounting her most harrowing memories to my partner in the dark.

I thought a lot about how Angelou had no idea when she was a quiet and anxious Black girl from Arkansas that she would become one of the United States' most renowned speakers and writers, read by people of all ages and races as a Great of our time. It's easy to fall for a protagonist who is so hardworking and true to what she wants, who experiences the worst tragedies and comes out an empathetic and brilliant show more star.

“'You be a good girl now. You hear? Don't you make people think I didn't raise you right. You hear?' She would have been more surprised than I had she taken me in her arms and wept at losing me. Her world was bordered on all sides with work, duty, religion and “her place.” I don't think she ever knew that a deep-brooding love hung over everything she touched." show less

I cannot fully understand how I've been changed but I know, that for reading this, I am forever changed. Challenged with experiences that have never entered my own realm of reality, Ms. Angelou did not merely overcome, she overcame with more grace and more class than I could ever dream of having. She uses beautiful writing to tell of a life, her life, that was not extraordinary but turned her into (or perhaps it's within us all to be) an extraordinary person. And the audio - read by the author - just overwhelmingly stunning.

I borrowed this from my library. It's for a May book club, part of a year-long theme on banned books.

First of all, wow, Angelou can write. This memoir is blunt, poetic, and raw, detailing her earliest memories in rural Stamps, Arkansas, to St. Louis where she details a graphic rape at age 8, back to Stamps for more formative events, then onward to California, where she lived through her teens with World War II in the backdrop. I can see why people have tried to ban this book, and I 100% disagree with them. This is a hard read, yes, but it should be. I'm glad I finally had the chance to read it.

Being no means qualified is not enough to stop me from making a recommendation. Though millions had read Maya Angelou’s words by the time I heard of her in 1992, the political nature of my introduction to her was sadly reason enough to keep me from her work for another 21 years. Now to those whose knowledge of Dr. Angelou is far superior to mine I have a suggestion. Listen to her first acclaimed autobiography “I know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, and though I don’t think there is another version, make sure you to the book read by Dr. Angelou herself.

Had I read “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” I would have enjoyed it, and been appreciative of Dr. Angelou’s great writing. But hearing her words come from her voice propelled by show more her heart left me moved and in awe. I know many more open hearts been moved by her words for decades, and although I’m slightly embarrassed by my ignorance, I am quite glad to have erased it.

I don’t recall exactly how I came to chose to read this book. I know I had read something James Baldwin had written about her, and that may have been all it took to search the library. The instant I heard her voice I could not let go of her story until I reached its end. About 8 or so hours in length, I listened in two sessions while home under the weather. Dr. Angelou’s writing did not cure me, but she certainly inspired me.

For quite some time I have believed that one of the proofs of Jesus divinity are African-American folk who have recognized His Love despite its introduction coming from the very same folks that introduced them to tyranny, pain, and slavery. The blending of her words and voice allowed me to hear that Love that has remained despite all the evil Dr. Angelou faced. It is what allowed her to offer grace, even though justice was needed. She never ceases her quest to justice, but it is not a prerequisite for her grace. I think this is in large part because even when she is holding a mirror allowing injustice to be seen, she never denies her sharing of the human condition – a need for grace. By not allowing the message of Love to be eclipsed by its often evil messenger, Dr. Angelou enables all of us, bearers of pain and creators alike, to see the truth that there is indeed grace to be had. show less

I understand why this book is beloved. Maya Angelou puts into words the disparity that so many people in America had accepted as a way of life. This was first published in 1969, so it's not hard to imagine how groundbreaking a memoir like this would have been.

So many oppressed groups in America can relate to Maya's words, and what exactly the phrase 'I know why the caged bird sings' means. Maya speaks on what it meant to be a woman, what it meant to be Black, what it meant to be different from those around you, even your peers. She also speaks on the importance of community and support. She doesn't plainly lay it out for us, but it's clear in her story what these things mean and how they effect people.

Every time Maya faced adversity in show more her early life, she found people who cared and showed her the way forward. Given the time period, this doesn't look how it might today with therapy and psychology verbiage being more common than ever. Instead, it came in the form of a mother who knew she could not care for her children properly, and sent them to someone she trusted who could. In the form of a grandmother who kept those kids on the straight and narrow, and the space to be 'tender-hearted'. In the form of a teacher who understood why someone might decide not to speak, and how to coax words back out of that person. In the form of a brother who would do near anything for his sister. In the form of a father in law who could replace the distant and abusive father figures Maya endured, who could help wipe that slate clean. Maya found community in every bumpy moment of her life, and this is what life is about I think.

This is the third memoir of sorts by Maya about her life, that I have read. Some stories overlap, as is expected, but in each iteration, she brings a brand new outlook into it, and details she hadn't shared elsewhere. Listening to these different sides of one person's life strikes me because it really portrays the sheer space a life takes up. Someone can tell you what happened, but you still won't ever get the full picture unless you were there with them. Truth be told, you still wouldn't get it exactly unless you were inside their shoes. Everyone has a different perspective on what happened, and it can make the moment feel completely opposite from what the other felt. It gives more meaning to 'there's three sides to every story- yours, mine, and the truth', and even shows how that saying falls short. There's more than three sides to a story, it's endless.

I stay amazed by the kind of person Maya was and how she came to be that way. Her strength and conviction is admirable, and I would be honored to even be half of who she is. I love how she tells a story, and I especially love when it's in her own voice. Her tone is so nice to listen to, so soothing. It's too bad this will be the last of Maya that I hear, at least for a while, since Libby doesn't have any of her other books on audio. I'll miss her. show less

Maya Angelou is a dancer. That was a fact that was not part of briefing on Angelou. Everyone knows her as a poet, as a feminist, as a loud and insistent voice in racial politics – but as a dancer. It makes so much more sense now that I know it, how I perceiver her. When I think of her, I think of a lioness, stretching her face up into the sun, her whole body poised and lithe and twitching with danger. Her lips are parted ever so slightly, just enough to see a hint of the sharp death that resides inside; beauty and blood all coexisting in perfect harmony.

Angelou brings that same dancer’s quality to her prose in [I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings]. The book is a memoir, written about her young life, split between the musty hills of show more Arkansas, the grimy streets of industrial St. Louis, and the gritty streets of Oakland and San Franciso. As a young girl of only three, she and her four-year-old brother were shipped off by their parents to live with a grandmother in Arkansas. The roads were red dirt, and the people scratched out a living in the cotton fields. Left with nothing much else to do, she and her brother sought out the world of books. She worked in the country store her grandmother ran, went to church every Sunday, and she learned the life of segregation in the South. Eventually, she reunited with her mother in St. Louis, a bourgeoning industrial mecca. Sadly she learned the life of a victim in that place, at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend. She learned the crazy, jumbled emotions – yearning for attention and love and affection, only to receive the vile attention of a predator. Angelou was shipped back to her grandmother, then to her father, then to her grandmother, and back to her mother again. Instability and chaos rendered her a survivor, and a deeply internal person – much to the benefit of us all.

Angelou’s account of her childhood is raw, but it is also tender and intuitive. In retelling the trials she faced, she provides a broad perspective on so many of the issues that are twisted up in the racial politics of our country. But she never indulges in any self-pity or blame. Through it all, she is that same lioness, twitching with danger and beauty.

Bottom Line: Maya Angelou’s childhood, told with a dancer’s grace.

4 ½ bones!!!!! show less

Listening to this felt like traveling through layers of history, back to 2011 when the audiobook was released, 1969 when it was first published, and even further to the 1930s and ’40s when she lived it. Angelou lived through so much in such a short time (17 years!), and she narrated it with clarity, grace, and a captivating voice, she even sings. The detail of her reflections completely drew me in. Though focused on childhood, it tackles profoundly adult themes. My heart broke for her often, and I was consistently admiring her strength. It’s a coming-of-age story but also a discussion of race, gender, trauma, and resilience in 1940s America. It felt like a classic and certainly something I should have read sooner.