When Great Trees fall

By Maya Angelou
Pre-poetry

• Think of a time when you lost a loved one…

• What were some of the emotions you
experienced?
• If you could write a letter to them what would
you mention?
When Great
Trees Fall
When great trees fall,
Rocks on distant hills
shudder,
Lions hunker down
In tall grasses,
And even elephants
Lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
In forests,
Small things recoil into silence,
Their senses
Eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
The air around us becomes
Light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
See with
A hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
Examines,
Gnaws on kind words
Unsaid,
Promised walks
Never taken.
Great souls die and
Our reality, bound to
Them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
Dependent upon their Nurture,
Now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
And informed by their
Radiance Fall away.
We are not so much maddened
As reduced to the unutterable ignorance Of
Dark, cold
Caves.
And when great souls die,
After a period peace blooms,
Slowly and always
Irregularly. spaces fill
With a kind of
Soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
To be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. be and be
Better. for they existed.
Let’s unpack…

‘When Great Trees Fall‘ by Maya Losing a loved one is compared to

Angelou is a moving poem that the enormous alterations that
discusses the impact lost loved result from the falling of strong, big
ones have on the living. trees in the forest in this metaphor.

As the poem goes on, she openly

The poem ends with a message of
discusses “great souls” and how
regeneration and optimism,
people deal with loss. The third
asserting that “We can be…better”
stanza talks about one’s incapacity
following the passing of a loved
to breathe and how one’s memory
one. Since they were there.
gets sharper.
Poetic Techniques

Five stanzas that are divided into unbalanced groupings of lines.

Stanzas are anything from 5-14 lines long.

Poetic devices such as repetition, alliteration, enjambment

Figurative language such as metaphors, enjambment and

repetition can also be identified.
Analysis of
the Poem
The metaphor of “rocks on faraway hills
shudder[ing]” illustrates how death affects
everyone, including those who are far away,
by making them feel hopeless and uneasy.
The “hunkering down” lions represent how
some people may respond to the loss. A
Stanza I
certain level of panic and the urgent need to
get away and find the loss brings refuge on
However, the sense of desolation that results
from losing a significant person cannot be
avoided.

The speaker uses nature and animals to

illustrate the impacts of death, which enables
the reader to relate to the emotion through
the visuals that are provided.
Stanza
II
This verse carries on
This implies that both
the mighty and the
the metaphor. The little mourn the Even the smallest
speaker now focuses passing of a great woodland
on the “little things” person. This may
imply that children,
creatures “recoil
after previously into quiet” when a
who are physically
describing how the smaller than adults, large tree falls in
passing of a great experience the the forest.
person affects large repercussions of the
things. loss more keenly.

This represents how

This is a reference individuals become silent
to the emotional and when they are depressed.
spiritual numbness There are no consoling
that frequently words. Since their “senses
accompanies the [are] degraded beyond
passing of a terror,” they are not even
significant person. sure of what they are
feeling.
Stanza III

The speaker stops using metaphors in the third verse and speaks simply about
death.
Similar to how a massive tree’s collapse sends waves miles away, the passing of a
great soul impacts the hundreds or thousands of souls they touched while they were
alive.
Even the air seems to become “light” and “septic,” according to the speaker. When a
significant loved one passes away, it is difficult to breathe.
The speaker talks about how individuals who have experienced loss have a fleeting
“hurtful clarity” in which they may see and comprehend what a priceless soul has
been lost.
Stanza III

Even if they are priceless,

these memories also strike
A person’s memory is
the soul like a blade. The Sometimes, after losing a
frequently “suddenly
speaker then discussed the loved one, one will regret
heightened” when loss
regret that may frequently “nice things spoken”.
strikes.
follow the loss of a loved
one.

The speaker has obviously She considers the walks

gone through the type of she committed to taking
loss that left her wishing with that special someone.
fervently for more time to Her unfulfilled promises
express her feelings for the have left her with a
person who was snatched nagging pang of regret and
from her too soon. despondency.
Stanza IV The speaker provides insight into the
psychological and emotional impact of losing a
loved one in this verse.

Losing a “great soul” in this lyric refers to the

loss of a soul who significantly impacted the
speaker’s daily existence.

.The speaker describes how “our souls” might

rely on the care of another, and how when that
person passes away, it can make us feel little
and as though our own souls have shrunk.

She talks about how one’s mind might be

“enlightened by their [Great One’s] brightness”
and how individuals who are grieving can have
the feeling that their thoughts “slip away.”
Stanza IV

Using the second-

person point of
However, she feels
view, the speaker This shows that the
more desperation
expresses speaker is not The speaker
than fury. They
sympathy for those necessarily furious empathizes with
likened this
who have after experiencing everyone who has
dejection to a
experienced this a loss, even if experienced this
“cold, gloomy
loss by saying, “We anger may be one overwhelming
cave.” The
are not so much among the despondence after
emotions are
maddened as sentiments that losing a significant
“unutterable”
consigned to the result from the other
because they are
unutterable loss.
so intense.
ignorance of dark,
frigid caverns.”
Stanza V

The speaker seems to be It took place “slowly and

The speaker of this poem
suggesting that time has always erratically.” This
gives hope to everyone who
given room for this mending shows that even while she
has experienced loss in the
to take place. She says that was gradually recovering and
last stanza by describing the
“after a while,” she could feeling at peace, she still had
mending that has taken place
experience “peace times of despondency and
in the death’s wake.
blooming.” agony.

She characterized the

Although losing the loved one
experiences as having “a
brought back some of the
type of peaceful electric
anguish, it also brought
vibration” in between the
consolation and solace to her.
healing.
Stanza V

Even though they were “never to be the same,” she writes that gradually her senses were
“restored.”

She hears the one lost in the back of her mind and in the backdrop of all she does. The
phrase “they existed” is whispered to her.

They were real. Her life now has new meaning and purpose because of this. She asserts that
she can “be better” because this great one already existed.

All those who have endured loss will find immense hope in this poem’s conclusion. The
speaker keeps empathizing with those who have also lost loved ones.

It gives the readers the impression that they are not alone. There is hope for healing and joy
in the middle of a profound loss, even if things will never be the same and even though
there will always be grief and despair.