Sympathy (poem)

Dunbar, one of the most prominent African-American writers of his time, wrote the poem while working in unpleasant conditions at the Library of Congress.

[1] He was hired to work as an attendant at the Library of Congress on September 30, 1897, but the experience was unpleasant and strained his declining health.

All out of doors called and the trees of the shaded streets of Washington were tantalizingly suggestive of his beloved streams and fields.

The torrid sun poured its rays down into the courtyard of the library and heated the iron grilling of the book stacks until they were like prison bars in more senses than one.

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, – When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings – I know why the caged bird sings!

"[6] In The Cambridge History of African American Literature, the scholar Keith Leonard described "Sympathy" as following Standard English norms and felt that its "celebration of nature" was "common to Romantic poets" but that it also "betrays Dunbar's social anxieties.

[12] Maya Angelou titled her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), from a line in "Sympathy", at the suggestion of jazz musician and activist Abbey Lincoln.

[18] In 2014, Craig Hella Johnson and Cincinnati's Vocal Arts Ensemble commissioned Minneapolis-based composer Jake Runestad to set Dunbar's poem for choir as 'Why the Caged Bird Sings'.