Maya Angelou

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Maya Angelou
Image:Maya angelou.jpg Maya Angelou speaking at the groundbreaking of the African Burial Ground on October 5, 2007
Born	April 4 1928 (1928-04-04) (age 81) Saint Louis, Missouri
Occupation	Poet, dancer, producer, playwright, director, author
Nationality	American
Website	www.mayaangelou.com

Maya Angelou (IPA: /ˈmaɪə ˈændʒəloʊ/^[1]), born Marguerite Ann Johnson, April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri,^[2] is an American poet, memoirist, actress and an important figure in the American Civil Rights Movement. In 2001 she was named one of the 30 most powerful women in America by Ladies Home Journal.^[3] Maya Angelou is known for her series of six autobiographies, starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, (1969)^[4] which was nominated for a National Book Award and called her magnum opus.^[5] Her volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die (1971) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.^[6]

Contents 1 Personal life 1.1 Early years 1.2 Adulthood and early career 1.3 Later career 1.4 "Clothes" hoax 2 Works 2.1 Literature 2.1.1 Autobiographies 2.1.2 Personal essays 2.1.3 Children's books 2.1.4 Poetry 2.1.5 Plays 2.1.6 Screenplays 2.1.6.1 Films 2.1.6.2 Television 2.2 Directing 2.3 Acting 2.3.1 Television appearances 2.3.2 Films and plays 2.4 Radio 2.5 Recordings 2.5.1 Scores 2.5.2 Spoken word albums 3 Honors and awards 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Personal life

[edit] Early years

Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4 1928, to Bailey Johnson, a doorman and naval dietitian, and Vivian Baxter Johnson, a nurse, real estate agent, and, later, merchant marine. Angelou's brother, Bailey Jr., gave her the nickname "Maya."^[7] When she was three and her brother four, their parents' "calamitous marriage" ended, and their father sent them alone by train to live with his mother, Mrs. Annie Henderson, in Stamps, Arkansas.^[8] Angelou's first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, recounts the first seventeen years of her life.

Four years later, the children's father "came to Stamps without warning" ^[9] and returned them to their mother's care in St. Louis. At age eight, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. She confessed it to her brother, who told the rest of their family. Mr. Freeman was jailed for one day but was found kicked to death four days after his release. Subsequently, she became mute, believing, as she has stated, "I thought if I spoke, my mouth would just issue out something that would kill people, randomly, so it was better not to talk." She remained nearly mute for five years.^[6]

Angelou and her brother were sent back to their grandmother once again. Angelou credits a close friend in Stamps, teacher Beulah Flowers, for helping her speak again, as well as introducing her to classic literature. In 1940, when she was thirteen, she and her brother returned to live with her mother in San Francisco, California; as the war raged, she attended George Washington High School and by took lessons in dance and drama on a scholarship at the California Labor School. Before graduating, she worked as the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco.^[10] Three weeks after completing school, she gave birth to her son, Guy Johnson, who also became a poet.^[11] To support herself and her son, she worked as a shake dancer in night clubs, fry cook in hamburger joints, dinner cook in a Creole restaurant, and removed paint from cars in a mechanic's shop.^[10] She also "managed a house of prostitution," where she discovered "a certain talent for administration."^[12]

[edit] Adulthood and early career

Angelou married her first husband, Greek sailor Tosh Angelos in 1952; the marriage ended three years later. She adopted her professional name by combining her childhood name with the feminine declension of her husband's surname.^[13] (Ms. Angelou tends not to admit how many times she has been married, "for fear of sounding frivolous.")^[14] She toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess in 1954–1955, studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows, and recorded her first record album, "Miss Calypso," in 1957. By the end of the 1950s, Angelou moved to New York City, where she acted in off-Broadway productions and met artists and writers active in the Civil Rights Movement. In the early 1960s, Angelou briefly lived with South African freedom fighter Vusumi Make, and moved with him and her son Guy to Cairo, Egypt, where she became an associate editor at the weekly newspaper The Arab Observer. In 1962, her relationship ended, and she and Guy moved to Ghana. She became an assistant administrator at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama, was a feature editor for The African Review, and did some acting and playwriting.^[10]

Angelou became close friends with Malcolm X in Ghana and returned to America in 1964 to help him build a new civil rights organization, the Organization of African American Unity. After Malcolm X's assassination shortly thereafter, and at the request of Martin Luther King, she became the Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.^[13] King was assassinated on her birthday (April 4) in 1968. (She did not celebrate her birthday for many years for that reason.)^[15] Inspired by a meeting with her friend James Baldwin, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and Feiffer's wife Judy, she dealt with her grief by writing her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,^[16] which catapulted her to international fame and critical acclaim.

[edit] Later career

In 1973, Angelou married Paul du Feu, an English-born carpenter and remodeler, and moved with him and her son to Sonoma, California. The years to follow were some of Angelou's most productive years as a writer and poet. She composed music for movies, wrote articles, short stories, and poetry for several magazines, continued to write autobiographies, produced plays, lectured at universities all over the country, and served on various committees. She earned an Emmy nomination for a role in the television mini-series Roots in 1977, wrote for television, and composed songs for Roberta Flack.^[17] Her screenplay, Georgia, Georgia, was the first original script by a black woman to be produced.^[18] It was during this time when Angelou met Oprah Winfrey and became her mentor.^[19] Angelou has used the same editor throughout her writing career, Robert Loomis, an executive editor at Random House, who has been called "one of publishing's hall of fame editors."^[20]

Angelou divorced de Feu and returned to the south eastern United States in 1981, where she accepted the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.^[21] In 1993, she recited her poem, "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration, the first poet to do so since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961.^[22] In 2006, Angelou became a radio talk show host for the first time, hosting a weekly show for XM Satellite Radio's "Oprah & Friends" channel.^[23] In 2007, she became the first African-American woman and living poet to be featured in the Poetry for Young People series of books from Sterling Publishing.^[24]

Since the 1990s, Angelou has been a busy participant in the lecture circuit. In 1993, she was making about eighty speaking appearances a year, at a standard fee of $15,000.^[22] By the early 2000s, Angelou traveled to her speaking engagements and book tours stops by tour bus. She "gave up flying, unless it is really vital .. not because she was afraid, but because she was fed up with the hassle of celebrity."^[14] In 1998, Angelou went on her first cruise, given by her friend Oprah Winfrey, in celebration of her 70th birthday. Over 150 people were in attendance.^[15]

In 2002, Angelou lent her name and writings to a line of products from the Hallmark Greeting Card Company.^[25]

[edit] "Clothes" hoax

Starting in March of 1999, a poem called Clothes that eventually came to be attributed to Angelou circulated on the internet. The poem makes a number of false and defamatory claims labeling various clothing manufacturers (such as FUBU, Timberland, and Ecko clothing lines) as racists and members of the KKK. On her website, Angelou has denied that she wrote the poem.^[26].^[27]

[edit] Works

[edit] Literature

[edit] Autobiographies

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969.
• Gather Together in My Name, 1974.
• Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas, 1976.
• The Heart of a Woman, 1981.
• All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes, 1986.
• A Song Flung Up To Heaven, 2002.
• The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou, 2004.

[edit] Personal essays

• Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now, 1993.
• Even the Stars Look Lonesome, 1997.
• Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories With Recipes, 2004.

[edit] Children's books

• Life Doesn't Frighten Me, 1993.
• My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken and Me, 1994.
• Kofi and His Magic, 1996.
• Maya's World series, 2004.

[edit] Poetry

• Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die, 1971.
• Oh Pray My Wings are Gonna Fit Me Well, 1975.
• And Still I Rise, 1978.
• Shaker, Why Don't You Sing, 1983.
• Now Sheba Sings the Song, 1987.
• I Shall Not Be Moved, 1990.
• "On the Pulse of Morning", 1993.^[28]
• The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou, 1994.
• Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems for Women, 1995.
• "A Brave and Startling Truth", 1995.
• "From a Black Woman to a Black Man", 1995.
• "Amazing Peace", 2005.
• "Mother, a Cradle to Hold Me", 2006.
• "Celebrations, Rituals of Peace and Prayer", 2006
• Poetry for Young People, 2007.

[edit] Plays

• Caberet For Freedom, 1960.
• The Least of These, 1966.
• Gettin' Up Stayed On My Mind, 1967.
• Ajax, 1974.
• And Still I Rise, 1976.
• Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, 1988.

[edit] Screenplays

[edit] Films

• Georgia, Georgia, 1972.
• All Day Long, 1974.
• Madea's Family reuinon,2006.

[edit] Television

• Writer, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1979.
• Writer, Brewster Place, 1990-1991.

[edit] Directing

• Down in the Delta, 1998.^[29]

[edit] Acting

[edit] Television appearances

• Tapestry, 1975 (play).
• Circles, 1975 (play).
• Sister, Sister, 1982.
• Touched By An Angel, 1995.
• Moesha, 1999.
• Sesame Street, 1999.^[30]
• Runaway, 2000
• The Oprah Winfrey Show, 2004.

[edit] Films and plays

• Porgy and Bess, 1954-1955.
• Calypso, 1957.
• The Blacks, 1960.
• Mother Courage, 1964.
• Look Away, 1973.
• Roots, 1977 (Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress).
• Poetic Justice
• How to Make an American Quilt, 1995.
• Madea's Family Reunion, 2006.

[edit] Radio

• Talk Host, Oprah and Friends, XM Satellite Radio, launched 2006.^[23]

[edit] Recordings

[edit] Scores

• Miss Calypso, 1957.
• For the Love of Ivy, 1968.
• Georgia, Georgia, 1972.
• All Day Long, 1974.

[edit] Spoken word albums

• The Poetry of Maya Angelou, 1969.
• Women in Business, 1981.
• Phenomenal Woman, 1995.
• Been Found, 1996.

[edit] Honors and awards

Main article: List of honors and awards for Maya Angelou

Angelou has been honored by universities, literary organizations, government agencies, and special interest groups. Her honors include a National Book Award nomination for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,^[5] a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her book of poetry, Just Give Me A Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die,^[6] a Tony Award nomination for her role in the 1973 play Look Away^[31], an Emmy nomination for her role as Kunta Kinte's grandmother in the television miniseries "Roots," and three Grammys for her spoken word albums.^[18] In 1995, Angelou's publishing company, Bantam Books, recognized her for having the longest-running record (two years) on The New York Times Paperback Nonfiction Bestseller List.^[32] She has served on two presidential committees,^[18][33] and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000.^[34] Musician Ben Harper has honored Angelou with his song "I'll Rise," which includes words from her poem, "And Still I Rise."^[35] She has been awarded over thirty honorary degrees.^[4]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official website
• Maya Angelou on Oprah & Friends Radio
• Maya Angelou reciting her inaugural poem, 1993 (YouTube)
• Maya Angelou at the Internet Movie Database
• 1987 interview with Maya Angelou by Don Swaim at Wired for Books.bg:Мая Анджелоу

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