St Paul’s Convent School
F1 (1st Term English Test)
Developing Poetry Skills (pg. 68, 69)
Woman Work
(Maya Angelou)
Study Guide
Colour Code:
abc = elements of nature
abc = concrete nouns
abc = literary device
abc = shortened and
informal words
abc = 7 sets of rhyming
couplets
abc = rhymes
abc = yearning for a rest
abc = verb
abc = repetition of “the”
abc = anaphora
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Angelou is a poet, historian, songwriter, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, singer, and civil rights activist. She was
born Marguerite Johnson, April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. She grew up in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. Maya Angelou’s life wasn’t always
silver and gold. Maya Angelou’s parents divorced when she was a young child and her and her older brother were sent to live in Arkansas with their
grandmother. At the age of seven, during a visit to her mother’s, Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. She only told her brother that this
accord and days later, her mother’s boyfriend was killed by her uncles for his act on her. She thought that her words had killed him and she stopped
speaking. She went on not speaking for five years and when she finally spoke, her and her brother moved back with their mom now in San Francisco.
Maya earned a scholarship to the Labor School to dance and act. At the age of 16, she became pregnant and dropped out of school to work and raise
her son. Angelou begin her career in a different way than most poets. She began as a dancer, then a Calypso singer and later moved to Harlem to
join the Harlem Freedom Writers. In 1959, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern
Christian leadership Conference. From 1961 to 1962 she was associate editor of The Arab Observer in Cairo, Egypt; and from 1964 to 1966 she was
feature editor of the African Review in Accra, Ghana. She returned to the U.S. in 1974 and was appointed by Gerald Ford to Bicentennial Commission
and later by Jimmy Carter to the Commission for International Woman of the Year. At the urging of her friend, writer James Baldwin, she began writing
about her life experiences. The result of her efforts became the 1970 best-selling memoir about her childhood and young adult years entitled I Know
Why the Caged Bird Sings. This memoir made Angelou an international literary star. The first woman director in Hollywood, Angelou has written,
produced, directed, and starred in productions for stage, film, and television. In 1971, she wrote the original screenplay and musical score for the film
Georgia, Georgia, and was both author and executive producer of a five-part television miniseries “Three Way Choice”. She has also written and
produced several prize-winning documentaries, including, “Afro-Americans in the Arts”, a PBS special for which she received the Golden Eagle Award.
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repetition: Maya Angelou starts off
the poem with the repetition of
“the” She then follows it with a
Woman Work
spitfire of all the chores she must
accomplish to suggest a frantic
rush. The struggle of this woman is
felt as she uses this device to set out
(Stanza 1)
how much she must actually do in a
day in an effort to exhaust the
readers by simply running through 1 I've got the children to tend (A) • form: AABB…GG
the list.
• rhythm: fast,
hammerlike and
✓ throughout the poem makes the 2 The clothes to mend (A) hurried
message all the more powerful
• nouns: concrete
• punctuation: no
3 The floor to mop (B) comma = in a
rush/no break or rest
• pause: no
✓
anaphora: to reinforce
throughout the poem
the responsibility thismakes the
4 The food to shop (B) • sentence length:
message
single mother has powerful
all the more to short
take up and the stress ✓ each beat is like do
she is enduring
5 Then the chicken to fry (C) this and do that,
endless chores of a
woman at home
6 The baby to dry (C) ✓ they create an
impression of
breathlessness and
consonance: a sound device to
intensify the hardship with hard
7 I got company to feed (D) tedious rush in the
reader’s mind, as if
consonance sounds like “t”, “c”
the woman has no
and “g”
8 The garden to weed (D) time to pause
between her list of
household chores as
9 I've got the shirts to press (E) she must undertake
within the required
She is a single mother with
space of a single
children as mentioned in the
poem thrice. They are too
10 The tots (小寶寶) to dress (E) day
✓ perfectly worded
young to help around and
and rhymed with
sympathize with their mother’s
11 The cane (甘蔗) to be cut (F) remarkable rhythm
problems and plight (困境). ✓ we can infer that
she is a mother,
12 I gotta clean up this hut (F) housekeeper, cook,
hostess, gardener,
nurse, and slave as
sibilance: to suggest the
breathlessness of the speaker 13 Then see about the sick (G) well, working in
fields to harvest
working in a huff and a puff
cotton and
14 And the cotton to pick. (G) sugarcane
The hut is a clue that the mother
informal language: to is living in poverty when she
reflect the culture of the doesn’t even own a house with a
speaker and suggest a handful of children.
compulsion (強迫) to the
woman’s chores
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Stanza 1 comments
✓ In poetic fashion, the lengthy verse rhymes all the way through, in a general AABB
fashion extending to GG. (7 pairs of rhymed lines)
✓ The longest, noticeably more lengthy than the rest of the piece, and this is used to
great effect. The first verse is in effect a list that the narrator — presumably the
woman — needs to complete in an unspecified timeframe. This verse is intentionally
lengthy to emphasize the weight of the world on this woman’s back.
✓ Rhythm: fast, to mirror the relentless (毫不留情的) pace to which she has to accomplish her
tasks and live her life.
➢ In lines 1-14, fast rhythm is created through rhyming couplets.
➢ Then suddenly, in line 15, the speaker changes the rhythm.
✓ Most of the first stanza is written in iambic foot: (the emphasis is placed on the second
syllable instead of the first)
➢ the floor to mop
➢ the tots to dress
✓ Conveys that the speaker and her family are poor and do not own much.
✓ The first imagery is in this stanza when her endless chores for the day are described in
detail.
✓ Suggests that the setting of the poem is in the United States of America, or in British North
America (likely the United States, considering the author’s heritage).
✓ Immediately, the reader is given the strong impression of a weary woman, aged beyond
her physical years, and dealing with a difficult life and situation within the confines (限
制) of her slaver’s (奴隸販子) home and business.
✓ There is no strong sense of poetic convention to this verse; rather, it’s structure and
simplicity is enough to propel its meaning forward and make a heavy impact.
✓ The verse reflects the manual labor the speaker is forced to do.
✓ Very effective in setting the mood of the poem without punctuation.
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Woman Work repetition/epiphora:
to suggest there is
nothing at all the
(Stanza 2) woman possesses
herself and so she is
left with a sense of
emptiness and wishes
personification: the mother for at least the nature
speaks to the elements of weather elements to fall on
to reflect that there is no one at all her to keep her
around her that she can appeal accompany
to (向…求助)
15 Shine on me, sunshine (A)
16 Rain on me, rain (B) Form: ABCB
She is so distressed Rhythm: slow
(苦惱) that she Nouns: abstract
resorts (憑藉) to 17 Fall softly, dewdrops (C) ✓ cry for help
✓ Follows a similar
nature to for
theme to the
mental relief.
18 And cool my brow again. (B) previous one, with
slightly
rougher imagery.
This time,
epiphora/repetition: in both verses, the word “again” concludes the thought. This
the speaker invokes
is an important repetition that highlights nostalgic peace. She is remembering the
( 祈 求 ) a storm that
last time she was able to rest, and the last time her brow was cool. Her presumed
(推測的) slavery is likely to be the cause of her agony, compelling her to tend to an will take her away
from where she is
enormous list of tasks with inadequate hours in the day
and not to stop until
she finds rest.
Stanza 2 comments
✓ Starts talking to nature during the mother’s break time
✓ No hammer-like rhythm
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Woman Work
personification: indirectly makes us
aware of how exhausted this
woman is. She even pleads with
the storm – a stronger force of (Stanza 3)
nature -- to reflect an urgency and
desperation to get away, hoping
to float away peacefully from all
the hard work
19 Storm, blow me from here
20 With your fiercest wind
It is rest she yearns for, a rest that is well-
framed by the first verse and its list of
21 Let me float across the sky
demanding and, in some cases, insulting
things to do.
22 'Til I can rest again.
Stanza 3 comments
✓ Shows the mother’s desire to leave
✓ No set rhythm = calling for a storm to create chaos
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Form: ABCB
Rhythm: slow
Woman Work
Nouns: abstract
✓ cry for help
✓ Uses winter as a frame
to suggest the idea of
She wishes to be taken away from
her duties to have a break. The
(Stanza 4) peace. The approach
the narrator takes is to
describe the wintry
poem states that she pleads for
season as a quiet,
snowflakes to cover her
peaceful time to
completely and let her “rest”,
convey the idea of a
implying that she would rather die
comfortable cold that
than to work endlessly. A person
allows her to feel restful.
would surely die from
hypothermia if buried under a 23 Fall gently, snowflakes (A) Again, the speaker is
yearning for a
pile of snow.
break from the life that
24 Cover me with white (B) is described in the first
verse and seems to
never quite let up. The
25 Cold icy kisses and (C) simple yearning for cool
and white, for kisses of
diction: the word choice is
any kind, helps to
crucial here — “gently,”
“snowflakes,” “white,” “kisses,” 26 Let me rest tonight. (B) create an image of this
weary mother whose
and “rest,” coupled with the
mind is filled with
perfect syllable and rhyming
beautiful images, and
match on the second and
whose life seems to
fourth line, create an tactile imagery/imagery of touch: the mother
deny them to her. The
atmosphere of peace and rest has been leading such a miserable life that
difficulties of
she yearns for the least amount of love from
motherhood and the
nature to get herself warmed through the
pains of her
softness of touch despite the fact that the
predicament are made
elements are flaky and icy
abundantly cleared
through verses that do
not discuss them at all,
but rather focus on
what her life makes her
dream of instead.
Stanza 4 comments
✓ Shows how much the mother needs rest
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Woman Work
(Stanza 5)
rich reference to nature
elements: as the speaker
considers that the only things
in the world she can think of
as belonging to her are the
natural phenomena that
surround her. This also seems
to confirm the theme of 27 Sun, rain, curving sky (A)
slavery suggested in the first
verse
28 Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone (B)
short sentence: a final bold
declaration of her pitiful state 29 Star shine, moon glow (C)
of well-being with reference
to the nature, confirming that
the speaker has no material 30 You're all that I can call my own. (B)
possessions at all in a tragic
tone to arouse the readers
sympathy. The struggler is
frustrated at her life when she
has no choice and chance to
do what she wants. That’s
why she resorts to expressing
her love of nature and the
beauty of life by asking for the By Maya Angelou
world’s magnificence
Stanza 5 comments
✓ Shows how lonely and destitute (赤貧的) the mother is
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Stanza 2-5 comments
✓ There are more punctuations.
✓ The writer suddenly uses quatrains (4 lines each) with an ABCB rhyme scheme.
✓ The stanzas slow down the tempo to show a final resting period by the end of the
woman’s frantic day and to calm down the overwhelmed reader with peaceful nature
imagery.
✓ Rhythm: a contrast to the first stanza. The pace is calmer and there is an undulating (起
伏的) gentleness
✓ A reference to nature, which the woman sees as the only force that has the power to
help her.
✓ A simple appeal to relieve the woman of her burden and a demand for comfort and
affection, shown in the delicacy and gentleness of the verbs.
✓ The woman endows ( 授 與 ) the elements of nature, which are non-living objects, with
human qualities, in an attempt to feel less lonely. In the absence of human company.
✓ The mother turns to nature for help to try to get away from the miserable life she has to
lead, suggesting that she has no one to turn to.
✓ It is the sun, the rain, the snow and other elements of nature that are her friends and all
that she can call her own, which proves that she does not have any materialistic
comforts in her life, and probably lives in an impoverished tragic condition.
✓ Using a literary device called apostrophe, in which the speaker is addressing nature that
is absent.
✓ Her pleads testify that nature is the only thing in her life that does not add any stress to
her and is the only outlet for her dark days
✓ The shortness of each line and verse stands in noticeable contrast to the lengthy and
demanding list that constituted the first verse, and gives this verse a more calmed
atmosphere.
✓ The repetition of the use of nature elements allows the readers to know that the woman
is connected to nature while giving us a strong sense of the wide open outdoors. These
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outdoor scenarios come into great effect because she mentioned the freest, broadest
places in her mind.
✓ The verse itself is heavily laden with natural imagery. It invokes images of sun, rain, and
dewdrops (and so plants by association). The woman seems to be petitioning (請求) to
the natural world, but she isn’t asking for anything more than for it to do what it is
supposed to do. This stands in stark contrast to the theme of slavery indicated in the
opening verse; rather than railing against (抱怨) what is unnatural, she is instead yearning
for the world to deliver her phenomenon that are entirely natural.
✓ In contrast to the first stanza, the remaining stanzas have fewer hard consonance
sounds and more soft consonances.
➢ soft “s” : shine/ softly/ storm/ sky/ rest
➢ soft “f” : fall/ float/ fiercest/ snowflakes/ leaf
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