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“Caged Bird” is a poem written by Maya Angelou and published in her 1983 poetry collection "Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?” The title refers to Angelou’s 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. This memoir, in turn, borrowed its title from African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar's 1893 poem, “Sympathy,” in which the writer portrays a speaker who sympathizes with a caged bird.

Like much of Angelou’s work, the poem draws on the coexisting pains and joys of Black Americans living under individual and systemic racism. In this piece, Angelou compares such an experience to that of a caged bird who sings to express his longing for a freedom he has never known.

Structured in six stanzas of free verse, the poem uses the allegory of two birds to represent the divergent realities of those living under freedom and oppression. The first bird soars through the clouds, dipping “his wing in the orange sun rays” and daring “to claim the sky.” There is a sense of boundless freedom for this bird, as he is content to indulge in the everyday joys of nature and asks no more from the world than food to eat and sky to explore.

In sharp contrast, the other bird is locked inside “a narrow cage” and can “seldom see through / his bars of rage.” Whereas the first bird enjoys unlimited boundaries, thinking only of the wind, sunlight, and worms to which he is entitled, the caged bird—whose “feet are tied” and “wings are clipped”—cannot see the freedom he so deeply craves.

While the free bird may have more reason to sing, it is ironically the caged bird who sings, not because he is happy, but because it is a way of expressing his longing for a better life—of imagining and escaping if only for a little while.

Like several of Angelou’s other poems, this piece repeats whole stanzas, mirroring the structure of a song’s call and refrain. “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.” By repeating this stanza twice, Angelou mirrors the persistence of the trapped bird’s cry, driving home the notion that, even in the midst of oppression, one’s relentless ability to dream and express oneself can be its own kind of freedom.

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