As
a child, Maya Angelou had a traumatic experience that rendered her speechless
for five years. During those dreadful years in Stamps, Arkansas, she found hope
and encouragement by reading every book in her segregated school and public
library.
She memorized poems by Paul
Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, William Shakespeare
and Edgar Allen Poe. This was an important part of her healing process, and
they became friends for life. It was an older female friend, however, who helped
her regain her voice. A voice that made Angelou an international celebrity who
creates poetry, fiction and non fiction and is an advocate for human and civil
rights in English, French, Spanish, Italian and in a West African language called
Fanti.
Angelou is also an educator,
historian, director and producer of serious dramas, but she is most famous for
her poetry and autobiographical fiction. Her most famous efforts being, "I Know
Why the Caged Bird Sings" and "Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diie."
Her writings are celebrations
of sisterhood for those courageous women who sustained and encouraged her over
the years and taught her how to survive and prevail.
The feeling of sisterhood
is apparent in her friendship with Oprah Winfrey with whom she occasionally
develops television programs.
Another theme that appears
in Angelou's work is that we ore human beings-more alike than we are unalike.
It is the differences that strengthen and enrich us while making us more interesting.
When President-Elect William
Clinton asked her to create and recite a dedicatory poem for his inaugural ceremony,
she accepted immediately. For her, creating a poem to honor the nation was important
because it was an opportunity to strengthen our country in the finest way.
On a cold, wind swept day
in January 1993, a tall, stately woman, descendant of slaves, and now -- Reynolds
Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University used poetry to urge
her fellow Americans to:
"Lift up your eyes upon
This day breaking for you
Give birth again
To the dream."
