Maya Angelou
Author and poet, best known for her autobiographies.
Last updated
Clinton Library · via Wikipedia: Maya Angelou · Public domain
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, the younger of two children. After her parents’ marriage ended when she was three, she and her older brother were sent alone by train to live with their paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Her grandmother prospered during the Great Depression and World War II by running a general store. When Angelou was seven, she and her brother were returned to their mother’s care in St. Louis.
At age eight, she was sexually abused and raped by her mother’s boyfriend. After he was found guilty and jailed for only one day, he was murdered, likely by her uncles. Believing her voice had caused his death, Angelou became mute for nearly five years.
During this silence, she developed a deep love for books and literature, and a teacher, Mrs. Beulah Flowers, helped her speak again by challenging her to recite poetry. Flowers introduced her to authors including Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as Black female writers. At 14, Angelou moved with her brother to Oakland, California, to live with their mother. At 16, she became the first Black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco, a job she pursued with her mother’s encouragement.
Later career
Three weeks after finishing school, at age 17, she gave birth to her son, Clyde. Angelou later worked a series of odd jobs before becoming a poet and writer. She was active in the Civil Rights Movement, working with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. In 1982, she was appointed the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.
Her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969, brought her international acclaim and focused on her childhood and early adult experiences. She published six more autobiographies, three books of essays, and several poetry collections. In 1993, she recited her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration, becoming the first poet to do so since Robert Frost in 1961. She received dozens of awards and over 50 honorary degrees, and her works are widely used in schools and universities, though they have also faced attempts at banning.
Lore & Background
Angelou studied and began writing poetry at a young age. After her rape at the age of eight, as recounted in her first autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), she dealt with her trauma by memorizing and reciting great works of literature, including poetry, which helped bring her out of her self-imposed muteness. She considered herself a playwright and poet when her editor Robert Loomis challenged her to write Caged Bird, but she is best known for her autobiographies.
Many of her readers identify her as a poet first and an autobiographer second, but, like Lynn Z. Bloom, many critics consider her autobiographies more important than her poetry. Critic William Sylvester has stated that although Angelou's books have been best-sellers, her poetry has "received little serious critical attention." Bloom also believes that her poetry is more interesting when she recites them, calling her performances "characteristically dynamic" and saying that Angelou "moves exuberantly, vigorously to reinforce the rhythms of the lines, the tone of the words. Her singing and dancing and electrifying stage presence transcend the predictable words and phrases."
Reader's Guide
Maya Angelou's significance lies in her transformative impact on American literature and civil rights. Her series of seven autobiographies, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), broke new ground by publicly discussing her personal life, including childhood trauma. Her publisher, Random House, placed the poems of her previous volumes in The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (1994), perhaps to capitalize on her popularity following her reading of "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993. The volumes included in the collection are Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971), Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well (1975), And Still I Rise (1978), Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?
(1983), and I Shall Not Be Moved (1990). Also included was "On the Pulse of Morning." Angelou's publisher placed four previously published poems in a smaller volume, entitled Phenomenal Woman, in 1995. In 2015, a year after Angelou's death, Random House published an expanded collection entitled Maya Angelou: The Complete Poetry, adding a dozen of her poems published after "On the Pulse of Morning," including those in Celebrations, Rituals of Peace and Prayer (including "A Brave and Startling Truth" and Mother: A Cradle to Hold Me), plus "His Day Is Done" (published after the death of Nelson Mandela in 2013) and the previously unpublished "Amazement Awaits" (commissioned for the 2008 Summer Olympics).
More in Authors & Poets
Test yourself
Three questions drawn from this entry’s sources. Pick an answer to check it.
Answers checked against the source article
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Maya Angelou (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced