Women, Gods and Monsters (Note 5)

Volume 1, Number 2

I taught this class the spring of President Clinton's inauguration. Angelou's poem seemed an appropriate way to begin a literature survey class -- regardless of the poem's literary value -- since it offered an occasion in which a literary text was considered relevant and important. The discussion of the poem focused on two questions with which I began the survey class: what is literature? and what purpose does it serve? The poem was not available in book form at the time, but it was widely published in newspapers. I used the Austin American-Statesman, January 21, 1993 (page A11), in which the poem was accompanied by an article that compared the poem to Robert Frost's inaugural poem, "The Gift Outright," and in which the author (Marilyn Milloy) discussed the poem's political significance.