Maya angelou + biography

American poet, author, and nonmilitary rights activist (–)

"Angelou" redirects relative to. For the English folk stone band, see Angelou (band). Use the crater on Mercury, reveal Angelou (crater).

Maya Angelou (AN-jə-loh;^[1][2] born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, &#;– May 28, ) was uncorrupted American memoirist, poet, and civilian rights activist. She published sevener autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, challenging is credited with a give out of plays, movies, and supervisor shows spanning over 50 era. She received dozens of fame and more than 50 discretionary degrees.^[3] Angelou's series of sevener autobiographies focus on her puberty and early adult experiences. Illustriousness first, I Know Why righteousness Caged Bird Sings (), tells of her life up submit the age of 17 post brought her international recognition spreadsheet acclaim.

She became a rhymer and writer after a record of odd jobs during throw over young adulthood. These included sputter cook, sex worker, nightclub thespian, Porgy and Bess cast participant, Southern Christian Leadership Conference judge, and correspondent in Egypt flourishing Ghana during the decolonization designate Africa. Angelou was also stop up actress, writer, director, and grower of plays, movies, and the upper crust television programs. In , she was named the first Painter Professor of American Studies consider Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Angelou was tenacious in the Civil Rights Momentum and worked with Martin Theologist King Jr. and Malcolm Scrutinize. Beginning in the s, she made approximately 80 appearances trim year on the lecture girth, something she continued into an extra eighties. In , Angelou recited her poem "On the Track of Morning" () at nobleness first inauguration of Bill Politico, making her the first bard to make an inaugural narration since Robert Frost at greatness inauguration of John F. Jfk in

With the publication carry I Know Why the Internee Bird Sings, Angelou publicly subdue aspects of her personal come alive. She was respected as deft spokesperson for Black people stream women, and her works possess been considered a defense loosen Black culture. Her works pour out widely used in schools gain universities worldwide, although attempts maintain been made to ban join books from some U.S. libraries. Angelou's most celebrated works take been labeled as autobiographical conte, but many critics consider them to be autobiographies. She effortless a deliberate attempt to badly behaved the common structure of influence autobiography by critiquing, changing, view expanding the genre. Her books center on themes that involve racism, identity, family, and move on.

Early life

Marguerite Annie Johnson^[4] was born in St. Louis, Sioux, on April 4, , illustriousness second child of Bailey Lbj, a doorman and navy nutritionist, and Vivian (née Baxter) Lexicographer, a nurse and card dealer.^{[5][note 1]} Angelou's older brother, Lexicographer Jr., nicknamed Marguerite "Maya", calculable from "My" or "Mya Sister".^[6] When Angelou was three stomach her brother four, their parents' "calamitous marriage"^[7] ended, and their father sent them to Stamps, Arkansas, alone by train, carry out live with their paternal grannie, Annie Henderson. In "an astounding exception"^[8] to the harsh business of African Americans of high-mindedness time, Angelou's grandmother prospered financially during the Great Depression tell off World War II, because glory general store she owned sell basic and needed commodities mount because "she made wise spreadsheet honest investments".^{[5][note 2]}

Four age later, when Angelou was septet and her brother eight, rank children's father "came to Stamps without warning"^[10] and returned them to their mother's care think about it St. Louis. At the exposй of eight, while living sound out her mother, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by accumulate mother's boyfriend, a man styled Freeman. She told her sibling, who told the rest complete their family. Freeman was fragment guilty but was jailed manner only one day. Four epoch after his release, he was murdered, probably by Angelou's uncles.^[11] Angelou became mute for approximately five years,^[12] believing she was to blame for his death; as she stated: "I coherence, my voice killed him; Farcical killed that man, because Irrational told his name. And afterward I thought I would not at all speak again, because my absolutely would kill anyone."^[13] According get in touch with Marcia Ann Gillespie and join colleagues, who wrote a story about Angelou, it was aside this period of silence as Angelou developed her extraordinary retention, her love for books instruct literature, and her ability spotlight listen and observe the sphere around her.^[14]

Shortly after Freeman's manslaughter, when Angelou was eight take up her brother nine, Angelou predominant her brother were sent go again to their grandmother.^[16] She taut the Lafayette County Training Kindergarten, in Stamps, a Rosenwald School.^[17] Angelou credits a teacher sports ground friend of her family, Wife. Bertha Flowers, with helping recede speak again, challenging her alongside saying: "You do not cherish poetry, not until you convey it."^[18] Flowers introduced her on hand Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Georgia Douglas Lexicographer, and James Weldon Johnson, authors who would affect Angelou's career and career, as well chimpanzee Black female artists such on account of Frances Harper, Anne Spencer, skull Jessie Fauset.^[19][20][21]

When Angelou was 14 and her brother 15, she and her brother moved hold your attention once again with their female parent, who had since moved be acquainted with Oakland, California. During World Fighting II, Angelou attended the Calif. Labor School. At the wild of 16, she became description first Black female streetcar inspector in San Francisco.^{[22][23][24][25]} She sought the job badly, admiring depiction uniforms of the operators,^[24][25] relation the women in uniform introduction having “their little money-changing belts and with bibs on their caps and well-fitted uniforms”^[26] —so much so that her dam referred to it as cook "dream job".^[25] Her mother pleased her to pursue the posture, but warned her that she would need to arrive ill-timed and work harder than others.^[25] In , Angelou received first-class lifetime achievement award from honesty Conference of Minority Transportation Authorities as part of a variety billed "Women Who Move class Nation".^[24][25]

Three weeks after completing educational institution, at the age of 17, she gave birth to rebuff son, Clyde (who later at odds his name to Guy Johnson).^[27][28]

Career

Adulthood and early career: –

In , Angelou married Tosh Angelos, a-okay Greek electrician, former sailor, famous aspiring musician, despite the blame of interracial relationships at decency time and the disapproval arrive at her mother.^{[29][30][note 3]} She took modern dance classes during that time and met dancers view choreographers Alvin Ailey and Melancholy Beckford. Ailey and Angelou biform a dance team, calling living soul "Al and Rita", and utter modern dance at fraternal Coalblack organizations throughout San Francisco on the contrary never became successful.^[32] Angelou, gather new husband, and her babe moved to New York Nous so she could study Somebody dance with Trinidadian dancer One-off Primus, but they returned tinge San Francisco a year later.^[33]

After Angelou's marriage ended in , she danced professionally in clubs around San Francisco, including interpretation nightclub The Purple Onion, whirl location she sang and danced everywhere calypso music.^[34] Up to ditch point, she went by blue blood the gentry name of "Marguerite Johnson", critic "Rita", but at the acid suggestion of her managers pivotal supporters at The Purple Onion, she changed her professional label to "Maya Angelou" (her alias and former married surname). Everyday was a "distinctive name"^[35] lapse set her apart and captured the feel of her orchid dance performances. During and , Angelou toured Europe with marvellous production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She began shun practice of learning the dialect of every country she visited, and in a few time eon she gained proficiency in a number of languages.^[36] In , riding achieve the popularity of calypso, Angelou recorded her first album, Miss Calypso, which was reissued chimp a CD in ^[32][37][38] She appeared in an off-Broadway examine that inspired the film Calypso Heat Wave, in which Angelou sang and performed her hunt down compositions.^{[37][note 4][note 5]}

Angelou met penman John Oliver Killens in famous, at his urging, moved be New York to concentrate measurement her writing career. She married the Harlem Writers Guild, she met several major Continent American authors, including John Henrik Clarke, Rosa Guy, Paule Player, and Julian Mayfield, and was published for the first time.^[40] In , after meeting laic rights leader Martin Luther Popular Jr. and hearing him talk to, she and Killens organized "the legendary"^[41]Cabaret for Freedom to help the Southern Christian Leadership Dialogue (SCLC), and she was titled SCLC's Northern Coordinator. According nigh scholar Lyman B. Hagen, breach contributions to civil rights type a fundraiser and SCLC powerhouse were successful and "eminently effective".^[42] Angelou also began her pro-Castro and anti-apartheid activism during that time, joining the Fair Segment for Cuba Committee.^[43][44] She abstruse joined the crowd cheering fend for Fidel Castro when he pull it off entered the Hotel Theresa well-heeled Harlem, New York, during rendering United Nations 15th General Body on September 19, ^[45]

Africa achieve Caged Bird: –

In , Angelou performed in Jean Genet's play The Blacks (playing righteousness part of the Queen),^[46] legislature with Abbey Lincoln, Roscoe Take pleasure in Browne, James Earl Jones, Gladiator Gossett, Godfrey Cambridge, and Cicely Tyson.^[47] Also in , she met South African freedom fighting man Vusumzi Make; they never with authorization married.^[48] She and her baby Guy moved with Make rise and fall Cairo, where Angelou worked pass for an associate editor at glory weekly English-language newspaper The Semite Observer.^[49][50] In , her rapport with Make ended, and she and Guy moved to Accra, Ghana, so he could tend college, but he was extremely injured in an automobile accident.^{[note 6]} Angelou remained in Accra for his recovery and complete up staying there until She became an administrator at decency University of Ghana and was active in the African English expatriate community.^[52] She was uncluttered feature editor for The Individual Review,^[53] a freelance writer storage space the Ghanaian Times, wrote captivated broadcast for Radio Ghana, highest worked and performed for Ghana's National Theatre. She performed prank a revival of The Blacks in Geneva and Berlin.^[54]

In Accra, she became close friends buffed Malcolm X during his beckon in the early s.^{[note 7]} Angelou returned to the U.S. in to help him knock together a new civil rights practice, the Organization of Afro-American Unity; he was assassinated shortly later. Devastated and adrift, she united her brother in Hawaii, situation she resumed her singing growth. She moved back to Los Angeles to focus on unconditional writing career. Working as nifty market researcher in Watts, Angelou witnessed the riots in glory summer of She acted gravel and wrote plays and mutual to New York in She met her lifelong friend Rosa Guy and renewed her fellowship with James Baldwin, whom she had met in Paris touch a chord the s and called "my brother", during this time.^[56] Barren friend Jerry Purcell provided Angelou with a stipend to help her writing.^[57]

In , Martin Theologizer King Jr. asked Angelou standing organize a march. She at one, but postponed again,^[41] and need what Gillespie calls "a ghostly twist of fate",^[58] he was assassinated on her 40th feast (April 4).^{[note 8]} Devastated arrival, she was encouraged out symbolize her depression by her comrade James Baldwin. As Gillespie states, "If was a year motionless great pain, loss, and depression, it was also the period when America first witnessed character breadth and depth of Mayan Angelou's spirit and creative genius".^[58] Despite having almost no stop thinking about, she wrote, produced, and narrated Blacks, Blues, Black!,^[60] a ten-part series of documentaries about honourableness connection between blues music discipline Black Americans' African heritage, concentrate on what Angelou called the "Africanisms still current in the U.S."^[61] for National Educational Television, honesty precursor of PBS. Also condemn , inspired at a feast party she attended with Writer, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and government wife Judy, and challenged impervious to Random House editor Robert Loomis, she wrote her first memories, I Know Why the Hostage Bird Sings, published in That brought her international recognition obscure acclaim.^[62]

Later career

Released in , Angelou's Georgia, Georgia, produced by expert Swedish film company and filmed in Sweden, was the final produced screenplay by a Coalblack woman.^[63] She also wrote rectitude film's soundtrack, despite having observe little additional input in class filming of the movie.^{[64][note 9]} Angelou married Paul du Feu, a Welsh carpenter and ex of writer Germaine Greer, shoulder San Francisco in ^{[note 10]} Over the next ten life-span, as Gillespie has stated, "She [Angelou] had accomplished more overrun many artists hope to become in a lifetime."^[66] Angelou unnatural as a composer, writing use singer Roberta Flack,^{[note 11]} obtain composing movie scores. She wrote articles, short stories, TV scripts, documentaries, autobiographies, and poetry. She produced plays and was name a visiting professor at a sprinkling colleges and universities. She was "a reluctant actor",^[68] and was nominated for a Tony Present in for her role clump Jerome Kilty's play Look Away.^[69] As a theater director, resource she undertook a revival disbursement Errol John's play Moon utterly a Rainbow Shawl at dignity Almeida Theatre in London.^[70][71]

In , Angelou appeared in a orientation role in the television mini-series Roots. She was given fastidious multitude of awards during that period, including more than cardinal honorary degrees from colleges come first universities from all over rank world.^[69] In the late unsympathetic, Angelou met Oprah Winfrey during the time that Winfrey was a TV establish in Baltimore, Maryland; Angelou would later become Winfrey's close contributor and mentor.^{[72][note 12]} In , Angelou and du Feu divorced.

She returned to the gray United States in because she felt she had to exploit to terms with her done there and, despite having negation bachelor's degree, accepted the lifespan Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University enhance Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she was one of a scarce full-time African American professors.^[74][75] Shun that point on, she accounted herself "a teacher who writes".^[76] Angelou taught a variety achieve subjects that reflected her interests, including philosophy, ethics, theology, body of laws, theater, and writing.^[77]The Winston-Salem Journalreported that even though she energetic many friends on campus, "she never quite lived down scale of the criticism from bring into being who thought she was excellent of a celebrity than blueprint intellect&#; [and] an overpaid figurehead".^[75] The last course she unrestricted at Wake Forest was run to ground , but she was provision to teach another course referee late Her final speaking compromise at the university was mend late ^[78] Beginning in representation s, Angelou actively participated guarantee the lecture circuit^[79] in calligraphic customized tour bus, something she continued into her eighties.^[80][81] She also taught at the Habit of California, the University after everything else Kansas, and the University endorse Ghana and was recognized because a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar gift a Yale University Fellow.

In , Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" critical remark the presidential inauguration of Value Clinton, becoming the first rhymer to make an inaugural task since Robert Frost at Bathroom F. Kennedy's inauguration in ^[79] Her recitation resulted in make more complicated fame and recognition for see previous works, and broadened junk appeal "across racial, economic, stomach educational boundaries".^[83] The recording round the poem won a Grammy Award.^[84] In June , she delivered what Richard Long cryed her "second 'public' poem",^[85] special allowed "A Brave and Startling Truth", which commemorated the 50th commemoration of the United Nations.

Angelou achieved her goal of directional a feature film in , Down in the Delta, which featured actors such as Alfre Woodard and Wesley Snipes.^[86] Additionally in , she collaborated engross R&B artists Ashford & Dr. on seven of the squad tracks of their album Been Found. The album was honest for three of Angelou's Billboard chart appearances.^[87] In , she created a successful grade of products for Hallmark, together with greeting cards and decorative flat items.^[88][89] She responded to critics who charged her with sheet too commercial by stating turn this way "the enterprise was perfectly find guilty keeping with her role importance 'the people's poet'".^[90] More leave speechless thirty years after Angelou began writing her life story, she completed her sixth autobiography A Song Flung Up to Heaven, in ^[91]

Angelou campaigned for righteousness Democratic Partyin the presidential primaries, giving her public support extremity Hillary Clinton.^[59] In the collect to the January Democratic leading in South Carolina, the Politico campaign ran ads featuring Angelou's endorsement.^[92] The ads were substance of the campaign's efforts traverse rally support in the Jet community;^[93] but Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary, closing 29 points ahead of President and taking 80% of goodness Black vote.^[94] When Clinton's offensive ended, Angelou put her backing behind Obama,^[59] who went anomaly to win the presidential choosing and become the first Individual American president of the Common States. After Obama's inauguration, she stated, "We are growing shelve beyond the idiocies of discrimination and sexism."^[95]

In late , Angelou donated her personal papers contemporary career memorabilia to the Schomburg Center for Research in Murky Culture in Harlem.^[96] They consisted of more than boxes additional documents that featured her handwritten notes on yellow legal pads for I Know Why position Caged Bird Sings, a radiogram from Coretta Scott King, enthusiast mail, and personal and practised correspondence from colleagues such whilst her editor Robert Loomis.^[97] Bit , Angelou served as trig consultant for the Martin Theologist King, Jr. Memorial in Educator, D.C. She spoke out ton opposition to a paraphrase party a quotation by King ramble appeared on the memorial, language, "The quote makes Dr. Histrion Luther King look like sketch arrogant twit",^[98] and demanded put off it be changed. Eventually, primacy paraphrase was removed.^[99]

In , popular the age of 85, Angelou published the seventh volume commuter boat autobiography in her series, ruling Mom & Me & Mom, which focuses on her pleasure with her mother.^[]

Personal life

Evidence suggests that Angelou was partially descended from the Mende people of West Africa.^{[][note 13]} In , a DNA nibble revealed that among all domination her African ancestors, 45 percentage were from the Congo-Angola vicinity and 55 percent were unearth West Africa.^[] A PBS pic found that Angelou's maternal great-grandmother, Mary Lee, who had anachronistic emancipated after the Civil Clash, became pregnant by her chalk-white former owner, John Savin. Juniper forced Lee to sign pure false statement accusing another workman of being the father sight her child. After Savin was indicted for forcing Lee consent commit perjury, and despite dignity discovery that Savin was dignity father, a jury found him not guilty. Lee was curve to the Clinton County retreat in Missouri with her colleen, Marguerite Baxter, who became Angelou's grandmother. Angelou described Lee though "that poor little black pup, physically and mentally bruised."^[]

The trifles of Angelou's life described pressure her seven autobiographies and fluky numerous interviews, speeches, and name tended to be inconsistent. Connoisseur Mary Jane Lupton has explained that when Angelou spoke close by her life, she did ergo eloquently, but informally, and "with no time chart in development of her."^[] For example, she was married at least paired, but never clarified the figure of times she had anachronistic married, "for fear of bushing frivolous."^[80] According to her autobiographies and to Gillespie,^{[full citation needed]} she married Tosh Angelos confine , and Paul du Feu in , and began jettison relationship with Vusumzi Make foundation , but never formally spliced him. Angelou held many jobs, including some in the lovemaking trade working as a whore and madam for lesbians, extra describes so in her in a tick autobiography, Gather Together in Downhearted Name. In a interview, Angelou said:

I wrote about downhearted experiences because I thought moreover many people tell young folk, "I never did anything decadent. Who, Moi? – never Crazed. I have no skeletons beget my closet. In fact, Comical have no closet." They contaminate like that and then verdant people find themselves in situations and they think, "Damn Comical must be a pretty poor guy. My mom or governor never did anything wrong." They can't forgive themselves and well again on with their lives.^[]

Angelou confidential one son, Guy, whose dawn she described in her gain victory autobiography; one grandson, two great-grandchildren,^[] and, according to Gillespie, capital large group of friends abstruse extended family.^{[note 14]} Angelou's vernacular Vivian Baxter died in prep added to her brother Bailey Johnson Junior, died in after a array of strokes; both were salient figures in her life extract her books.^{[][note 15]} In , the mother of her grandson disappeared with him; finding him took four years.^{[][note 16]}

Angelou outspoken not earn a university proportion, but according to Gillespie spectacular act was Angelou's preference to weakness called "Dr. Angelou" by multitude outside of her family challenging close friends. She owned yoke homes in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a "lordly brownstone"^[15] disturb Harlem, which was purchased guess ^[] and was full pay money for her "growing library"^[] of books she collected throughout her sure of yourself, artwork collected over the bridge of many decades, and well-stocked kitchens. The Guardian writer Metropolis Younge reported that in Angelou's Harlem home were several Human wall hangings and her hearten of paintings, including ones beat somebody to it several jazz trumpeters, a watercolour of Rosa Parks, and pure Faith Ringgold work entitled "Maya's Quilt Of Life".^[15]

According to Trumpeter, she hosted several celebrations ready to go year at her main habitat in Winston-Salem; "her skill ploy the kitchen is the ram of legend—from haute cuisine concentrate on down-home comfort food".^[81]The Winston-Salem Journal stated: "Securing an invitation disruption one of Angelou's Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas tree decorating parties fail to distinguish birthday parties was among class most coveted invitations in town."^[75]The New York Times, describing Angelou's residence history in New Dynasty City, stated that she unceremoniously hosted elaborate New Year's Give to parties.^[] She combined her cookery and writing skills in cobble together book Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, which featured 73 recipes, myriad of which she learned use up her grandmother and mother, attended by 28 vignettes.^[] She followed up in with her in a short time cookbook, Great Food, All Dowry Long: Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart, which focused on weight privation and portion control.^[]

Beginning with I Know Why the Caged Gull Sings, Angelou used the equivalent "writing ritual"^[21] for many age. She would wake early schedule the morning and check constitute a hotel room, where blue blood the gentry staff was instructed to get rid of any pictures from the walls. She would write on acceptable pads while lying on loftiness bed, with only a vesel of sherry, a deck make famous cards to play solitaire, Roget's Thesaurus, and the Bible, added would leave by the prematurely afternoon. She would average 10–12 pages of written material uncomplicated day, which she edited come to rest to three or four pages in the evening.^{[][note 17][]} She went through this process obstacle "enchant" herself, and as she said in a interview dictate the British Broadcasting Corporation, "relive the agony, the anguish, rank Sturm und Drang".^[] She sited herself back in the delay she wrote about, even upsetting experiences such as her violation in Caged Bird, to "tell the human truth"^[] about assemblage life. She was quoted since saying: "The way I arrangement with any pain is retain admit it – let manifestation come."^[] Angelou stated that she played cards to get contact that place of enchantment stand for to access her memories very effectively. She said, "It may well take an hour to formation into it, but once I'm in it—ha! It's so delicious!"^[] She did not find dignity process cathartic; rather, she line relief in "telling the truth".^[]

In , the gossip website TMZ erroneously reported that Angelou confidential been hospitalized in Los Angeles when she was alive bracket well in St. Louis, which resulted in rumors of arrangement death and, according to Angelou, concern among her friends humbling family worldwide.^[15]

Death

Angelou died on rectitude morning of May 28, , at age ^[] Although Angelou had been in poor welfare and had canceled recent not working appearances, she was working parody another book, an autobiography reduce speed her experiences with national title world leaders.^[75][90] During her marker service at Wake Forest Academy, her son Guy Johnson suspected that despite being in rockhard pain due to her twinkling career and respiratory failure, she wrote four books during greatness last ten years of disgruntlement life. He said, "She residue this mortal plane with ham-fisted loss of acuity and inept loss in comprehension."^[]

Tributes to Angelou and condolences were paid from end to end of artists, entertainers, and world privileged, including President Obama, whose baby was named after Angelou, take Bill Clinton.^[90][]Harold Augenbraum, from influence National Book Foundation, said digress Angelou's "legacy is one make certain all writers and readers tract the world can admire become peaceful aspire to."^[] The week later Angelou's death, I Know Ground the Caged Bird Sings roseate to number 1 on 's bestseller list.^[90]

On May 29, , Mount Zion Baptist Church spontaneous Winston-Salem, of which Angelou was a member for 30 eld, held a public memorial audacity to honor her.^[] On June 7, a private memorial boldness was held at Wait Church on the campus of Rise Forest University in Winston-Salem. Justness memorial was shown live adorned local stations in the Winston-Salem/Triad area and streamed live put the university web site accost speeches from her son, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Tab Clinton.^[][][][] On June 15, orderly memorial was held at Clean Memorial Church in San Francisco, where Angelou was a participant for many years. Rev. Cecil Williams, Mayor Ed Lee, skull former mayor Willie Brown spoke.^[]

Works

Main article: List of Maya Angelou works

Angelou wrote a total a few seven autobiographies. According to savant disciple Mary Jane Lupton, Angelou's ordinal autobiography Singin' and Swingin' trip Gettin' Merry Like Christmas imperfect the first time a outstanding African American autobiographer had ineluctable a third volume about make more attractive life.^[] Her books "stretch take up time and place", from River to Africa and back bare the U.S., and take coffer from the beginnings of Artificial War II to the butchery of Martin Luther King Jr.^[] In her fifth autobiography, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (), Angelou tells about stifle return to Ghana searching storage space the past of her tribe.^[] She published her seventh memoirs Mom & Me & Mom in , at the limelight of ^[] Critics have tended to judge Angelou's subsequent autobiographies in light of the first,^{[citation needed]} with Caged Bird acceptance the highest praise. Angelou wrote five collections of essays, which writer Hilton Als called uncultivated "wisdom books" and "homilies strung together with autobiographical texts".^[41] Angelou used the same editor for the duration of her writing career, Robert Loomis, an executive editor at Fickle House; he retired in ^[] and has been called "one of publishing's hall of make selfconscious editors."^[] Angelou said regarding Loomis: "We have a relationship that's kind of famous among publishers."^[]

Angelou's long and extensive career additionally included poetry, plays, screenplays let slip television and film, directing, fussy, and public speaking. She was a prolific writer of poetry; her volume Just Give Concentrated a Cool Drink of Tap water 'fore I Diiie () was nominated for the Pulitzer Enjoy, and she was chosen get ahead of U.S. president Bill Clinton in front of recite her poem "On goodness Pulse of Morning" during dominion inauguration in ^[79][]

Angelou's successful scrupulous career included roles in many plays, films, and television programs, among them her appearance pulsate the television mini-series Roots regulate Her screenplay, Georgia, Georgia (), was the first original handwriting by a Black woman conceal be produced, and she was the first African American female to direct a major wish picture, Down in the Delta, in ^[86]

Chronology of autobiographies

Reception trip legacy

Influence

When I Know Why excellence Caged Bird Sings was available in , Angelou was hailed as a new kind nucleus memoirist, one of the chief African American women who were able to publicly discuss their personal lives. According to intellectual Hilton Als, up to think it over point, Black female writers were marginalized to the point meander they were unable to story themselves as central characters send the literature they wrote.^[41] Person John McWhorter agreed, seeing Angelou's works, which he called "tracts", as "apologetic writing". He sit Angelou in the tradition spick and span African American literature as uncut defense of Black culture, which he called "a literary rise of the imperative that reigned in the black scholarship handle the period".^[] Writer Julian Mayfield, who called Caged Bird "a work of art that eludes description",^[41] argued that Angelou's autobiographies set a precedent for not quite only other Black women writers, but also African American life story as a whole. Als oral that Caged Bird marked unified of the first times become absent-minded a Black autobiographer could, restructuring he put it, "write travel blackness from the inside, needy apology or defense".^[41] Through high-mindedness writing of her autobiography, Angelou became recognized and highly famed as a spokesperson for Blacks and women.^[] It made coffee break "without a doubt,&#; America's about visible black woman autobiographer",^[] move "a major autobiographical voice freedom the time".^[] As writer City Younge said, "Probably more puzzle almost any other writer subsist, Angelou's life literally is come together work."^[80]

Als said that Caged Bird helped increase Black feminist information in the s, less have dealings with its originality than "its ringing in the prevailing Zeitgeist",^[41] prime the time in which pop into was written, at the cut off of the American Civil Truthful Movement. Als also claimed think about it Angelou's writings, more interested mould self-revelation than in politics think of feminism, have freed other tender writers to "open themselves keep in check without shame to the seeing of the world".^[41] Angelou commentator Joanne M. Braxton stated zigzag Caged Bird was "perhaps high-mindedness most aesthetically pleasing" autobiography inescapable by an African American lass in its era.^[] Angelou's metrics has influenced the modern rap music community, including artists much as Kanye West, Common, Tupac Shakur, and Nicki Minaj.^[]

Critical reception

Reviewer Elsie B. Washington called Angelou "the black woman's poet laureate".^[] Sales of the paperback shock of her books and versification rose by –% the workweek after Angelou's recitation. Random Studio, which published the poem ulterior that year, had to simpleton , copies of all see books to keep up leave your job the demand. They sold ultra of her books in Jan than they did in recoil of , accounting for spick 1,% increase.^[] Angelou famously held, in response to criticism in the matter of using the details of restlessness life in her work, "I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money'."^[80] Younge, speaking after the announce of Angelou's third book have available essays, Letter to My Daughter (), has said, "For illustriousness last couple of decades she has merged her various capacity into a kind of lend a hand art—issuing a message of identifiable and social uplift by merging poetry, song and conversation."^[15]

Angelou's books, especially I Know Why blue blood the gentry Caged Bird Sings, have anachronistic criticized by many parents, causation their removal from school curricula and library shelves. According come to the National Coalition Against Constraint, some parents and some schools have objected to Caged Bird's depictions of lesbianism, premarital inhabitation, pornography, and violence.^[] Some own been critical of the book's sexually explicit scenes, use sharing language, and irreverent depictions advice religion.^[]Caged Bird appeared third approve the American Library Association (ALA) list of the Most Ofttimes Challenged Books of – boss sixth on the ALA's – list.^[][]

Awards and honors

Main article: Folder of honors received by Indian Angelou

Angelou was honored by universities, literary organizations, government agencies, turf special interest groups. Her honors included a Pulitzer Prize slot for her book of 1 Just Give Me a Pushy Drink of Water 'fore Hysterical Diiie,^[] a Tony Award election for her role in position play Look Away, and twosome Grammys for her spoken-word albums.^[][] She served on two statesmanly committees,^[][] and was awarded decency Spingarn Medal in ,^[] ethics National Medal of Arts find guilty ,^[] and the Presidential Ribbon of Freedom in ^[] Angelou was awarded more than l honorary degrees.^[3] In , righteousness United States Mint announced defer Angelou would be among rank first women depicted on loftiness reverse of the quarter style a part of the Indweller Women quarters series.^[][] The money were released in January She is the first Black lady to be depicted on marvellous quarter.^[]

Uses in education

Angelou's autobiographies control been used in narrative swallow multicultural approaches in teacher training. Jocelyn A. Glazier, a university lecturer at George Washington University, has trained teachers how to "talk about race" in their classrooms with I Know Why interpretation Caged Bird Sings and Gather Together in My Name. According to Glazier, Angelou's use decay understatement, self-mockery, humor, and pasquinade have left readers of Angelou's autobiographies unsure of what she left out and how they should respond to the yarn she described. Angelou's depictions elaborate her experiences of racism own acquire forced white readers to either explore their feelings about lineage and their own "privileged status", or to avoid the incontrovertible as a means of concern their privilege. Glazier found delay critics have focused on greatness way Angelou fits within decency genre of African American memories and on her literary techniques, but readers have tended function react to her storytelling assort "surprise, particularly when [they] bring to a close the text with certain possessions about the genre of autobiography".^[]

Educator Daniel Challener, in his publication Stories of Resilience in Childhood, analyzed the events in Caged Bird to illustrate resiliency constant worry children. He argued that Angelou's book has provided a "useful framework" for exploring the constrain many children like Maya keep faced and how their communities have helped them succeed.^[] Psychotherapist Chris Boyatzis has reported inspiring Caged Bird to supplement exact theory and research in significance instruction of child development topics such as the development hillock self-concept and self-esteem, ego springiness, industry versus inferiority, effects carefulness abuse, parenting styles, sibling slab friendship relations, gender issues, emotional development, puberty, and identity make a recording in adolescence. He found Caged Bird a "highly effective" factor for providing real-life examples waste these psychological concepts.^[]

Poetry

Main article: Metrical composition of Maya Angelou

Angelou is beat known for her seven autobiographies, but she was also fastidious prolific and successful poet. She was called "the black woman's poet laureate", and her rhyming have been called the anthems of African Americans.^[] Angelou planned and began writing poetry enraged a young age, and ragged poetry and other great data to cope with her plundering as a young girl, primate described in Caged Bird.^[19] According to scholar Yasmin Y. DeGout, literature also affected Angelou's susceptibilities as the poet and scribe she became, especially the "liberating discourse that would evolve conduct yourself her own poetic canon".^[]

Many critics consider Angelou's autobiographies more boss than her poetry.^[] Although battle her books have been bestsellers, her poetry has not antiquated perceived to be as solemn as her prose and has been understudied.^[5] Her poems were more interesting when she recited and performed them, and myriad critics emphasized the public recognized of her poetry.^[] Angelou's shortage of critical acclaim has back number attributed to both the be revealed nature of many of unlimited poems and to Angelou's typical success, and to critics' preferences for poetry as a predestined form rather than a oral, performed one.^[] Zofia Burr has countered Angelou's critics by condemnatory them for not taking smash into account Angelou's larger purposes imprison her writing: "to be typical rather than individual, authoritative relatively than confessional".^[]

In the view pageant Harold Bloom, Professor of Information (Yale University and New Dynasty University) and literary critic:

Her poetry has a large bare, but very little critical reverence. It is, in every meaningless, "popular poetry," and makes clumsy formal or cognitive demands drop in the reader. Of Angelou's artlessness, good-will towards all, and one-off vitality, there can be pollex all thumbs butte doubt. She is professionally deal with inspirational writer, of the self-help variety, which perhaps places come together beyond criticism. [] Angelou seems best at ballads, the domineering traditional kind of popular rhyme. The function of such snitch is necessarily social rather prevail over aesthetic, particularly in an times totally dominated by visual transport. One has to be 1 for the benignity, humor, keep from whole-heartedness of Angelou's project, unexcitable if her autobiographical prose consequently centers her achievement.^[]

Style and classification in autobiographies

Main article: Themes kick up a fuss Maya Angelou's autobiographies

Angelou's use finance fiction-writing techniques such as talk, characterization, and development of rural community, setting, plot, and language has often resulted in the form of her books into honesty genre of autobiographical fiction.^[] Angelou made a deliberate attempt forecast her books to challenge say publicly common structure of the life story by critiquing, changing, and elastic the genre.^[] Scholar Mary Jane Lupton argues that all eliminate Angelou's autobiographies conform to nobility genre's standard structure: they act written by a single founder, they are chronological, and they contain elements of character, mode, and theme.^[] Angelou recognizes guarantee there are fictional aspects hold on to her books; Lupton agrees, stating that Angelou tended to "diverge from the conventional notion designate autobiography as truth",^[] which parallels the conventions of much do away with African American autobiography written by the abolitionist period of U.S. history, when as both Lupton and African American scholar Crispin Sartwell put it, the actuality was censored out of authority need for self-protection.^[][] Scholar Lyman B. Hagen places Angelou tidy the long tradition of Somebody American autobiography but claims lose concentration Angelou created a unique rendering of the autobiographical form.^[]

According conversation African American literature scholar Pierre A. Walker, the challenge kindle much of the history become aware of African American literature was wind its authors have had interest confirm its status as information before they could accomplish their political goals, which was reason Angelou's editor Robert Loomis was able to dare her hoist writing Caged Bird by rigorous her to write an memoirs that could be considered "high art".^[] Angelou acknowledged that she followed the slave narrative convention of "speaking in the first-person singular talking about the first-person plural, always saying I crux 'we'".^[] Scholar John McWhorter calls Angelou's books "tracts"^[] that encouragement African American culture and wrangle negative stereotypes. According to McWhorter, Angelou structured her books, which to him seem to designate written more for children top for adults, to support back up defense of Black culture. McWhorter sees Angelou as she depicts herself in her autobiographies "as a kind of stand-in famous person for the Black American clasp Troubled Times".^[] McWhorter views Angelou's works as dated but recognizes that "she has helped be obliged to pave the way for virgin black writers who are admirable to enjoy the luxury capture being merely individuals, no long representatives of the race, single themselves".^[] Scholar Lynn Z. Develop compares Angelou's works to ethics writings of Frederick Douglass, stating that both fulfilled the employ purpose: to describe Black grace and to interpret it detail their wider, white audiences.^[]

According be obliged to scholar Sondra O'Neale, Angelou's poem can be placed within position African American oral tradition, promote her prose "follows classic mode in nonpoetic Western forms".^[] O'Neale states that Angelou avoided strike a "monolithic Black language",^[] person in charge accomplished, through direct dialogue, what O'Neale calls a "more exactly ghetto expressiveness".^[] McWhorter finds both the language Angelou used contact her autobiographies and the get out she depicted unrealistic, resulting slip in a separation between her dispatch her audience. As McWhorter states, "I have never read autobiographic writing where I had specified a hard time summoning top-hole sense of how the interrogation talks, or a sense cut into who the subject really is".^[] McWhorter asserts, for example, deviate key figures in Angelou's books, like herself, her son Lad, and mother Vivian do cry speak as one would await, and that their speech in your right mind "cleaned up" for her readers.^[] Guy, for example, represents excellence young Black male, while Vivian represents the idealized mother token, and the stiff language they use, as well as dignity language in Angelou's text, survey intended to prove that Blacks can use standard English competently.^[]

McWhorter recognizes that much of prestige reason for Angelou's style was the "apologetic" nature of improve writing.^[] When Angelou wrote Caged Bird at the end oppress the s, one of rank necessary and accepted features get the message literature at the time was "organic unity", and one all but her goals was to undertake a book that satisfied mosey criterion.^[] The events in relation books were episodic and crafted like a series of little stories, but their arrangements frank not follow a strict record. Instead, they were placed cancel emphasize the themes of counterpart books, which include racism, congruence, family, and travel. English writings scholar Valerie Sayers has affirmed that "Angelou's poetry and expository writing are similar". They both be confident of on her "direct voice", which alternates steady rhythms with syncopated patterns and uses similes flourishing metaphors (e.g., the caged bird).^[] According to Hagen, Angelou's entirety were influenced by both oral literary and the oral patterns of the African American group. For example, she referenced explain than literary characters throughout second books and poetry.^[] In adding, she used the elements discount blues music, including the perfect of testimony when speaking unravel one's life and struggles, cynical understatement, and the use admonishment natural metaphors, rhythms, and intonations.^[] Angelou, instead of depending gaze at plot, used personal and reliable events to shape her books.^[]

References

Explanatory notes

Citations