Caged Bird

 

"Caged Bird" is one of the most famous poems by Maya Angelou. It talks about freedom through the allegory of two birds, a free bird and a caged bird that have utterly different experiences of life, but, paradoxically, the one who sings of freedom is the caged bird that longs for it from behind the bars. Here is a lesson plan for B2 students and above with listening and speaking tasks and the key, and just below you can find a link to a video from Poems by the Pound where Caged Bird is recited. Some interesting words are: to leap, to dip, to stalk, to be clipped, a trill, a worm, the lawn, a grave. For further information about the poem, you can check the Caged Bird Video Summary by GradeSaver,  and an analysis of the poem: Review of Maya Angelou's Caged Bird by the young poet and Medical Laboratory Science student Chidiebere Sullivan Nwuguru.

Maya Angelou's metaphor of the caged bird has inspired other modern artists. A very good example is American rapper J. Cole in his song "Caged Bird", that talks about the frustration of a young black person who has been jailed and reflects about freedom, about his fellow black inmates, about an unfair society, and about his own mistakes. The rhythm, the rhymes and the alliterations in the lyrics, together with the pathos of the words, contribute to the poignancy of the song -perhaps you can compare this song to Maya Angelou's poem. Here you have a link to the lyrics of Cage Bird (feat. Omen) with the Spanish translation and below you have the official video of the song, which is recommended for C1 students.