So since Maya Angelou died I’ve been taking a look at her works. I’d never really read much of them before.

Verdict so far is that her poetry is just not very good. It’s mawkish, maudlin and sounds like something I would’ve written in junior high. It’s surprisingly bad given then esteem in which it is held.

However, her prose is great. It’s everything her poetry is not.

I’ve noticed this in a lot of writers: if they write great poetry, their prose is awful, and vice versa. Why this is, I am not really sure.