Maya Angelou experienced a life-changing event at the vulnerable age of eight: her mother's boyfriend raped her. As a result, she chose to remain mute for five years due to the emotional trauma this caused. Soon, a family friend named Mrs. Flowers, a wealthy, intellectual woman from Stamps, Arkansas, where her grandmother resided, read with Angelou and helped Maya express herself through writing. Mrs. Flowers taught Maya that “words mean more than what is written on paper. It takes the human voice to imbue them with meaning” (qtd. in Nelson). These poems eventually helped Angelou find the courage to speak again. Maya Angelou's poetry contains bold messages and gives voice to people who, at times, don't have the courage or ability to speak for themselves. As critic Harold Bloom rightly comments, Angelou's literary techniques "enhance her poetry's ability to heal, liberate, and empower its readers" (Bloom's Modern Critical Views: Maya Angelou 130). This idea of ​​empowerment is particularly evident in Angelou's three poems "Still I Rise", "Phenomenal Woman", and "A Kind of Love Some Say". became the inspiration for many of the themes of his poetry. Angelou was born on April 4, 1928 in St Louis to Bailey and Vivian Johnson. At the age of three and a half, her parents divorced and she moved to Stamps, Arkansas to live with her grandmother. According to Afro-American Writers After 1955: Dramatists and Prose Writers, when she was eight years old during a visit to St. Louis with her mother, Vivian Baxter, “she was raped by her mother's boyfriend, a taciturn 'big brown bear' who was found 'dropped... [or] kicked to death' soon after” (Blo...... middle of paper......can Writers After 1955: Dramatists and Prose Writers. Ed. Thadious M. Davis and Trudier Harris-Lopez. Detroit: Gale Research, 1985. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 38. Literature Resource Center Web May 3, 2011. Cookson, Sandra “Review of the Complete Collection of Poems of Maya Angelou and Phenomenal Woman Women in World Literature. "Today 69.4 (Fall 1995): 800 Rpt in Poetry Criticism Ed. Hagen, Lyman B A Woman's Heart, a Writer's Mind, and a Poet's Soul: A Critical Analysis of the Writings of Maya Angelou Maryland: University Press of America, 1997. www.googlebooks.com Nelson, Emmanuel S. African American Autobiographers: A Source Book. Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. www.googlebooks.com