Because the cage can't stop her!
I don't know if it's a story or poem, but I know it's the title of something written by Maya Angelou. I was doing some stream of consciousness writing today to try and clear my mind. I was feeling stifled, trapped, caged-in, under a thumb, and the oft heard rhetorical question popped into my mind: "Why DOES the caged bird sing?" And, just as quickly, the answer came to me: "In defiance! Because the cage can't stop her."
I guess it's time for me to read Ms. Angelou's reason.
6 comments:
i've browsed angelou's poems and writings at the bookstore and every single time i come away humbled. she is awesome.
if you do feel caged & under the thumb, sing girl sing!
about time someone wondered that aloud. i'd look it up too, but i'm too lazy ;p so do let us know what you find. i'm terrible - i can't stand reading poetry! i know! i'll take a novel any day.
hope all is well as can be.
xo phinney
I am quite sure it is a book. I first read it in 1995. I was in bed for six weeks (no exaggeration here, six whole weeks) from a bad bad bad case of poison oak that I got during a field exercise at Camp Pendleton. I was bore stiff. I had read all the novels of Jane Austen that my local library had, I had to send people out on errands and they were not particularly patient with my invalid status, okay it wasn’t people it was my thirteen year old daughter, and the library was next door, but my mother kept luring her away with promises of chocolate cake and freedom from nurse duty. Where was I? Oh yeah, so I was done with all the Austen novels, then I went on to Wuthering Heights, but my delirious between the steroids, the fever, and my over all itching pain made me start hallucinating, or was that Katherine and Heathcliff. I am not sure, but then I remembered a short story that I had read and the author’s name and sent my daughter to find something by her at the library. She brought back Why a Cage Bird Sings back. Come to find out the short story was anthologized and was actually a chapter in that very book. Do you know supposedly Angelou was the first female streetcar operator in San Francisco? It was her dream job!
Good book...I have it on my bookshelf.
It's kind of the same idea as "come out swingin" or "against all odds."
In "Sweeney Todd", the young heroine looks to her caged birds....
"If I cannot fly, let me sing"
V
Y'know, I've never read the book, but your interpretation sounds good to me ~ you can cage the body but you can't chain the soul.
Speaking of interpretations, is that your original piece? If so ~ you are singin' baby!
(If not, well I still love it. Damnit.)
I'm sorry you're feeling stifled. Give me a call. I know just what you need ~ Laguna waits for thee... :)
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