Her vivid and startlingly real descriptions of everything from a wild and raucous church revival to her sometimes pitiful crippled Uncle Willie illustrate her life perfectly, easily transitioning from one happening to another. The description of the truculent and heinous rape she endured at the formative age of eight is as disturbing as it is brutally honest and straight-forward, which seem

Her self-awareness obviously also gives her insight into her own self; she doesn't claim to be wise or all-knowing, and she was often naive as a child and teen; but what perhaps sets her above is that in retrospect she sees her past artlessness, naivete and absurd insecurities. An instance is the event that indirectly led to her pregnancy at a very young sixteen years old. When questioning her own sexual orientation because of a suspected growth on her body, she decides to consult her seemingly all-knowing mother; her mother quickly reassures her that what is happening to her body is natural. Maya responds with: "I thought maybe I was turning into a lesbian". This inane paranoia led to her early pregnancy when the prior sexual imperviousness that had been a consequence of the tremendous violation she experienced faded and she was overwhelmed with a dire need to affirm her femininity and heterosexuality by eng

Some common words found in the essay are:
Southern Black, Maya Angelou's, Uncle Willie, Uncle Willie---occasionally, Uncle Williewas, Accelerated English, Sings Published, led pregnancy, uncle willie, southern black, black girl, southern black girl, Bantam Books,
Approximate Word count = 615
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)