The Caged Bird Sings

I am a new writer here and extend the greatest thanks to the readers and site administrator, Peftasteros of GUCHELLAS Global Union of Citizens, for patience with the test posts. This will be my first post and it is difficult to decide where or how to begin. My background? Purpose? Methods? Who is the audience? What is expected of me?

Despite the manifold questions and demands, I return to my center, and I speak as a person to another person, quite simply. I will share with you as I hope you share with me. And when I ask myself why I am writing this, I am reminded of Maya Angelou’s poem «Caged Bird» and this chorus:

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill,
Of things unknown
but longed for still,
And his tune is heard
on the distant hill,
For the caged bird
sings of freedom.

Perhaps we dream of a sort of freedom or clarity, and write and sing of our dreams. In finding its voice, a bird does not sing random notes. It sings when it really has something to say from its heart.

The title of Angelou’s autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) was inspired by Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem «Sympathy» (1899):

[…]
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

If I may speak further it does not do justice to the poems without the background of Angelou. Angelou suffered sexual trauma as a child and lost her voice, thinking that her voice killed her attacker when she testified against him. She suffered from racial segregation, fear of violence from the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan, and poverty. She moved to California, where I am from. Dunbar was an African-American poet who was enslaved.

And so here I am in the United States in February, which is a month dedicated to Black History in the United States. But there is so much more history of blacks in the Americas — South America, Central America, the Caribbean, etc.

Wherever or whoever, the caged bird could sing. Is it rational? Is it emotional? Is it proactive or reactive? Children’s book author Joan Walsh Angland iterated in A Cup of Sun (1967):

«A bird does not sing because he has an answer. He sings because he has a song.»

Here, I sing my song, and you sing yours.

(The author of this post can be found here as well: https://tympan8.wordpress.com/)