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Maintain your self-identity. Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself. This quote is meant to inspire readers to maintain their autonomy, even in the face of those who would define them.
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‘In and Out of Time’ by Maya Angelou is a thoughtful poem about love, strife, and the dawn of a clearer future for two people. The speakeraddresses a specific listener throughout this poem, someone who is likely their romantic partner. Or, at the very least, someone very close to them. They describe briefly the struggles that they went through to e...
‘In and Out of Time’ by Maya Angelou is a twenty-eight-line poem that is contained within a single stanza of text. The lines do not follow a specific rhyme scheme but there are numerous examples of rhymesused throughout the poem. For example, “there” and “hair” are at the ends of lines fourteen and fifteen as well as “mine” and “time” at the ends o...
Angelou engages with themes of love, relationships, and strife in ‘In and Out of Time.’ The poet’s speaker never clearly defines their relationship to the listener nor do they describe what struggles they overcame. But, they do make it very clear that their love for this person is incredibly long last and will endure any other struggles that might ...
Angelou makes use of several literary devices in ‘In and Out of Time.’ These include but are not limited to enjambment, metaphors, and alliteration. A metaphor is a comparisonbetween two, unlike things that does not use “like” or “as.” In this case, Angelou uses a metaphor to compare the listener’s hair to a beehive into which the listener reaches ...
Lines 1-10
In the first lines of ‘In and Out of Time,’ the speaker begins by using a few lines that appear again at the end of the poem, used as a refrain. These lines have the feeling of a mantra, something someone might say to themselves or to another to make sure that they remain true and that they never forget them. The speaker is telling the listener that things have changed for them. The sun has come out and the mist, which symbolizesstrife and darkness, has gone away. It’s possible to see into th...
Lines 11-21
In the following lines, the feelings of freedom brought into the poem through the image of the sun clearing the skies, continue. The speaker references their partner’s hair, suggesting that it’s in braids, humming when they let it down “like a hive of honey bees.” This lovely similehelps create a clear image of the scene and the experience the speaker is trying to describe. Line fifteen includes the sound “Mmmm…” this mimics the sound that someone would make as they admire something they love...
Lines 22-28
The poem concludes with almost the same exact lines it opened with. The speaker reiterates the fact that they can see their “long way home” and that they two belong to one another. The last lines repeatthe title of the poem, using the phrase “in and out” three times in a row.
Readers who enjoyed ‘In and Out of Time’ should also consider reading some of Maya Angelou’s other poems.For example: 1. ‘Equality’ — is evocative of a great deal of Angelou’s work. It deals with topics of understanding another’s life and the future. 2. ‘On Aging’—expresses the speaker’s beliefs about what it means to grow old and how she wants to ...
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
Let’s take a closer look at some of the key symbols in the poem so that we can understand its meaning more clearly. The Yellow Wood. The first symbol we encounter in ‘The Road Not Taken’ is also the setting for the poem: the yellow wood through which the poem’s speaker is travelling. On one level, the wood symbolises autumn: the wood is ...
Dec 1, 2019 · The idea of inhabiting time much as we ‘live in’ a house, say, is a novel one and encourages us to view the ‘days’ of our lives in a new way. We have analysed this poem here. 9. Maya Angelou, ‘Passing Time’. Here’s a short poem from probably the best-known African-American poet of the twentieth century, Maya Angelou (1928-2014).
Summary. ‘Time’ by Allen Curnow utilizes personification in order to describe how time manifests itself. In the first few lines, Curnow uses the repetition of “I am” to depict time in specific ways. He writes that time is an abstract force that can be compared to the rust on railways, mileage on signs, dust, distance, education, and the ...
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
Learn More. "Out of Time" is Australian poet Kenneth Slessor's mournful, mystical reflection on time—here personified as capital-T "Time," a godlike figure who's nonetheless at the mercy of his own law. The poem's speaker feels helpless before Time's currents: like the ocean, Time sweeps along endlessly and impassively, rushing toward the ...
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1819 was a fruitful time for Shelley, and many of his famous poems were written that year. In total, he composed over 6,000 lines of poetry. 2 Shelley began to write “Ode to the West Wind” in October 1819 while staying in Florence. The poem was created to be added to a collection of poems put forth by the publisher Charles Ollier that would ...
