The Distress in the Life of Maya AngelouMarguerite Ann Johnson, commonly known as Maya Angelou, was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. She is a famous African-American poet, novelist and playwright and also worked during civil rights: "Angelou is a very remarkable Renaissance woman who has been hailed as one of the great voices in contemporary literature" (www. mayaangelou.com). She also campaigned for civil rights. Angelou went through many controversies during her childhood and adulthood; her romantic life was never joyful and questions successively come to my mind: how does Angelou's “Artistic Pose” demonstrate the attitude towards the writing of her poetry? How does “In a Time” reveal Angelou’s ambivalence toward love? Angelou describes her feelings in everything she writes, and one of the thematic elements Angelou uses is the theme of antithesis. For example, in the poem “Artful Pose,” this thematic element is evident. In the verses, in their delights, some poets sing their tender melodies my nights [...] (3-5) words such as "melodies", "delights" and "hateful anger" seem to show Maya opposing the theme of love and hate, divergent feelings that reflect what is happening in one's own life. Maya married three times but she never convinced society of this. On the other hand, the verses, Some poets sing their melodies [...] I need to write false lovers. (4-12) support this thematic element because Angelou highlights the difference between love that fulfills and love that betrays. Angelou must reveal the emotional pain she suffered when her husband was unfaithful. Additionally, the diction used in the poem, with words such as "My" and "stops", seems to further suggest that Maya's rom...... middle of paper ......ngelou for the book, stating that "like Richard Wright, it opens with a scene of primitive childhood which highlights the nature of the imprisoning environment from which the self will seek to escape" (www.voices.cla.umn .edu). I agree with Sidonie because she talks about the same thing as me when explaining Angelou's childhood life and the poem "Artful Pose". Even though Angelou doesn't capture the environment, she tells about the love of the environment and explains that love is nothing but a false obsession that breaks no matter how hard a person tries to keep love together. Work Cited Angelou, Maya. The Completed Collected Poems of Maya Angelou. New York: Random House, 1995. http://www.mayaangelou.com/http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/bio/MayaAngelouhttp://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/maya_angelou/biographyhttp://voices. cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/angelou_maya.html