Accident
Accident - fact Summary
Publication Context and Form
accident presents Maya Angelou's sober observation of appearances and pretenses in human relations and society. In free verse, the speaker withdraws to observe someone spreading a magical, colorful performance, only to see through the artifice. The palette and dyes distort perception until the stark, racial reality, described as the naked Black-White truth, emerges. The poem, though brief and intimate, turns on authenticity: what is seen vs. what is advertised, and how race and desire shape connection. Written and published in 1978 in And Still I Rise, it foregrounds Angelou's ongoing attention to truth-telling in personal and social life.
Read Complete AnalysesTonight, when you spread your pallet of magic, I escaped. Sitting apart, I saw you grim and unkempt. Your vulgarness not of living, your demands not from need. Tonight, as you sprinkled your brain-dust of rainbows, I had no eyes. Seeing all I saw the colors fade and change. The blood, red dulled through the dyes, and the naked Black-White truth.
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