Review of American poet Maya Angelou’s poem ‘The lesson’

Review of American poet Maya Angelou’s poem ‘The lesson’ I request readers to read the poem first from the link https://www.poetseers.org/contemporary-poets/maya-angelou-poems/the-lesson/ and this review next. Thanks. When someone intimates another and kills the latter’s spirit, or hope or self-belief, is that not a crime? Is that crime in anyway lesser than a murder of a living person, that is, her physique? The racists, the judgmental, the patriarchs and the tyrants get away with countless verbal and societal assaults, violence and murders day in and day out. If a person can survive it, is that not miraculous? Isn’t that person an inspiring daredevil? Nevertheless, the assaults and aggression happen again and again and open old wounds and frozen trauma within. The deep hurt and insulted feel is as traumatic and unbearable as ever. That is what Angelou points in the expression ‘yet I keep on dying’. There is not enough lethality and force in the weapons of the aggressors to kill the victim in one blow, still the injury is so grievous that the victim feels partly dead every time. In just 56 words, Angelou is capable of depicting the plight of the coloured and the marginalized falling a prey to the racists. But she expects the coloured and downtrodden to keep alive their spirits and the fight. This poem represents the pain and relentless fight of the oppressed for centuries. The reader’s conscience is shaken up.