/lit/ - Literature

>>4942962
Overrated. Almost everything she wrote about was "muh black"or "muh feminism".

>>4942962
Rest in peace Maya.

>>4942996
>Almost everything she wrote about was "muh black"
>She's a black woman that lived through the Civil Rights movement
>not expecting her to write about her experiences

Come on man.

>>4942962
Aw, that's a shame.

wasn't a huge fan, but i found some of her poetry to be good.

Caged Bird was a decent read too.

>>4942996
Show some respect

Aww no, that's just.....these feels

>>4943003
That's almost ALL she wrote about. She was a one trick pony.

>>4942996
>Black woman
>Lived through times that were horrible for blacks and women
>Not allowed to write about it

inb4 'but that's all she wrote about!'

Not true.

>>4943016
You're right. She wrote about being a woman. She was elevated to icon because she was a credit to her gender and her race. By almost every objective standard her work was middling, at best.

>>4943011

>>4943018
>by almost every objective standard
>objective standard

>>4943019
;__;

>>4943012
you have no idea what it means to be a good writer ...

>>4943018
>Objective standards
>Poetry

okay then

>>4942996

This is exactly the kind of insipid pablum I expected from this thread. Good to see some posters are actually ridiculing you, though.

>>4943027
>implying you know

THANK JESUS SHE'S DEAD

>>4943033
>insipid pablum

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.


besides the poem being total pleb, this line is so arrogant:
>I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

>>4943036

Awful writer. Hopefully her low-quality pandering shit will be forgotten in a few years.

smh

RIP in peace

>>4943038
Back from whence ye came.

>>4943042
>besides the poem being total pleb
>this line is so arrogant:

Just stop.

Who?

>yfw a hack dies
>yfw the poseur masses cry while patricians say "who?"

>>4943069
i still rise to overcome your criticism of my criticism of angelou's 'still i rise'

>>4943073
She was tumblr before tumblr was tumblr

i had to read and analyse her complete works for a course i was doing
she wrote like 7 autobiographies and loads of poetry collections
all shit

>>4943078
And you guys mourn her?
Don't take me wrong, boo hoo she's dead, mourning relatives and so on.

even critics consdiered angelou shit

>be ghostwriter for any lesbian black woman met through craigslist with a 80/20 deal
>make millions

>>4943087
[citation needed]

>>4943083
>falling for his shit
>listening to someone on 4chan

>>4943103
Many critics consider Angelou's autobiographies more important than her poetry.[129] Although her books have been best-sellers, her poetry has not been perceived as seriously her prose and has been understudied.[4] Her poems were more interesting when she recited and performed them, and many critics emphasized the public aspect of her poetry.[130] Angelou's lack of critical acclaim has been attributed to both the public nature of many of her poems and to Angelou's popular success, and to critics' preferences for poetry as a written form rather than a verbal, performed one.

>>4943094
>lesbian
she was a prostitute for like 5 years

>>4943117
in other words, she was a 'slam poet' or some other form of scum

>>4943120
I know several prostitutes and they all have lesbian penchants or even live with a woman.
Anyway, I wasn't thinking about Maya Angelou here. I was simply talking about what is automatically glamorized by liberals: being a handicapped lesbian muslim black woman (oh, she must be so talented!).

>>4942996
i know someone is retarded when they say writing about racial issues and being a black woman is not worth it.

Maya Angelou is the greatest example of why pandering to "disadvantaged" minorities is ultimately destructive.

OH you're a black woman poet oh my goodness everything you do is so great omfg you're amazing do you want to be in everything and be a poet laureate and here's just like ten nobel prizes you're soooo brave you're so good yes even this poem that isn't good is good wowww so good so brave. so brave. so brave
>talented person
>if fully realised, could have moved their gender/ethnicity/whatever further out of the Other by showing they can be as great as the Same
>instead plateaus at mere precocity
>becomes a stagnated pet for white people

more like maya angePOO amirite?
seriously though she was shit

>>4943138
let me guess when nordic people write tired ass books like "my struggle" you're eating that shit up cus you're ass can relate

>>4943143
>cus you're ass can relate

Rot in hell, dead bigot who did more to divide the races than bring them together.

And fake-ass honorary degree or not, I will never call this bitch "doctor" like she demands her students do. real Doctors do their years in school instead of "IMMA BLACK WOMAN WHO WROTE STUFF ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE THEREFORE I DESERVE IT"

>this thread
kek. mad crackers be mad

>>4943148
>Holding blacks to the standard others must meet

Wow what a bigoted shitlord you are

>>4943165
racist

>>4943016
>horrible for blacks

Better than sub saharan africa.

>>4943137
>i know someone is a black woman when they say writing about nothing but racial issues and being a black woman is worth it.

Huh, Wikipedia's page on her is really good quality.

>>4943191
niggers gonna nig

>>4943165
Most are defending her. Good job saying this though, you baiting dipshit. Way to make a semi-bad thread worse

>>4943198
I take this back. That last 25% damn guys

>>4943027
>you have no idea what it means to be a good writer

Step1: Write shitty book (too short, not well executed)
Step2: allow all writings to fall into obscurity
Step3: Pay Text Book company to publish 2-3 poems
Step4: wait 20 years
Step5: ???
Step6: Be voice of a generation!

As someone who specialised in late 18th century/19th century Brit lit, I can't say much for American poets, but I did love Maya Angelou

>>4943220
no one gives a fuck

i think straight white males are salty because they have no struggle to write so they write shitty fantasy novels.

>>4943220
no one fives a guck

>>4943220
no one gives a fuck

>>4943117
>Her poems were more interesting when she recited and performed them
basically this

when ever I go to read any of her poetry I get pissed halfway through because my internal monologue doesn't sound enough like an elderly black woman, her voice was probably 60% of what made her poetry work.

If there was ever a time for a sticky on this board, the time is now

>>4943138
>becomes a stagnated pet for white people
except she was a pet for rich black people

>>4943148
>real Doctors do their years in school
school of life m8...

>>4943220
>specialize in 18th century brit lit
>80% of post is superfluous information

sounds about right.

who?

>>4943233
this is more true than most people imagine

>>4943294
it's also why when white people do write good literature it's almost always better than blacks'

>>4943233
contrary to what the #1 welfare race and the #1 alimony gender sometimes believe, building and maintaining all of civilisation is pretty hard work

being in charge is a just reward for the blessed white men who do everything. thank you white men

>>4943298
The best of white literatrue happened hundreda of years ago. You all happened to destory eveyone elses cultural items so you have little else to compare it to, save for Eastern stuff.

My thoughts are with Oprah.

>>4943320
hahahahahaha

>>4942996
if anything is overrated you overrate yourself. but i know how your type must insist on sharing idiotic opinions no matter how dense, unwarranted, and unwanted.

>black woman is "genius" when she mimics white man
>white man is "white trash, faggot, wigger" when he mimics black woman

Terrible Billy Collins tier poetry.

>>4943274

LOL'd hard

>>4943360

That's because one is cultural appropriation and the other is cultural exploitation.

>>4943360
any time a black women does even remotely good anything it's amazing, because in general they're hulking, foul beasts

>>4943393
Nice double think m8.

>>4943393
>every reasoning is good to blame white man
>still it's white man who "dominates society"

>>4943400
how can you expect them to do great art when you opressed those people not so long ago? not that you still don't.

>>4943393
>African using the English language
>Not appropriation

>>4943407
Their ancestors still hadn't developed the wheel when Europeans were circumnavigating the world.

Hmm, it would appear you people are NEETs for a reason.

You're awful. I can't believe you'd spit on the fresh grave of MAYA FUCKING ANGELOU! Fuck, it's not like Kanye died, but maybe you contrarians would decide it would be more of a mind fuck to mourn him...I don't know anymore. Fucking idiots...

>>4943416
>I can't believe you'd spit on the fresh grave of MAYA FUCKING ANGELOU!
I wonder if she had to be buried at the back of the cemetery.

>>4943407
oppression, if anything would breed great art

>>4943416
>...

back to /mu/, sub-human

>>4943420
then stop saying they are only one trick ponies when they write about their opression god i can't with these dumb assholes

>>4943420
Art is a form of white oppression cast upon culturally deprived minorities! (Bourdieu remixed)

>>4943420
Nah, they just tend to use their master's way of creating to whine about social issues

>>4942996

>The black woman is writing about issues I can't directly relate to as a white man
>Therefore she is overrated

Real super, nice job.

So much edge.

How would you guys react to John Green or Zizek being dead?

>>4943076

>Orientating the world into a poseur/patrician dichotomy

You're going to miss everything cool and die bitter

>>4943065
>from whence

>>4943425
Oppression breeds great art, like manure breeds beautiful flowers.
But offering books about your oppression to the public is as dumb as offering manure instead of flowers to your girlfriend.
Unless you want to offend the public/your girlfriend because you secretly resent them under the pretext of "offering" them something.

>>4943435
Very similarly, though I don't think people would be saying nigger quite as much

>>4943433
She's overrated because nobody could become Poet Laureate with her mediocre command of the English language unless they were a minority (check), a woman (check), and wrote about muh oppression (check, check, check).

>>4943441
your idea of great art is probably baraque and classical literature so black opression would not breed art to your liking now shut up.

>>4943117

Didn't critics hate Yeats for the same reason? Because his poems had much more impact when read aloud? I remember people used to hate him for reading with a particular emphasis and rhythm and he actually had to defend his methods before a reading once at the Library of Congress.

>>4943445
Speak white.

I do not like her poetry and do not read the literature of oppression regularly I admit this as an (arguably privileged) white man, but all the same.
RIP in peace.

>>4942962

She lived a long, full life, more than most could ask for. rip

>>4943412

Pretty sure Maya Angelou was born in America and is thus American and entitled to speak American English

>All people speak the language of their ethnicity by default
lol k

>>4943453
>RIP in peace

>>4943445

>baraque

Leave the president out of this.

>>4943452
>>4943468
see just because i spelled shit wrong purposely you attacked me.

Oh god no. Now there will be a bunch awful tributes. She was such a shit poet.

>>4943475
We attacked you because your post is uselessly aggressive and makes no sense. Are you black, by chance?

>>4943233
I complain about my lack of authenticity. Black people have an identity, fucking privileged fuckers.

>>4943475

>i spelled shit wrong purposely

Willful ignorance is no defense for an unsubstantial post.

>>4943416
>How can you not do something that everyone else does?
Please leave conformist shitbag.

>>4943435
I wouldn't give a fuck about Zizek. John Green dying would be straight up hilarious. Angelou dying is just annoying because now we all have to hear about how great she was.

>>4943489
then why are you attacking a dead black poet with your ignorant ass

>tfw she will never get the nobel prize in literature she deserved

>>4943504
nice b8

>>4943436
Patton Oswalt is an Angelou-tier comedian though

>spends most of his set pandering to the audience (guys isn't Star Wars great? HAHAHA)
>emphasis loud yelling and angry emotions over form and wit
>will appear on literally any dogshit as long as he gets paid

They are both media and fame obsessed children, no?

Oh wow

>all those deleted posts in this thread

You faggets really can't handle opposing opinions can you? You then have to get the janitor/mod to do your dirty work

Absolutely pathetic

>>4943580

You have a /stormfront/ board. Go there if you want to stir up the pot of racial animosity. No one here is obligated to let you fling shit and throw your childish little tantrums over people paying attention to a black woman.

>>4943641
>Don't throw childish tantrums or I'll throw a childish tantrum!
>Censor this fool! He disagrees with us and we're currently the ones holding the cudgel!

STALIN NO

>>4943580
You know the janitor just does whatever he wants, right?

>>4943654
>he

>>4943580
They are the cancer killing 4chan.

>>4943652

Cleaning up garbage is not a childish tantrum.

Now if you would,
>>>/pol/

>>4943657
Racist dilettantes are the cancer killing intellectual discussions

>>4943668
>actually redirecting people to other boards

>>4943668
Excuse me, saying 'garbage' is a Level Five No-No, Type Yod-64: Insensitive to People Named Oscar. If you say that again I'm afraid I'm going to have to have the Oversenstive Reactionarch excise your ungood brain feelies.

>>4943668
>Being this much of a retarded fucking faggot

Why do you people even come here? You realize bans do nothing and no one will ever stop, right?

Maybe if you guys actually discussed literature instead of whining about how much you hate black people and women you wouldn't get banned so often.

>>4943668
>referring to censorship as cleaning up garbage
>garbage

Never has the question "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" been so apt.

Read a book.

>>4943678
I agree, these racist media circuses of mediocrity are highly problematic. The media entirely covered up the fact that Nelson Mandela was an unapologetic, racist terrorist and that South Africa was never a black country until modern decades! The bigotry is astounding.

>>4943688
Precisely. It's like they're querulous about their recognized petulance. It's redundant.

>>4943685
Are you evading a ban right now? Just curious.

>>4943692
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or facetious or if you actually believe what you just said....

>>4943691

>Never has the question "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" been so apt.

Could you be any more of a fedora-tipping baby-man? This has to be the most overwrought and pretentious sentence I've read on 4chan in months.

>>4943705
If putting the word "apt" and the most common Latin adage ever together in a sentence is inherently ultra-pretentious to you, you should read a book.

>>4943705
Hello, mr. edgy. How's the anti-intellectualism and fedora tipping going these days?

>>4943710

You're talking about the moderation team on an anime-inspired image board as if they are violating your human rights. The Latin proverbs you learned on wikipedia don't make you look smart, they make you look like a fucking faggot.

>>4943716
Custodes. Garbage. Custodian. That was the joke.

If you don't know "quis custodiet" you're probably badly underread.

>>4943716
And you're arguing with someone like than on an anime image board. You are even more pathetic.

Can't we all just get along? ;_;

why do these shit storms absolutely need to happen

why can't we just, you know, discuss literature?

>>4943742
when maya angelou contributes some, we will

>>4943728
>If you don't know "quis custodiet" you're probably badly underread.

If you think quoting one of the best-known Latin proverbs makes you better-read than the average person on a literature board, you're probably fucking stupid. Reading Watchmen doesn't make you a towering intellectual.

The only thing more obnoxious than narcissism is unearned narcissism. As expected of /pol/.

>>4943641
>sarcasm on the real quality of a writer that happens to be black
>stormfront
Please.

>>4943749
>600,000 words to say "U!"
>still underread

Maybe you should do less writing shitty posts and more reading good books

>all these posts deleted for simply criticizing Angelou's work

isn't that what this board is for, literary criticism? can't we have an actual unfiltered discussion about Angelou here, and then the hugbox faggots can go post on Reddit or whatever?

I'm sure there's one or two /pol/ shitposters, but deleting all critical posts is just fucking sad, and smacks of the era not too long ago when threads on Evola, et al., were deleted on sight. Get it together.

On topic, I haven't read much Angelou. I had to read a few poems due to having an American substitute teacher once back in high shcool, and found them uniformly dull, uninspired and pandering. They did not encourage further exploration.

By all accounts, Angelou was popular in the US. That doesn't mean she was a good author or poet. From my experience, she seemed pretty fucking mediocre.

in before someone calls me a racist

>>4943760
>On topic, I haven't read much Angelou. I had to read a few poems due to having an American substitute teacher once back in high shcool

So you read a couple of her poems when you were a high schooler, completely divorced from the cultural and historical context a reading of her works needs.

Excuse me if I think your empty-headed criticism is as worthless as a dog turd.

>>4943042
>Does my sassiness upset you?

>>4943756

What are your favorite books?

>>4943042
This is horseshit. If you have the bare minimum of wherewithal to disdain this kind of facile, SO BRAVE pleb shit, you have all the "context" you need to judge Maya Angelou.

JUDGMENT: SHITTY.

>>4943782
>pleb

Thanks for letting us know your opinion shouldn't be considered.

>>4943773
>completely divorced from the cultural and historical context a reading of her works needs
you are clearly a novice at literary criticism, or you would realize why this is a hilariously stupid statement. maybe you should pick up a textbook on the subject.

try judging a text on the merit of the text alone. the author is dead, kid.

>>4943785
>author is dead
>2014

keep living in the past, fagt.

>>4943773
>you didn't read the context
Sorry, but no. The virtue of a good text lies precisely in the fact it doesn't need explanations from the outside ("context") to be understood, appreciated and perceived as a work of art. Plautus, De Quincey, Boccaccio needn't context.

>>4943785

The death of the author is not about compeltely decontextualizing the work from its historical and cultural backdrop. That would be fucking stupid and unworkable. It's about decontextualizing the work from the author herself.

If you want to understand Crime & Punishment, you need to know a thing or two about 19th century Russian history. And if you want to understand Caged Bird, you need to know a thing or two about recent American history and the civil rights movement.

You're using buzzwords you don't understand in an attempt to exonerate yourself of ignorance. Pathetic.

>>4943785
>implying the author is dead means the context is dead
>he didn't read the New Critics well, or Focault

Sounds like you need to pick your books back up.

>>4943802
>>4943804

I bet it's the same faggot that was going around bragging that he's better-read than everyone. What a fucking joke.

>>4943823
>:(, the poster

As a former Virginia Tech English major who had taken a class with her, I can assure you that nothing of value is lost.

I loathed this woman. She was a racist and her writing was unimpressive to me.

>>4943825

So do you have anything else to say about your completely incorrect usage of a term from literary criticism in an attempt to hide your ignorance, or...?

>>4943823
just you, because you actually seem to be

lol

>>4943042
The problem with this poem: it addresses a "you" who does not exist. "You" is a potential angry racist white man (wow, so courage, such denouncing), but racist white men do not read Maya Angelou, and are not at all "offended" by the "sexiness" of an old minx talking about having diamonds in her pussy (level: Nicki Minaj). Thinking that such a non-poem can be cringeworthy for /pol/ heads (or anyone else) is above comedy.

>>4943846

See, this is where ignorance of the cultural context becomes damaging to a proper reading of the work.

As it turns out, Angelou was part of the civil rights movement and was one of many voices that angry white male racists very much WERE paying attention to and very much WERE offended by.

>>4943846
This is precisely the problem with people like Maya Angelou and the whiny undergraduate/high school pussies who read her. It's a giant farce. They get up in a society that easily tolerates their shit, on a university campus that is an echo chamber for it, at a rally of people who think exactly like them, and read Angelou's FUCK YOU WHITEY!! WOOO! #8522.

It's just a circlejerk. That's why it's so puerile. There's no real opposition so it becomes weak and feckless. They get lazy.

>>4943865
>This is precisely the problem with boards like /lit/ and the whiny undergraduate/high school pussies who post there. It's a giant farce. They get up in a society that easily tolerates their shit, on a website that is an echo chamber for it, in a thread full of people who think exactly like them, and read Anon's FUCK YOU NIGGERS!! WOOO! #8522.

>It's just a circlejerk. That's why it's so puerile. There's no real opposition so it becomes weak and feckless. They get lazy.

>>4943871
But you just opposed him.

>>4943871
>They get up in a society that easily tolerates their shit
Because anything other than complete subordination to the established narrative of multiculturalism and anti-racism in the western world is just *so* tolerated.

>>4943872

I'm avin a laff, anon.

Besides, even the most liberal echo-chamber university campus has a couple dozen self-styled freethinkers to stand up and try to start a Society for White Men once every couple semesters or w/e. So the analogy holds up well enough.

>>4943880

On 4chan, it's pretty disgustingly well-tolerated. Even on supposedly left-leaning boards like /lit/ where on the worst days you morons still have 50% of the population (and whine about not having more like the thin-skinned sissies you are)

>>4943882
Someone recently got disciplinary action for posting a gif of Obama kicking a door with the caption "Fuck exams".

He had to release an apology for committing a "microaggression".

You don't go to university.

>mfw /pol/ get BTFO

>>4943892

I go to a small engineering university.

Still, I follow news well enough to see stories crop up every once in a while of young conservative students making demonstrations to stick it to the liberal establishment at larger lib arts schools.

>>4943890
>On 4chan, it's pretty disgustingly well-tolerated.
You're saying this in a thread marked by mass deletions of content that is supposedly "disgustingly well-tolerated." And what is 4chan when weighed against most everything else on the internet? Most everything else in society? I think it's saying something when the counter-culture has to be driven to places like 4chan because of mass aversion (most of it manufactured) to it.

>>4943892

Yeah, I heard someone failed all his classes for standing up and saying he believed in God.

We know what universities are really like.

>>4943804
>>4943823
>implying I'm not talking about two essays that are widely anthologized and lectured on in intro lit theory courses

Seriously. Go re-read The Death of the Author, What is an Author, and The Intentional Fallacy. They should all be in your Norton, or you can Google them.

>>4943901
>the counter-culture has to be driven to places like 4chan because of mass aversion (most of it manufactured) to it.

You are hardly counter-culture. And for as much as you whine about minorities playing victim, holy fuck do you guys ~~LOVE~~ being the victim.

>>4943908
>You are hardly counter-culture.
I would think that self-proclaimed fascists, National Socialists, racists, anti-Semites, xenophobes...I would think that such groups are counter-cultural.

>a culture with values and customs are very different from and usually opposed to those accepted by most of society
Don't we make this distinction within 4chan argot? There is 'us' and then there are 'the normalfags.'

>>4943773
There isn't a single highly respected critic that likes her. Even Harold Bloom said that she's uninspired and obscenely overrated.

>>4943897
Yeah I know you should be proud that the only defense that the leftist marxists have is sarcastic strawmanning and screaming until the mods come to protect you. Truly a triumph for Tolerance and Diversity!


#killwhitey
#yesallwomen

>>4943901
Seriously.

>ALL universities dominated by multikulti
>even racist nazi hell 4chan has mods that delete criticism of maya fucking angelou, and threads half full of whiny antifa babbies

pic related

>>4943854
If you need a context to "understand" the poem, it means that the text is insufficient, i.e. shitty.
No one cares about whiny-whiny and muh racism, just like no one cares about jansenistic poems against Jesuits in 17th century France. They are not universal. They don't speak to the soul but to the historian. They are outdated.
Plus, Angelou's poem is not very well written, a mere fact that you try to hide under the excuse of a "proper reading" that needs to be done after learning "cultural context". A badly written poem does not become a masterpiece because you understand better some vague detail. "I laugh like I've got gold mines" is puerile. "Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom?" is hilarious and should belong to awkward /lit/ parodies, nothing else.
>WHY ARE YOU BESET WITH GLOOM

>>4943871
We are so "tolerated" that we are forced to be anonymous on a cartoon forum. Meanwhile, Maya Angelou was mainstream, well-known, honored, and rich.
But in your mind, we're still the vessels of oppression.

>>4943922
>There isn't a single highly respected critic that dislikes her. Case and point: even Harold Bloom said that she's uninspired and obscenely overrated.
ftfy

>>4943950
>But in your mind, we're still the vessels of oppression.

Not at all. I'm happy that you have no voice in the broader society and will be glad to see you driven even further from relevance as time goes on and history leaves you in the dust.

>>4943956
>and history leaves you in the dust.
History doesn't take sides as much as you might have been led to believe. There is no "right side of history" as if history is a linear narrative whose future chapters, so to speak, are completely known to us. In fact, it's quite possible that increasing suppression of agitated groups will only facilitate reprisals ranging from the violent to the political. It's simply fallacious to believe that as time goes on, so to must the quality of civilization, the happiness of its people, and the security of later days.

>>4943937
>Plus, Angelou's poem is not very well written

In your opinion.

Admittedly, she has a lot better work in her oeuvre (in my opinion).
The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

>>4943971
>It's simply fallacious to believe that as time goes on, so to must the quality of civilization, the happiness of its people, and the security of later days.

Absolutely true. That's why I will continue to do my part to marginalize and shame people like you.

>>4943785

The author is very much alive, and annoyed that people keep trying to bury him

>>4943956
>muh broad society
>muh linear history
You're the only one thinking the criticism of a bad overrated author, which also is a black person, actually means "FUCK YOU NIGGERS!! WOOO!" (you actually wrote it, maybe with some kind of hidden joy?).
Racism will always be more relevant than Maya Angelou, racism is almost a religion (and a rather universal one) while Maya Angelou has nothing but "muh feels that no one can understand unless you study me for years in college". Guess who'll bite the dust first.

>>4942962
Janitors sure did a nice job turning a thread into a circle jerk.

>>4943983
Maya Angelou is fucking dead

>>4943997

I suppose you think that was funny

>>4943995
>You're the only one thinking the criticism of a bad overrated author, which also is a black person, actually means "FUCK YOU NIGGERS!! WOOO!"

I don't actually believe that. I was making fun of another person's hand-wringing.

Of course, in any /lit/ thread about a black author, whining about "anti-racism" and "multikulti" can never be far behind, as this thread proves.

She was one of the first writers I was introduced to, like most young black Americans. My grandfather was lucky enough to have her give the eulogy at his funeral. She will be missed.

Ugly stupid nigger cunt

Reminder that 4chan is pretty much the only place you can type something like the above and not have it deleted by the hurt feelings police

>>4944013

Yeah, 4chan is a bit of a cesspool for edgy teenagers, what's your point?

>>4944013
Not on this board. I agree with your sentiment and think you're probably a cool guy so I'll let you know you should probably delete that post if you mind getting banned.

I remember reading something by a former SomethingAwful mod who said that in a George Bush supporter thread, literally every single person who had even said "I voted for Bush" was reported a bunch of times, from multiple sources. Remember - just because you're not the kind of pussy babby who responds to posts/ideas you don't like by reporting them and fantasising about the person getting silenced by force, doesn't mean this is true of anyone else. Pretty much all leftists do that.

>>4943973
Not bad, but still weak, predictable, two-dimensional, flairless. This should be two lines, not forty. As said in two lines:
"L'uccello nella gabbia
Canta non di piacere, ma di rabbia."

>>4944018
What's your point? Other than providing what you see as a witty one liner?

>>4944024

Trying to help you along the path to learning that saying the most ugliest thing you can think of does not make you a rebel or a free-thinker, it just makes you obnoxious. Maybe one day you will understand.

>>4944026

*Ugliest thing, rather.

Tried to replace "most offensive" with "ugliest" and messed it up.

>>4944004
Black people can be awesome in a great number of things, simply not in literature nor in pole vaulting (as far as I know). That's life. Accept it.

>>4944022
Yeah you're right, but I've only been banned for anti-semitic posts and image macros in the past

>>4944026
Just as obnoxious as constantly whining in threads against people who say stuff you don't like?

>>4943042
Wait, that's not from batman?

>>4944037
>He thinks there is any novel by a cracker that's half as good as Native Son is.

A: There isn't. Accept it.

>>4943310
>the #1 welfare race and the #1 alimony gender
>He actually doesn't know that he's talking about White men

>>4944071
Per capita is what matters.

>ITT kids talking shit about the success of Maya Angelou, mainly because she wrote about her own life and feelings.

Is this what summer is like on /lit/?

>>4944179
does summer last all year?

>>4944179
>success of Maya Angelou
She went on a resentment spree and that convinced some people to read her life story, I should hope you set the bar for "success" somewhat higher in your own life.

>>4943310
smh check ur priblege ignant bigot

>>4944244
ebin maymay

>>4944179
>>4944244

>>4944213
>>4944234

Ok what the fuck is going on here

>>4943846
>(level: Nicki Minaj)
I feel you should know that I'm usually not on this board but stopped by to see opinions on her passing and came across this line. I posted the exact same thing on /pol/.

Well, actually I described it as "proto nikki minaj or however the fuck that's spelled", but you get what I mean.

>>4944013
I wouldn't count on it.

>>4943678
>stop interfering with my masturbatory echo chamber!

That's cute. You're cute.

>>4944313
If we just get rid of only the following people who are a priori irrefutably bad, we can prosper

If you disagree with the irrefutability of their badness you're on the list

>>4943937
>If you need a context to "understand" the poem, it means that the text is insufficient, i.e. shitty.
Holy fuck.

>>4944334
And who gets to define "badness"? You? Me? A government? A god?

>>4944280
Bro high five. Yes, under the whining she brags like a rapper, and this is unsightly.

Finally, this caged bird is free

>>4944336
Are you beset with gloom or what?

>>4944179
It's been summer since '12

>>4944347
People as tolerant, enlightened, and intellectual as him, obviously.

>>4944037
>nor in pole vaulting
probably has more to do with the fact that public schools don't invest in minor sports education.

>>4944370
#QUIETUDE

>>4944336
So you're willing to say Chaucer is shitty because you need need to learn about older English and some history to understand what's happening in the Canterbury Tales?

>>4944599
Nice troll, I'd like to respond but you don't know my cultural context so you couldn't understand, even if I tried.
You need five years of studying contemporary French civilization before reading me properly.

>>4944674
>cultural context
white, middle-class, possibly suburban, no older than 22, smug.

>all this deleted

I shall not comment any further thanks to global rule number 8.

>>4944678
Wrong.
Jewish, very poor proletarian and communist family, suburban (you got that one right, but black/arab suburbs and not middle-class suburbs), 30 years old, Ph.D.
So you also need to study Judaism, marxism, be circumcised, and have a Ph.D. to really understand my point. Language is useless and the only thing that counts to understand me is to go through my experience of life, do you understand?

>>4944757
This is a joke yes?

>>4944757
Nope.

>>4944763
Oops, was saying >>4944769 to you.

...did all the posts criticizing angelou's writing get deleted? that's ridiculous. angelou has been a bogeyman representing terrible writing for a really long time. she's incapable of not mixing metaphors in every sentence. she's very often called out as one of the worst examples of what high school teachers think is good writing.

i actually think she was a brilliant, incredible woman, but i'm not personally a fan of her writing at all. respecting her memory is one thing, but it's pretty dumb to sanitize /lit/ on the topic of a writer that has always been controversial.

Also, I want to be clear and answer to this...
>>4944599
...to show that I'm not your average bozo with weird claims.
So, I wrote that a poem that needs context to be "understood" is a shitty poem. Notice the quotation marks. They refer to the moment when Maya Angelou's fans whine that her poems are not badly written and devoid of all interesting content, not at all; but it's actually your fault, that you need to "study her context" in order to "understand" what was apparently bad (i.e. the ultimate excuse that also means the text is deficient since what imparts its only value is contextual and not intrinsic).
It's not the same thing with Chaucer, Villon or Dante who smell obvious quality from the start (intrinsic value), but who need contextual study to INCREASE the understanding we have of its value (not to CREATE it because the text alone is terrible).
Knowing where I come from to deepen your understanding of my brilliant arguments is not the same thing than "u say that my argument is shitty but u dont know me so you cant understand me, lel, racist, ban ban ban".

>>4944797
They apparently did it on the grounds of "racism". Apparently mods/janitors think "she was average and was only exceptional because she was a black woman" isn't a valid opinion here.

>>4944882
I'm glad to be oppressed for my opinions, it now allows me to create great literature like Maya Angelou's.

>>4943641
>2014
>proving your opponent's point for them

>>4943827
You're confusing her with nikki giovanni

>>4942962
Maya Angelou died today. She was perhaps the most famous shitty living poet in the U.S. Her overly sappy bits of strung together wistful feelings were like Little River Band lyrics, if Fat Oprah had ordered everybody to refer to Reminiscing as a work of sheer genius. Maya Angelou wrote like an unpolished freshman Lit major who just knew her words were meant to move people. Once everybody realized that Maya looked interesting and had a memorable delivery and that she was black, her insights into the beauty of the sun, and the sincerity of love, and the fact that time keeps on ticking ticking into the future were held in Emerson like regard. She quickly became a politically correct national treasure. You couldn’t have a graduation or Olympics or Presidential gala without Maya Angelou Captain Kirking some free verse ripped straight from the wisdom of a middle school girl who makes daisy necklaces and pencils hearts in her journal.

Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing, now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips like a puff of summer wind.

Without notice, our dear love can escape our doting embrace. Sing our songs among the stars and walk our dances across the face of the moon.

Maya wrote that for Michael Jackson upon his own death. The verses from Man in the Mirror are ten times as deep as that dribble. Her inauguration poem for Obama read like a Black History Month local TV station interstitial combined with a love letter to Our Lord and Savior. I have no ill personal feelings for Maya Angelou. Maybe in her private moments she too laughed at how seriously a white guilt ridden America accepted her crap as profound and gobbled up her ninety-seven autobiographies.

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return

Thanks, Maya, you’ve raised the bar for Hallmark ‘Words of Wisdom’ category forever more.

>ad hominem, racist attacks on a recently deceased civil rights activist and author

Hey thanks for reminding me why I stopped browsing /lit/

>>4945412
Holy, shit. You're one racist fuck.

>>4945494
fullbodied, genderqueer,multiethnic otherkin plz leave.
>>>/reddit/

>>4945508
It had literally nothing to do with race

>>4945815
He did warn you not to fall for it, are you illiterate?

>>4943897
>autistic janny deletes stuff to reinforce /lit/ cultural marxist echochamber
>lol we btfod u xDDD

>>4945494
You're fooling no one reddit. No one. Stop whining every fucking day.