Maya Angelou: Her Works and Her Life Introduction Maya Angelou is an amazing woman who has lived a wide and varied life. She has overcome adversity to triumph in the fields of dance, acting, singing, literature and poetry. This paper compares four of her poems, lists common themes and tries to discern her world view from her work. It also considers how much of her life has found its way into her poetry. Discussion Her life is so rich that it‘s almost impossible to pare it down to just a few lines. The most startling things about her are, unfortunately, the things that are to be endured, rather than celebrated. Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Bailey Johnson, Sr., and Vivian Baxter (Dyson and Bloom). Maya had an older brother, Bailey Jr.; the two became very close (Dyson and Bloom). Their parents divorced when Maya was three, and the children were sent half-way across the country to Stamps, Arkansas, to the home of Mrs. Annie Henderson, Bailey Sr.‘s mother (Dyson and Bloom). That was the beginning of a gypsy existence in which Maya shuttled around the country and around the globe, trying to find out who she was and what she should be doing. Without a doubt, the most horrific event in her youth was when she was raped, at age eight, by her mother‘s boyfriend, a Mr. Freeman (Dyson and Bloom). He escaped but was arrested and tried, and sentenced to a year and a day (Dyson and Bloom). His attorney got him released that day, but he was found ―kicked to death a