Rating: 
Summary: Pleasurable Conversation With Maya...
Review: "A Song Flung Up To Heaven" was one of my book club selections. As much as I admire and respect Maya Angelou, I may not have read this, had it not been a book club selection. I thought I already knew enough about her life...I saw the Oprah interview (smile). But that is another positive reason to join a book club. It pushes you to expand your reading selection horizons.The author writes well and illustrates her points well. Since this book is autobiographical in nature...character development was automatic. I felt as if I was up close and personal with Maya Angelou. Just two sister friends chatting about her life's journey and lessons. It was also a history lesson in the chapters of her life that crossed paths with Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Beah Richards, President Clinton and other recognizable names. I was able to view her more as an ordinary woman instead of this larger than life awesome woman that has made her indelible mark in this world. I say this partly because she was taught some lessons in life that we all have to learn. Her mother spoke words of wisdom like most...such as "Look to the hills from whence cometh your help." "You can tell a person by the company he keeps." and "Never let your right hand know what your left hand is doing." Just as Maya visited the Audubon Ballroom for peace after Malcolm X's death, Upon visiting New York some years ago,I too needed to see where the Audubon Ballroom once was located. I needed to envision in my own mind his last earthly chosen destination, for my own sense of peace or closure for the man that I admired for his great contribution. So even though Maya's journey has been opposite mine, we all have common wants, needs and desires (no matter how great or small). In reference to relatinships and meeting the other woman in her man's life, she stated, "...we were both rendered speechless by laughter. We were both intelligent women who had been had by the same man. In more ways than one." As you flow from chapter to chapter...nearer to the end...you will smile because she still lives and will write again.
Rating: 
Summary: Notes from an eyewitness to history
Review: "A Song Flung Up to Heaven" is the continuation of Maya Angelou's series of autobiographical narratives. This volume opens in the mid 1960s as Angelou returns to the United States from Africa with the intention of working with Malcolm X. The narrative follows Maya's life in Hawaii, California, and New York. Maya reflects on her work as a stage performer and aspiring writer, and reminisces about her relationships with her son, her mother, and her friends. The book is really fascinating as it tells of her relationships and encounters with many noteworthy people: Martin Luther King Jr., Nichelle Nichols, Rosa Guy, and others. The author paints a particularly warm and moving portrait of the great writer and activist James Baldwin. "Song" continues to explore many of the important themes of her other books, such as the relationship between Africans and African-Americans. Angelou does a good job of capturing intimate human relationships and placing them in the context of great movements in history. The book also looks at the genesis of her celebrated book "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." This is a well-written, very engaging book; I read all 212 pages in literally a single evening. I recommend as companion texts to this wonderful book the following: the previous volumes of Angelou's autobiography, the essays of James Baldwin, the autobiography of Malcolm X, Audre Lorde's "Zami," and any good collection of King's essays and speeches.
Rating:
Summary: Another splendid addition to Angelou's memoir collection!
Review: A Song Flung Up To Heaven is a continuation of the experiences of Maya Angelou. If you've read any of her previous memoirs, you will know that Dr. Angelou has lead and continues to led a rich and full life - something that cannot be covered in one or two books. This sixth memoir starts with Dr. Angelou's return to the U.S. from Ghana, West Africa. It ends with the time she was about to write her first memoir, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. In between, the book is filled with her encounters with various people and her experience during some disturbing times in American history - the murder of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, and the Watts riots in California. I most enjoyed reading about my favorite personalities from Dr. Angelou's past memoirs - Vus Make, her handsome, intelligent, charismatic African husband; Bailey Johnson, her older, caring big brother; Guy Johnson, her intelligent, independent son and Vivian Baxter, her smart mother. Reading Dr. Angelou's continued memoir is like sitting with an old, trusted and respected friend; there's a treasured feeling as you listen to her stories as they come one after the other. Fafa Demasio
Rating: 
Summary: Disappoingtingly thin
Review: Boy I feel terrible even writing this. I love Maya Angelou's writing so much that if she were to walk into my office right now, I'd kiss the ground that her poetic feet had touched. But this book is so thin -- both in terms of number of pages and detail -- that it screams "contractual obligation" to me. There is very little of the poetry, wisdom, description of the human condition or even the wit that usually makes her writing so fulfilling and telling. Basically, she was going to work for Malcolm X, but then he was killed, and it bummed her out. She was in L.A. during the riots, and it bummed her out. She was going to work for Dr. King, and he was killed, and it bummed her out. James Baldwin told her to get hold of herself, and she stumbled into writing her first book, the now-classic "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Obviously she must have had some kind of personal or professional relationship with both Malcolm X and Dr. King for them to have invited her to work for them. But we get absolutely no description of their relationship, the characters of either man, or what drew her to two figures of such power and -- importantly -- such opposing political and social outlooks. I will continue to wait for the next great book from Dr. Angelou. Sadly for me and, I suspect, many of her readers and fans, this is not it.
Rating:
Summary: Like listening to history come alive!
Review: Heard A SONG FLUNG UP TO HEAVEN, written and read by Maya
Angelou--the sixth volume of an autobiographical series that began
more than 30 years ago with the appearance of I KNOW WHY THE
CAGED BIRD SINGS. I had read CAGED BIRD, but nothing in-between . . . I now am
tempted to go back to see what I've missed because I liked this
latest volume so much . . . it was like listening to history come
alive. Angelou has certainly lived an amazing life, having worked
with Malcom X and then Martin Luther King, Jr. . . . she was
there when Watts exploded in violence, and she also got
to visit black churches all over America to support the
Poor People's March. She never had it easy . . . as a child, she was the victim of
abuse . . . and throughout the rest of life, she has had to
overcome various other obstacles and prejudices . . . yet
she has managed to survive and succeed and, as such,
made her life (and this story) an inspirational one.
Rating:
Summary: Satisfied...
Review: Like I already predicted, the book was excellent, a page-turner, and excellent word-play.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT AS GOOD AS I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE
Review: Maya Angelou is not afraid to speak on her life experiences.She is not afraid to express her emotions at all.Very direct and sraight speaking she is.Very talented and gifted. Cassandra Dillon
Author of "Reality Poems".
Rating:
Summary: Her journey through life.
Review: Ms Angelou's A Song Flung Up To Heaven is a collection of her memoirs collaborated together to form this book of great historical events and how they effected her life. I was surprised at some of the events that have taken place in her life and how she chose to handle them. I was also baffled at the lifestyle she was living while networking with some of the black elite entertainers and leaders, which demonstrates it is not what you know but who you know. Ms Angelou hits hardest on her relationships with James Baldwin and the African, whom she never names. Although I thought she should have gone into more detail about her son Guy, she did express her love for him as well as her brother who had a profound affect on her stability as a woman. Ms. Angelou highlighted the Watts riots that took place in the 60's and all though she went into great detail about the riots, I think I may have missed the effects it had on her, nonetheless the actual events were well written and educational. I would definitely recommend this book. Stacy Campbell
Apooo Bookclub
Rating:
Summary: a song flung up to heaven book reaview
Review: Nick short A song flung up to heaven book review
3/4/04 There were a lot of things I found in the book a song flung up to heaven. One of those things I found was that it was very insightful. I learned a lot about the history of blacks and whites in the United States. The chapters in the book could be very complex and sometimes very maundering. Maya Angelo is one of those writers that writes one chapter and explains that chapter in the next. Once you read one chapter she builds it so you can understand the second chapter. From my read prospective and reading level I found the book very easy to understand. The reading was very mature and infer stable. Her style is like a poem except in does not rhyme. The book a song flung up to heaven is an autobiography on a famous and by my option the best poet and writer ever. This book is one of the six books in her series. At the beginning it betrays her life as a black woman on a plan heading for the United States. She is one board a plain full of whites. The time was 1960 and blacks and whites would rage war to each other. Maya is forced to coop with the lost of one of her closed friends Malcolm x at the beginning of t he book. After the death of a close friend Malcolm x Angelou feels there is no reason for her to stay in America, but soon realizes that she needs to be part of the black community and fighting against poverty and saving the rights of blacks and pour people. During the novel she goes many different trials she is forced to understand the truth behind the fact that even blacks can be anti-black. She also talks of a controlling lover from Africa who she says "he tears my heart out of my chest and wars it on his shoulder". This is saying that the lover she had was taking away what she wanted to in life and not allowing her to for fill her wants and needs. She then realizes than she needs to live life for her self and is able to leave him. When Malcolm x died she was very angry and confused do to how they forgot about what contributions he gave to team. Maya angelus is not afraid to use dialoged that may be offensive because she is confident with what she writes. For example- the use of the word "niggard" because she is black and it might help the reader under stand the substance. Maya Angelo is a writer and a person who has fought along with the black community and protected the blacks and pours people what she writes. She is a visionary though her autobiography- miss Angelo shows her option about the angry nature between the blacks and whites. She does this se well that her option becomes our opion.She carried the weight of t h black people on her back. She still supports the pour and black commodity in what she writes in her books and poems.
Rating:
Summary: Still I Rise
Review: THIS POEM WAS THE BEST POEM I HAVE EVER READ AND I LOVE TO READ IT OVER AND OVER SO I GIVE THIS POEM 5 STARS
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