Maya Angelou (4 April 1928)

Although we are free people, sometimes we feel like caged birds. Isn´t life contradictory?

This poems title brings tears to my eyes, literaly. I say it doesn't even need the poem, but the poem is also spectactular.

I'm not sure what the definition of freedom is, but I'm guessing (hoping, really) that it would be worth singing for.

I really love this poem. I have one of Maya Angelou's poetry books with this poem in and it was one of the first poems of hers that I really enjoyed and found myself reading over and over again.

i would like to have the comments about this poem(i know why the caged bird sing by maya angelou)

The correct version is below:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings


A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns 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 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.

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.



Maya Angelou

Amongst her greatest poems. Obviously Paul Lawrence Dunbar influenced, specifically by the poem 'Sympathy', Maya Angelou takes the theme and broadens it with her own spin. A modern classic.