<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/FONT>Eleventh grade.\u00a0 New high school.\u00a0 Literature class with Mrs. P. Smith who knew her literature and expected everyone else to know it as well.\u00a0 There was the required Shakespeare that not many are able to escape.\u00a0 To this day, I find Macbeth’s Soliloquy to be a very dramatic piece of literature that I would love to recite with high drama.\u00a0 Anything less than a dramatic rendering seems an insult to this particular piece.<\/p>\n <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/FONT>Then came the big surprise in the small package.\u00a0 The option or the assignment to read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings<\/span> by Maya Angelou.\u00a0 At the time I read the book, Angelou was already an established author so she was already down the road of success when I “discovered” her.\u00a0 Reading Maya Angelou write of her story in Stamps, Arkansas allowed me to relate to her life growing up as a child in The South, navigating the idiosyncrasies of Southern living (or during her time, Southern surviving).\u00a0 That may have been one of the first times in literature that I actually related to what someone wrote without them having to over explain it.\u00a0 Yet, for a story so accessible and familiar, there was still so much more to learn.\u00a0 So much with which to find awe.\u00a0 There was a bold willingness to try new things that made her my first hero.\u00a0 The limitations of her environment were by no means a limitation to the possibilities that she saw in the future.\u00a0 Maya Angelou blazed a trail in her life that was not necessarily comparable to the fame-seekers of today.\u00a0 The world, in my opinion, is greater for it. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/FONT>Inspiration can come from many sources.\u00a0 Although I was writing prior to attending the second high school, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings<\/span> proved to be an early inspiration to continue writing. <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/FONT>Don’t just take my word for how good of a book this is, buy<\/a> it!\u00a0 Or, borrow it from the library or from someone who owns it.\u00a0 Or Kindle<\/a> <\/span>it.\u00a0 Or “liberate” it from someone’s bookshelf to be definitely returned at a future date.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eleventh grade.\u00a0 New high school.\u00a0 Literature class with Mrs. P. Smith who knew her literature and expected everyone else to know it as well.\u00a0 There was the required Shakespeare that not many are able to escape.\u00a0 To this day, I find Macbeth’s Soliloquy to be a very dramatic piece of literature that I would love … Continue reading Book One: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"pfspirit","author_link":"https:\/\/www.petitefreespirit.com\/index.php\/author\/pfspirit\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Eleventh grade.\u00a0 New high school.\u00a0 Literature class with Mrs. P. Smith who knew her literature and expected everyone else to know it as well.\u00a0 There was the required Shakespeare that not many are able to escape.\u00a0 To this day, I find Macbeth’s Soliloquy to be a very dramatic piece of literature that I would love…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petitefreespirit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petitefreespirit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petitefreespirit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petitefreespirit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petitefreespirit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petitefreespirit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":704,"href":"https:\/\/www.petitefreespirit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petitefreespirit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petitefreespirit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petitefreespirit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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