Maya Angelou: A Remarkable Lady
From her beginnings as a cabaret artist in her 20s to the recitation of her original poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at President Clinton’s inauguration five decades later, the multifaceted talent of Maya Angelou has earned the admiration and respect of audiences everywhere. Ken Kelley, who interviewed Maya for Mother Jones Magazine says about this remarkable woman:
“Maya Angelou speaks in the lilting cadence of the dancer she was trained to be. She moves with the sure grace of the poet she was born to be. She laughs with crackling exuberance, …and with her low, resonant, emphatic voice, she fills the room; it overflows. Transcendent as an actor, teacher, playwright, civil rights activist, and much more, Dr. Angelou is a potent mix of the spiritual and the earthy.” (Kelley, 1995)
Angelou, born in 1928 in Saint Louis, Missouri as Marguerite Annie Johnson, has become a legend in her time. Life and work intertwined, her works raise consciousness and spirit of African-Americans, particularly women trying to overcome prejudice and lack of power.
Maya learned about life from her mother, Vivian Baxter: “To be reminded by her that although I had to compromise with life, even life had no right to beat me to the ground, to batter my teeth down my throat, to make me knuckle down and call it Uncle. My mother raised me, and then freed me.” Angelou goes on to say, “…More than forty years have passed since Vivian Baxter liberated me and handed me over to life. During those years I have loved and lost, I have raised my son, set up a few households and walked away from many. I have taken life as my mother gave it to me on that strange graduation day all those decades ago.”(Angelou, M. 1994)
Angelou says, “Every person in the world who isn’t a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use. So the writer has to take the most used, most familiar objects—nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs—ball them together and make them bounce, turn them a certain way and make people get into a romantic mood; and another way, into a bellicose mood. I’m most happy to be a writer.”(Moore, 2003) Angelou tells her secret to aspiring writers “to read, and read aloud to hear your language sounds both in your mouth and in your ears.” (Hooks, 1998) She also tells young writers learn another language. (Luke and, Kourtney, 2005)
Angelou works very hard at her craft, “[B]eing a natural writer is like being a natural open-heart surgeon,” she says. “I labor over every sentence. I labor to make it seem simple. I would like to have a reader thirty pages into a book of mine before she knows she’s reading.” Maya arises at 5:00 each morning and goes to a motel room she keeps when she is writing. She takes to the room a thermos of coffee, Roget’s Thesaurus, a dictionary, a bottle of sherry, a yellow pad and pens. All else is removed from the room. She works until noon if things aren’t going well, or until one if they are. (Kelley, 1995)
Maya thinks everyone has a “conscious didactic” purpose when they write, She says she wants to tell the truth. “This is a very simple way of describing it,” she says. “ I will tell the truth. I may not tell the facts; facts can obscure the truth. You can tell so many facts you never get to the truth. (Hooks, 1998) Angelou feels that success is being able to look in the mirror when you brush your teeth and like yourself, the person you want to be and the person you’re trying to become. It puts you at ease with anyone because you know yourself. “ That is true success,” says Angelou. (Hooks, 1998)
Angelou is a prolific writer having written some 20 books, and 6 volumes of poetry. She was nominated for the Pulitzer prize for her “Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie” (1971.) In her writings, Angelou has the uncanny knack for capturing the texture and fabric of life with colloquial and distinctive language especially with imagery. For example in her best-selling autobiographical book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou uses abundant figurative language, including simile, metaphor, and personification: “For nearly a year, I sopped around the house, the store, the school and the church, like an old biscuit, dirty and inedible.” (Angelou, 1969) She paints a picture of her mother and her grandmother interacting: “Mother was a blithe chick nuzzling around the large, solid dark hen. The sounds they made had a rich inner harmony. Momma’s deep, slow voice lay under my mother’s rapid peeps and chirps.” (Angelou,1969) Angelou goes on: “After a minute or two, silence would rush into the room from its hiding place because I had eaten up all the sounds.” (Angelou,1969.) “You may cut me with your eyes” “You may shoot me with your words” (Angelou, 1978) Angelou encourages women to develop humor, she says, “Laughter is the most healing of the emotions…. And sometimes, laughter is the sweetest revenge.” Sometimes, Angelou says, she laughs to keep from crying. (Luker, 1997)
Dr. Maya Angelou’s warmth and presence are two of her strengths as a speaker. Maya makes numerous personal appearances; she speaks in her renowned “honey-sweet, molasses-slow” voice. She enunciates and draws out each word: “The most delicious piece of knowledge for me is that [pauses] I am a child of God. That is so mind-boggling, that this “it” created everything, and I am a child of “it.” It means I am connected to every thing and every body….That’s all delicious and wonderful—until I’m forced to realize that the bigot, the brute, the batterer is also a child of “it” [laughs]. Now, he may not know it, but I’m obliged to know that he is. I have to. That is my contract.” (Moore, 2003) Angelou works at being Christian. She says it is an ongoing process in her life:
I’m trying to be a Christian, and that’s hard work. I’m always amazed when somebody says, I’m a Christian. I think, already? You’ve got it already? Trying to be a Christian is like trying to be a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Shintoist: it’s not something that you achieve and then you sit back and say, now I’ve got it. I’m trying to be a Christian in every moment.(Hooks, 1998)
Angelou is a writer, a poet, a loquacious speaker, an historian, journalist, activist, filmmaker, singer, actor, and storyteller. She uplifts the spirits of all those who read her works or hear her melodious voice: women, Black Americans—all Americans. Angelou has hiked a long and tortuous uphill path from a rape at age seven, to a Ph.D., elevating herself above adversity and bringing her people along with her on the way. She sets an example for those who feel they “can’t.” Today, Maya Angelou is 78, and still she rises.
Post continues; 1308 words total. Read the rest of "Maya Angelou: A Remarkable Lady"