Poetry in it's essence

Everyday life can be expressed through poetic language to draw out the irony that has been developed within an individual or at least make the individuals emotions apparent. Most times emotions are not visible because an individual has created multiple masks to cover up what is concealed within. After a while of covering up the response becomes normal, making it difficult for the individual to show any type of emotion that would expose the agony that lies within. In the poem titled “Woman Work” by Maya Angelou, the author does a great job of converting agony into poetic language by way of releasing the agony and crying out for a savior; to rid the pain that burdens the hardworking.
The speaker of the poem is of the black working class; her voice speaks for all black working class women in the in the early 1900s. The title “Woman Work” leads any reader to draw upon numerous connections between how a woman’s work is more of a job imposed on her rather than of free choice. Once a woman enters the working field she receives low wage and little to any benefits, leaving no room to advance from the preordained position. This is evident based on the transition from stanza one to stanza two. There is a sense of never ending torment in stanza one, but in stanza two the woman still has this sense of hope for a better tomorrow. The woman says “I gotta clean up this hut. Then see about the sick and the cotton to pick…Shine on me, sunshine. Rain on me rain” (Angelou 11-15). The woman is trapped in a lifestyle to where she is programmed to complete tasks assigned to her. It is evident she does not want to be in the place she is in based on her cry for freedom.
The woman speaks to her unknown savior of the agony the duels within her weakened frame. The woman’s dismay is made evident by the tone the author choose to list the work set out for the woman in. The author uses consonance and end rhyme in the first stanza to get the list to flow and impact its readers mind spontaneously. The author starts off with, “I’ve got the children to tend. The clothes to mend. The floor to mop; the food to shop” (1-4). Just by reading those lines a sense of imposed agony can be concluded about the speaker of the passage. Through use of poetry devices messages can be comprehended by reading any two to four lines in this poem. In stanzas two, three, four, and five the poetry devices that are used to convey the messages of the author are cacophony and consonance. The development of rhymes occurs in every other sentence because the agony begins to be for forgotten in the moment while the woman seeks refuges from her state of being. As her agony lessens the poetic language begins to disappear in some sense. The emotions used to create poetic language fades for that moment in time causing the “unpleasant arrangement of sounds”.
The poem “Woman Work” is a great example of the effect emotions has on the use of poetic language. It causes readers to draw connection based on the language used within. The black culture is represented through the uses of slang terminology; which is very effective in helping the reader understand the message without having to seek after outside sources.

P.S. I did not have internet access for the whole end