With the deception of television and magazines being spread across the world, our society has become obsessed with the idea of perfection. We have become so engrossed with this notion that we have completely forgotten what truly matters—the beauty that comes from within a person. We are not in any way preventing this repulsive concept from spreading to the youth; in fact, we are encouraging this thought process to continue into future generations. Although our society has had many triumphs, the pursuit of perfection is futile and is corrupting the minds of an impressionable nation. By examining works of poetry, we see exactly how writers express their feelings about the ill concept of idealism that our society has created. Beloved poets Maya Angelou and Jane Yolen are the ones who fiercely challenge the idea of perfection and society’s obsession with it, through their…show more content… When comparing the two, the most recognizable difference is the length. “Still I Rise” is much longer than “Fat is Not a Fairy Tale”, but I think the length works to both of the poem’s advantage. Angelou’s poem consists of eight stanzas each of which contain four lines, until the last two which have six and nine. This impressive length is mostly likely used for elaboration on the intensity that the writer feels for her subject; accordingly, she wants her voice to be heard on various issues and readers to pay attention. Throughout the poem repetition is used and four stanzas ask rhetorical questions like, “Does my sassiness upset you?”(Angelou). In the third stanza, there is shift to future tense to show the audience that she, nor any African American woman, will stand for the oppression that she has been subjected to any longer and will now rise above it. If this poem was shorter, it most likely would not have been as powerful because she wouldn’t have been able to captivate her audience as well she