Comparison of Still I Rise and Realities of a Black Woman Essay

Comparison of Still I Rise and Realities of a Black Woman Compare and Contrast the poems Still I Rise By Maya Angelou and Of course when they ask about the Realities of black women by Grace Nichols. 'Still I Rise' written by Maya Angelou and 'Of course when they ask about the "Realities" of black woman' written by Grace Nichols, are the two poems that I will be comparing and writing about. These poems are expressing the opinions of how white people would like to see or how they see black women. I understand that the word culture means a wide range of ideas, knowledge and beliefs. That is usually shared between the people of a country, place, race, group or religion. The word Culture can also mean a way of life, or set of every day activities, for example a Muslim will worship five times a day. I also understand that with in one culture it is possible to have many different cultures. Both poems are from a different culture to my own. The poems and poets come from the same culture, which is black. Grace Nichols originally came from Guyana and Maya Angelou originally came from Missouri. Both poets are black each poem suggests this in its own individual way as in the poem "Still I Rise" the poet Maya Angelou uses the word "Slaves", and in the past slaves have usually been referred to as black people. In the poem "Of course when they ask about the 'Realities' of black women" the poet Grace Nichols uses "I like to see we black women", This suggests that she is not just writing about black women and that she is a black woman herself as she changes her language from "I" to "we". The poem "Still I rise" by Maya Angelou is mainly about one black woman. In the poem it is saying about a black woman being t... ...propriately. The line which didn't work for me was "I am the dream and hope of the slave" this is because when this poem was written there would have been less slavery and I do not believe that she is the dream of the slave. The rest I very much like. Grace's poem confused me and some part did not make any sense to me so I found it very hard too follow in what was being said. This poem has a lot of depth. I think it is not straight to the point, this to gives the impression that Grace may still fear to speak about her past. The structure and shape of the poem I didn't like not like. To me it looked as thou no time had been taken was a rush and burst of thought all at once. Over all I preferred Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise2 I think that she is a very strong black feminist writer. I hope that in the future we will be looking at more of her work.