Comparing and Contrasting Two Poets

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Comparing and Contrasting Two Poets
Thesis: The research identifies comparisons and differences between the writing works of Maya
Angelou and Rita Dove. An exploration about their background, writing styles and
Themes will determine these comparisons and differences.
I. Angelou and Dove shared came from the same background setup but the status were quite
Different.
Maya Angelou’s background was full of distress and pain but contributed to her
Inspiration to put her strength in writing, resulting to a renowned poet.
(b) Rita Dove grew up with support from parents and identified her talent since
Childhood, extending her specialization through studies.
II. The poets’ writing can be identified as similar because of various themes that they shared probably because of their experiences and history of their origin.
Angelou and Dove have comprehensively spoken about racism and oppression and the way to overcome.
Dove becomes flexible, as she does not dwell on this color as she shifts after three lines and presents varieties of colors.
III. The writing styles and ideas of Angelou and Dove have similarities and slight differences.
The poetry genre carries many similarities as they both use symbolism, smooth and reconciliation tone, metaphors, among others.
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Comparing and Contrasting Two Poets
There is so much to compare and contrast regarding two poets namely Maya Angelou and Rita Dove (Silver, 10). Their background status may have inspired or influenced their writing styles, themes and other aspects of poetry. Both Angelou and Dove are renowned poets or voices that have made a great difference in our contemporary world of poetry with their rich and creative writings. Angelou’s poem called ‘Still I Rise’ and Dove’s ‘Thomas and Beulah’ are usable and very effective in comparison and contrast of the two.
Some of the poetry works by Maya Angelou reflects her background status as well as upbringing. She was born on the fourth day of April in the year one thousand nine hundred and twenty eight at St. Louis Missouri. The origin of her family is said to have come from Sierra Leone in West Africa (Angelou, 3). The initial years of the life of Angelou were not rosy as they were filled with tragedy and disaster. Angelou represented a child born with great depression, as she came into the world during stressful times specifically for the African Americans. By the time she reached the age of three years, her parents divorced after which her father sent Angelou and her older brother to live with her paternal grandmother. During the years that Angelou spent with her grandmother, things worsened as the Great Depression season deepened accompanied by hunger because the grandmother’s store had also weathered due to economic crisis that existed. This could explain the reason for Angelou’s poetry about hardships as well as grief. The sympathetic themes derived from her works of poetry reflect the hardships that she witnessed as she was growing up. In her early life when the African Americans faced racism and discrimination, she witnessed her grandmother trying to hide her relatives so that they would not be harmed (Davis, 20).
Evidently, the difficulties of her early life would worsen after her father took them from the grandmother. She experienced rape at the age of eight years by her mother’s boyfriend and had lived in trauma and threats from the criminal. The aftermath of confession of Angelou concerning the rape was that the man was jailed for one day and after his release, her uncles killed him. This was one of the greatest trauma of Angelou’s life as she believed that she had caused the death and result fully she could not speak for five years. She spent her days of dumbness on reading and the people who knew her at this period can bear witness that the talent of writing that is popular worldwide began here. Angelou’s path of life was not a simple one since she had many obstacles to face even after regaining her voice at the age of thirteen. Racism continued and at her grandmother’s she learnt a virtue of dealing with slurs that would be directed to her. She became a mother at the age of sixteen and life was difficult for her, as she needed to support her baby at all costs, to the extent of practicing prostitution.
All these experiences of her life are expressed or poured out in her poem ‘I still rise’, whose theme suggest that overcoming hardships in life is possible regardless of injustices and rejections that people may face. In addition, the poem mentions racism as well as all the problems that black people are likely to have due to discrimination and other things that are involved in racism, calling out the bla...