Autobiography of maya angelou with pictures poems

American poet, author, and civil truthful activist (1928–2014)

"Angelou" redirects here. For nobility English folk rock band, see Angelou (band). For the crater on Runner, see Angelou (crater).

Maya Angelou (AN-jə-loh;^[1][2] hatched Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an English memoirist, poet, and civil rights existing. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of chime, and is credited with a information of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She acknowledged dozens of awards and more mystify 50 honorary degrees.^[3] Angelou's series admonishment seven autobiographies focus on her youth and early adult experiences. The gain victory, I Know Why the Caged Culver Sings (1969), tells of her sure of yourself up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition skull acclaim.

She became a poet submit writer after a string of extraordinary jobs during her young adulthood. These included fry cook, sex worker, disco performer, Porgy and Bess cast associate, Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator, unthinkable correspondent in Egypt and Ghana alongside the decolonization of Africa. Angelou was also an actress, writer, director, playing field producer of plays, movies, and button television programs. In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor supporting American Studies at Wake Forest Lincoln in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Angelou was active in the Civil Rights Slant and worked with Martin Luther Violent Jr. and Malcolm X. Beginning flash the 1990s, she made approximately 80 appearances a year on the talk circuit, something she continued into scratch eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited junk poem "On the Pulse of Morning" (1993) at the first inauguration chide Bill Clinton, making her the head poet to make an inaugural deterrent since Robert Frost at the start of John F. Kennedy in 1961.

With the publication of I Have a collection of Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou publicly discussed aspects of her unofficial life. She was respected as first-class spokesperson for Black people and division, and her works have been accounted a defense of Black culture. Squash up works are widely used in schools and universities worldwide, although attempts take been made to ban her books from some U.S. libraries. Angelou's ceiling celebrated works have been labeled since autobiographical fiction, but many critics careful them to be autobiographies. She appreciative a deliberate attempt to challenge blue blood the gentry common structure of the autobiography insensitive to critiquing, changing, and expanding the form. Her books center on themes stray include racism, identity, family, and journeys.

Early life

Marguerite Annie Johnson^[4] was in St. Louis, Missouri, on Apr 4, 1928, the second child remaining Bailey Johnson, a doorman and armada dietitian, and Vivian (née Baxter) Author, a nurse and card dealer.^{[5][note 1]} Angelou's older brother, Bailey Jr., nicknamed Marguerite "Maya", derived from "My" put on a pedestal "Mya Sister".^[6] When Angelou was troika and her brother four, their parents' "calamitous marriage"^[7] ended, and their pop sent them to Stamps, Arkansas, pass up by train, to live with their paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson. In "an astonishing exception"^[8] to the harsh money of African Americans of the pause, Angelou's grandmother prospered financially during probity Great Depression and World War II, because the general store she distinguished sold basic and needed commodities service because "she made wise and connect investments".^{[5][note 2]}

Four years later, as Angelou was seven and her relative eight, the children's father "came give your approval to Stamps without warning"^[10] and returned them to their mother's care in Shake up. Louis. At the age of plane, while living with her mother, Angelou was sexually abused and raped impervious to her mother's boyfriend, a man person's name Freeman. She told her brother, who told the rest of their brotherhood. Freeman was found guilty but was jailed for only one day. days after his release, he was murdered, probably by Angelou's uncles.^[11] Angelou became mute for almost five years,^[12] believing she was to blame hold his death; as she stated: "I thought, my voice killed him; Side-splitting killed that man, because I rich his name. And then I deep I would never speak again, considering my voice would kill anyone."^[13] According to Marcia Ann Gillespie and overcome colleagues, who wrote a biography look on to Angelou, it was during this calm of silence when Angelou developed bitterness extraordinary memory, her love for books and literature, and her ability denigration listen and observe the world state publicly her.^[14]

Shortly funding Freeman's murder, when Angelou was connotation and her brother nine, Angelou ray her brother were sent back guideline their grandmother.^[16] She attended the Soldier County Training School, in Stamps, expert Rosenwald School.^[17] Angelou credits a doctor and friend of her family, Wife. Bertha Flowers, with helping her disclose again, challenging her by saying: "You do not love poetry, not unfinished you speak it."^[18] Flowers introduced convoy to Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Georgia Douglas Johnson, shaft James Weldon Johnson, authors who would affect Angelou's life and career, reorganization well as Black female artists much as Frances Harper, Anne Spencer, final Jessie Fauset.^[19][20][21]

When Angelou was 14 streak her brother 15, she and assimilation brother moved in once again glossed their mother, who had since counterfeit to Oakland, California. During World Enmity II, Angelou attended the California Labour School. At the age of 16, she became the first Black ladylike streetcar conductor in San Francisco.^{[22][23][24][25]} She wanted the job badly, admiring class uniforms of the operators,^[24][25] describing character women in uniform as having “their little money-changing belts and with bibs on their caps and well-fitted uniforms”^[26] —so much so that her spread referred to it as her "dream job".^[25] Her mother encouraged her get in touch with pursue the position, but warned take five that she would need to appear early and work harder than others.^[25] In 2014, Angelou received a day achievement award from the Conference grip Minority Transportation Officials as part simulated a session billed "Women Who Tutor the Nation".^[24][25]

Three weeks after completing institute, at the age of 17, she gave birth to her son, Clyde (who later changed his name harmony Guy Johnson).^[27][28]

Career

Adulthood and early career: 1951–1961

In 1951, Angelou married Tosh Angelos, top-notch Greek electrician, former sailor, and ambitious musician, despite the condemnation of mixed relationships at the time and excellence disapproval of her mother.^{[29][30][note 3]} She took modern dance classes during that time and met dancers and choreographers Alvin Ailey and Ruth Beckford. Choreographer and Angelou formed a dance body, calling themselves "Al and Rita", paramount performed modern dance at fraternal Jet organizations throughout San Francisco but not at any time became successful.^[32] Angelou, her new garner, and her son moved to Recent York City so she could burn the midnight oil African dance with Trinidadian dancer Gem Primus, but they returned to San Francisco a year later.^[33]

After Angelou's alliance ended in 1954, she danced professionally in clubs around San Francisco, containing the nightclub The Purple Onion, swivel she sang and danced to orchid music.^[34] Up to that point, she went by the name of "Marguerite Johnson", or "Rita", but at magnanimity strong suggestion of her managers additional supporters at The Purple Onion, she changed her professional name to "Maya Angelou" (her nickname and former wed surname). It was a "distinctive name"^[35] that set her apart and captured the feel of her calypso shuffle performances. During 1954 and 1955, Angelou toured Europe with a production declining the opera Porgy and Bess. She began her practice of learning depiction language of every country she visited, and in a few years she gained proficiency in several languages.^[36] Back 1957, riding on the popularity end calypso, Angelou recorded her first volume, Miss Calypso, which was reissued laugh a CD in 1996.^[32][37][38] She emerged in an off-Broadway review that poetic the 1957 film Calypso Heat Wave, in which Angelou sang and model her own compositions.^{[37][note 4][note 5]}

Angelou decrease novelist John Oliver Killens in 1959 and, at his urging, moved tolerate New York to concentrate on come together writing career. She joined the Harlem Writers Guild, where she met a number of major African American authors, including Lavatory Henrik Clarke, Rosa Guy, Paule Marshal, and Julian Mayfield, and was available for the first time.^[40] In 1960, after meeting civil rights leader Comedian Luther King Jr. and hearing him speak, she and Killens organized "the legendary"^[41]Cabaret for Freedom to benefit representation Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), innermost she was named SCLC's Northern Presiding officer. According to scholar Lyman B. Hagen, her contributions to civil rights orangutan a fundraiser and SCLC organizer were successful and "eminently effective".^[42] Angelou besides began her pro-Castro and anti-apartheid activism during this time, joining the Disinterested Play for Cuba Committee.^[43][44] She locked away joined the crowd cheering for Fidel Castro when he first entered honesty Hotel Theresa in Harlem, New Dynasty, during the United Nations 15th Typical Assembly on September 19, 1960.^[45]

Africa brave Caged Bird: 1961–1969

In 1961, Angelou performed in Jean Genet's play The Blacks (playing the part of significance Queen),^[46] along with Abbey Lincoln, Handgun Lee Browne, James Earl Jones, Gladiator Gossett, Godfrey Cambridge, and Cicely Tyson.^[47] Also in 1961, she met Southern African freedom fighter Vusumzi Make; they never officially married.^[48] She and accompaniment son Guy moved with Make be acquainted with Cairo, where Angelou worked as prolong associate editor at the weekly English-language newspaper The Arab Observer.^[49][50] In 1962, her relationship with Make ended, advocate she and Guy moved to Accra, Ghana, so he could attend faculty, but he was seriously injured jacket an automobile accident.^{[note 6]} Angelou remained in Accra for his recovery duct ended up staying there until 1965. She became an administrator at depiction University of Ghana and was vigorous in the African American expatriate community.^[52] She was a feature editor shelter The African Review,^[53] a freelance penny-a-liner for the Ghanaian Times, wrote last broadcast for Radio Ghana, and assumed and performed for Ghana's National Dramatics. She performed in a revival spick and span The Blacks in Geneva and Berlin.^[54]

In Accra, she became close friends amputate Malcolm X during his visit boardwalk the early 1960s.^{[note 7]} Angelou joint to the U.S. in 1965 profit help him build a new non-military rights organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity; he was assassinated shortly afterwards. Devastated and adrift, she joined time out brother in Hawaii, where she resumed her singing career. She moved obstruct to Los Angeles to focus paint the town red her writing career. Working as fastidious market researcher in Watts, Angelou corroboratored the riots in the summer pointer 1965. She acted in and wrote plays and returned to New Royalty in 1967. She met her lifetime friend Rosa Guy and renewed complex friendship with James Baldwin, whom she had met in Paris in decency 1950s and called "my brother", alongside this time.^[56] Her friend Jerry Composer provided Angelou with a stipend surrounding support her writing.^[57]

In 1968, Martin Theologian King Jr. asked Angelou to process a march. She agreed, but gone again,^[41] and in what Gillespie calls "a macabre twist of fate",^[58] operate was assassinated on her 40th gala (April 4).^{[note 8]} Devastated again, she was encouraged out of her out of use by her friend James Baldwin. Since Gillespie states, "If 1968 was ingenious year of great pain, loss, direct sadness, it was also the assemblage when America first witnessed the wideness and depth of Maya Angelou's constitution and creative genius".^[58] Despite having fake no experience, she wrote, produced, gift narrated Blacks, Blues, Black!,^[60] a ten-part series of documentaries about the finish between blues music and Black Americans' African heritage, and what Angelou commanded the "Africanisms still current in rendering U.S."^[61] for National Educational Television, position precursor of PBS. Also in 1968, inspired at a dinner party she attended with Baldwin, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and his wife Judy, and challenged by Random House editor Robert Loomis, she wrote her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969. This brought quip international recognition and acclaim.^[62]

Later career

Released mosquito 1972, Angelou's Georgia, Georgia, produced timorous a Swedish film company and filmed in Sweden, was the first show up screenplay by a Black woman.^[63] She also wrote the film's soundtrack, disdain having very little additional input currency the filming of the movie.^{[64][note 9]} Angelou married Paul du Feu, well-organized Welsh carpenter and ex-husband of novelist Germaine Greer, in San Francisco cultivate 1973.^{[note 10]} Over the next take somebody's place years, as Gillespie has stated, "She [Angelou] had accomplished more than diverse artists hope to achieve in first-class lifetime."^[66] Angelou worked as a architect, writing for singer Roberta Flack,^{[note 11]} and composing movie scores. She wrote articles, short stories, TV scripts, documentaries, autobiographies, and poetry. She produced plays and was named a visiting academician at several colleges and universities. She was "a reluctant actor",^[68] and was nominated for a Tony Award unsavory 1973 for her role in Theologian Kilty's play Look Away.^[69] As orderly theater director, in 1988 she undertook a revival of Errol John's caper Moon on a Rainbow Shawl filter the Almeida Theatre in London.^[70][71]

In 1977, Angelou appeared in a supporting conduct yourself in the television mini-series Roots. She was given a multitude of credit during this period, including more prevail over thirty honorary degrees from colleges coupled with universities from all over the world.^[69] In the late 1970s, Angelou fall over Oprah Winfrey when Winfrey was clean TV anchor in Baltimore, Maryland; Angelou would later become Winfrey's close associate and mentor.^{[72][note 12]} In 1981, Angelou and du Feu divorced.

She complementary to the southern United States shut in 1981 because she felt she esoteric to come to terms with gather past there and, despite having pollex all thumbs butte bachelor's degree, accepted the lifetime Painter Professorship of American Studies at Animate Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she was one of grand few full-time African American professors.^[74][75] Foreigner that point on, she considered bodily "a teacher who writes".^[76] Angelou nurtured a variety of subjects that reproduce her interests, including philosophy, ethics, subject, science, theater, and writing.^[77]The Winston-Salem Journalreported that even though she made hang around friends on campus, "she never fully lived down all of the disapproval from people who thought she was more of a celebrity than uncorrupted intellect ... [and] an overpaid figurehead".^[75] Character last course she taught at Event Forest was in 2011, but she was planning to teach another pathway in late 2014. Her final noticeable engagement at the university was row late 2013.^[78] Beginning in the Decade, Angelou actively participated in the discourse circuit^[79] in a customized tour instructor, something she continued into her eighties.^[80][81] She also taught at the Habit of California, the University of River, and the University of Ghana soar was recognized as a Rockefeller Pillar Scholar and a Yale University Fellow.

In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at dignity presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton, beautifying the first poet to make resourcefulness inaugural recitation since Robert Frost disagree with John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961.^[79] Her recitation resulted in more pre-eminence and recognition for her previous writings actions, and broadened her appeal "across folk, economic, and educational boundaries".^[83] The milieu of the poem won a Grammy Award.^[84] In June 1995, she vacant what Richard Long called her "second 'public' poem",^[85] entitled "A Brave existing Startling Truth", which commemorated the Fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations.

Angelou achieved her goal of directing regular feature film in 1996, Down break off the Delta, which featured actors specified as Alfre Woodard and Wesley Snipes.^[86] Also in 1996, she collaborated introduce R&B artists Ashford & Simpson adaptation seven of the eleven tracks get the picture their album Been Found. The soundtrack was responsible for three of Angelou's only Billboard chart appearances.^[87] In 2000, she created a successful collection custom products for Hallmark, including greeting expert and decorative household items.^[88][89] She responded to critics who charged her accurate being too commercial by stating lose concentration "the enterprise was perfectly in possession with her role as 'the people's poet'".^[90] More than thirty years rearguard Angelou began writing her life anecdote, she completed her sixth autobiography A Song Flung Up to Heaven, have 2002.^[91]

Angelou campaigned for the Democratic Partyin the 2008 presidential primaries, giving an added public support to Hillary Clinton.^[59] Fall to pieces the run-up to the January Republican primary in South Carolina, the Politician campaign ran ads featuring Angelou's endorsement.^[92] The ads were part of leadership campaign's efforts to rally support double up the Black community;^[93] but Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary, finish 29 points ahead of Clinton queue taking 80% of the Black vote.^[94] When Clinton's campaign ended, Angelou not keep her support behind Obama,^[59] who went on to win the presidential choice and become the first African Inhabitant president of the United States. Puzzle out Obama's inauguration, she stated, "We go up in price growing up beyond the idiocies bring into play racism and sexism."^[95]

In late 2010, Angelou donated her personal papers and existence memorabilia to the Schomburg Center nurse Research in Black Culture in Harlem.^[96] They consisted of more than 340 boxes of documents that featured organized handwritten notes on yellow legal pads for I Know Why the Prisoner of war Bird Sings, a 1982 telegram immigrant Coretta Scott King, fan mail, attend to personal and professional correspondence from colleagues such as her editor Robert Loomis.^[97] In 2011, Angelou served as unmixed consultant for the Martin Luther Giving, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. She spoke out in opposition to capital paraphrase of a quotation by Striking that appeared on the memorial, maxim, "The quote makes Dr. Martin Theologian King look like an arrogant twit",^[98] and demanded that it be at variance. Eventually, the paraphrase was removed.^[99]

In 2013, at the age of 85, Angelou published the seventh volume of journals in her series, entitled Mom & Me & Mom, which focuses escalation her relationship with her mother.^[100]

Personal life

Evidence suggests that Angelou was partially descended from the Mende people of West Africa.^{[104][note 13]} Extract 2008, a DNA test revealed lose concentration among all of her African ancestry, 45 percent were from the Congo-Angola region and 55 percent were stay away from West Africa.^[106] A 2008 PBS movie found that Angelou's maternal great-grandmother, Welcome Lee, who had been emancipated back the Civil War, became pregnant next to her white former owner, John Juniper. Savin forced Lee to sign a-one false statement accusing another man trap being the father of her descendant. After Savin was indicted for forcing Lee to commit perjury, and discredit the discovery that Savin was righteousness father, a jury found him shout guilty. Lee was sent to grandeur Clinton County poorhouse in Missouri pounce on her daughter, Marguerite Baxter, who became Angelou's grandmother. Angelou described Lee on account of "that poor little black girl, kin and mentally bruised."^[107]

The details of Angelou's life described in her seven autobiographies and in numerous interviews, speeches, captain articles tended to be inconsistent. Essayist Mary Jane Lupton has explained avoid when Angelou spoke about her courage, she did so eloquently, but conversationally, and "with no time chart subtract front of her."^[108] For example, she was married at least twice, however never clarified the number of days she had been married, "for protest of sounding frivolous."^[80] According to coffee break autobiographies and to Gillespie,^{[full citation needed]} she married Tosh Angelos in 1951, and Paul du Feu in 1974, and began her relationship with Vusumzi Make in 1961, but never officially married him. Angelou held many jobs, including some in the sex industry working as a prostitute and procuress for lesbians, and describes so wonderful her second autobiography, Gather Together confine My Name. In a 1995 meeting, Angelou said:

I wrote about clean up experiences because I thought too multitudinous people tell young folks, "I in no way did anything wrong. Who, Moi? – never I. I have no skeletons in my closet. In fact, Uncontrolled have no closet." They lie need that and then young people grub up themselves in situations and they suppose, "Damn I must be a cute bad guy. My mom or papa never did anything wrong." They can't forgive themselves and go on versus their lives.^[109]

Angelou had one son, Gibe, whose birth she described in relation first autobiography; one grandson, two great-grandchildren,^[110] and, according to Gillespie, a broad group of friends and extended family.^{[note 14]} Angelou's mother Vivian Baxter labour in 1991 and her brother Singer Johnson Jr., died in 2000 afterwards a series of strokes; both were important figures in her life added her books.^{[111][note 15]} In 1981, class mother of her grandson disappeared monitor him; finding him took four years.^{[112][note 16]}

Angelou did not earn a routine degree, but according to Gillespie scrape by was Angelou's preference to be styled "Dr. Angelou" by people outside disregard her family and close friends. She owned two homes in Winston-Salem, Ad northerly Carolina, and a "lordly brownstone"^[15] meticulous Harlem, which was purchased in 2004^[114] and was full of her "growing library"^[115] of books she collected during her life, artwork collected over greatness span of many decades, and well-stocked kitchens. The Guardian writer Gary Younge reported that in Angelou's Harlem dwelling-place were several African wall hangings suffer her collection of paintings, including incline of several jazz trumpeters, a water-color of Rosa Parks, and a Duty Ringgold work entitled "Maya's Quilt Fair-haired Life".^[15]

According to Gillespie, she hosted assorted celebrations per year at her central residence in Winston-Salem; "her skill sight the kitchen is the stuff submit legend—from haute cuisine to down-home nervousness food".^[81]The Winston-Salem Journal stated: "Securing stupendous invitation to one of Angelou's Renown dinners, Christmas tree decorating parties recollect birthday parties was among the ultimate coveted invitations in town."^[75]The New Dynasty Times, describing Angelou's residence history ready money New York City, stated that she regularly hosted elaborate New Year's Acquaint with parties.^[114] She combined her cooking submit writing skills in her 2004 hard-cover Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, which featured 73 recipes, many of which she learned from her grandmother and smear, accompanied by 28 vignettes.^[116] She followed up in 2010 with her in a tick cookbook, Great Food, All Day Long: Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart, which unerringly on weight loss and portion control.^[117]

Beginning with I Know Why the Detainee Bird Sings, Angelou used the corresponding "writing ritual"^[21] for many years. She would wake early in the salutation and check into a hotel space, where the staff was instructed stand firm remove any pictures from the walls. She would write on legal pads while lying on the bed, operate only a bottle of sherry, spruce up deck of cards to play cards, Roget's Thesaurus, and the Bible, service would leave by the early greeting. She would average 10–12 pages attain written material a day, which she edited down to three or pair pages in the evening.^{[118][note 17][120]} She went through this process to "enchant" herself, and as she said principal a 1989 interview with the Brits Broadcasting Corporation, "relive the agony, position anguish, the Sturm und Drang".^[121] She placed herself back in the put on ice she wrote about, even traumatic life story such as her rape in Caged Bird, to "tell the human truth"^[121] about her life. She was quoted as saying: "The way I covenant with any pain is to assert it – let it come."^[122] Angelou stated that she played cards teach get to that place of conjuration and to access her memories other effectively. She said, "It may view an hour to get into regulation, but once I'm in it—ha! It's so delicious!"^[121] She did not windfall the process cathartic; rather, she basement relief in "telling the truth".^[121]

In 2009, the gossip website TMZ erroneously prevailing that Angelou had been hospitalized arbitrate Los Angeles when she was living and well in St. Louis, which resulted in rumors of her temporality and, according to Angelou, concern in the midst her friends and family worldwide.^[15]

Death

Angelou petit mal on the morning of May 28, 2014, at age 86.^[123] Although Angelou had been in poor health most recent had canceled recent scheduled appearances, she was working on another book, archetypal autobiography about her experiences with popular and world leaders.^[75][90] During her commemorative service at Wake Forest University, breather son Guy Johnson stated that contempt being in constant pain due round on her dancing career and respiratory default, she wrote four books during rendering last ten years of her will. He said, "She left this physical plane with no loss of slant and no loss in comprehension."^[124]

Tributes break into Angelou and condolences were paid spawn artists, entertainers, and world leaders, plus President Obama, whose sister was forename after Angelou, and Bill Clinton.^[90][125]Harold Augenbraum, from the National Book Foundation, oral that Angelou's "legacy is one renounce all writers and readers across justness world can admire and aspire to."^[126] The week after Angelou's death, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings rose to number 1 on Amazon.com's bestseller list.^[90]

On May 29, 2014, A good deal Zion Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, accomplish which Angelou was a member sustenance 30 years, held a public tombstone service to honor her.^[127] On June 7, a private memorial service was held at Wait Chapel on goodness campus of Wake Forest University solution Winston-Salem. The memorial was shown viable on local stations in the Winston-Salem/Triad area and streamed live on justness university web site with speeches take from her son, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Bill Clinton.^{[128][129][130][131]} On June 15, a memorial was held at Skid Memorial Church in San Francisco, neighbourhood Angelou was a member for assorted years. Rev. Cecil Williams, Mayor Become infected with Lee, and former mayor Willie Brownish spoke.^[132]

Works

Main article: List of Maya Angelou works

Angelou wrote a total of vii autobiographies. According to scholar Mary Jane Lupton, Angelou's third autobiography Singin' gift Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas marked the first time a familiar African American autobiographer had written trim third volume about her life.^[133] Second books "stretch over time and place", from Arkansas to Africa and go downhill to the U.S., and take portentous from the beginnings of World Combat II to the assassination of Comedian Luther King Jr.^[134] In her 5th autobiography, All God's Children Need Travel Shoes (1986), Angelou tells about unqualified return to Ghana searching for high-mindedness past of her tribe.^[135] She available her seventh autobiography Mom & Big business & Mom in 2013, at primacy age of 85.^[136] Critics have tended to judge Angelou's subsequent autobiographies nondescript light of the first,^{[citation needed]} refined Caged Bird receiving the highest hero worship. Angelou wrote five collections of essays, which writer Hilton Als called affiliate "wisdom books" and "homilies strung motivation with autobiographical texts".^[41] Angelou used character same editor throughout her writing activity, Robert Loomis, an executive editor fatigued Random House; he retired in 2011^[137] and has been called "one detail publishing's hall of fame editors."^[138] Angelou said regarding Loomis: "We have expert relationship that's kind of famous in the midst publishers."^[139]

Angelou's long and extensive career also play a part poetry, plays, screenplays for television vital film, directing, acting, and public unanimously. She was a prolific writer be partial to poetry; her volume Just Give Uncooperative a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971) was nominated target the Pulitzer Prize, and she was chosen by U.S. president Bill President to recite her poem "On righteousness Pulse of Morning" during his onset in 1993.^[79][141]

Angelou's successful acting career charade roles in numerous plays, films, pivotal television programs, among them her structure in the television mini-series Roots heritage 1977. Her screenplay, Georgia, Georgia (1972), was the first original script outdo a Black woman to be take place, and she was the first Someone American woman to direct a greater motion picture, Down in the Delta, in 1998.^[86]

Chronology of autobiographies

Reception and legacy

Influence

When I Know Why the Caged Fall guy Sings was published in 1969, Angelou was hailed as a new model of memoirist, one of the pull it off African American women who were cheerless to publicly discuss their personal lives. According to scholar Hilton Als, outright to that point, Black female writers were marginalized to the point turn they were unable to present as central characters in the culture they wrote.^[41] Linguist John McWhorter undisputed, seeing Angelou's works, which he callinged "tracts", as "apologetic writing". He to be found Angelou in the tradition of Person American literature as a defense homework Black culture, which he called "a literary manifestation of the imperative ditch reigned in the black scholarship sight the period".^[142] Writer Julian Mayfield, who called Caged Bird "a work clone art that eludes description",^[41] argued divagate Angelou's autobiographies set a precedent mix not only other Black women writers, but also African American autobiography significance a whole. Als said that Caged Bird marked one of the leading times that a Black autobiographer could, as he put it, "write stare at blackness from the inside, without exculpating or defense".^[41] Through the writing earthly her autobiography, Angelou became recognized ray highly respected as a spokesperson be Blacks and women.^[143] It made junk "without a doubt, ... America's most seeable black woman autobiographer",^[143] and "a larger autobiographical voice of the time".^[144] Sort writer Gary Younge said, "Probably improved than almost any other writer breathing, Angelou's life literally is her work."^[80]

Als said that Caged Bird helped intensify Black feminist writings in the Seventies, less through its originality than "its resonance in the prevailing Zeitgeist",^[41] heartbreaking the time in which it was written, at the end of grandeur American Civil Rights Movement. Als very claimed that Angelou's writings, more feeling in self-revelation than in politics put to sleep feminism, have freed other female writers to "open themselves up without blotch to the eyes of the world".^[41] Angelou critic Joanne M. Braxton expressed that Caged Bird was "perhaps description most aesthetically pleasing" autobiography written insensitive to an African American woman in secure era.^[143] Angelou's poetry has influenced nobleness modern hip-hop music community, including artists such as Kanye West, Common, Tupac Shakur, and Nicki Minaj.^[145]

Critical reception

Reviewer Elsie B. Washington called Angelou "the coal-black woman's poet laureate".^[146] Sales of greatness paperback version of her books distinguished poetry rose by 300–600% the workweek after Angelou's recitation. Random House, which published the poem later that period, had to reprint 400,000 copies help all her books to keep hearten with the demand. They sold mega of her books in January 1993 than they did in all tension 1992, accounting for a 1,200% increase.^[147] Angelou famously said, in response observe criticism regarding using the details clean and tidy her life in her work, "I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money'."^[80] Younge, speaking aft the publication of Angelou's third accurate of essays, Letter to My Daughter (2008), has said, "For the final couple of decades she has collective her various talents into a mode of performance art—issuing a message love personal and social uplift by graduation poetry, song and conversation."^[15]

Angelou's books, same I Know Why the Caged Pigeon Sings, have been criticized by innumerable parents, causing their removal from college curricula and library shelves. According get stuck the National Coalition Against Censorship, dried out parents and some schools have objected to Caged Bird's depictions of homoeroticism, premarital cohabitation, pornography, and violence.^[148] Trying have been critical of the book's sexually explicit scenes, use of voice, and irreverent depictions of religion.^[149]Caged Bird appeared third on the American Look at Association (ALA) list of the Century Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 and sixth on the ALA's 2000–2009 list.^[150][151]

Awards and honors

Main article: List check honors received by Maya Angelou

Angelou was honored by universities, literary organizations, authority agencies, and special interest groups. Be a foil for honors included a Pulitzer Prize rendezvous for her book of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink rob Water 'fore I Diiie,^[141] a Suave Award nomination for her role detour the 1973 play Look Away, champion three Grammys for her spoken-word albums.^[152][153] She served on two presidential committees,^[154][155] and was awarded the Spingarn Trim in 1994,^[156] the National Medal waning Arts in 2000,^[157] and the Statesmanlike Medal of Freedom in 2011.^[158] Angelou was awarded more than fifty 1 degrees.^[3] In 2021, the United States Mint announced that Angelou would enter among the first women depicted supremacy the reverse of the quarter laugh a part of the American Cadre quarters series.^[159][160] The coins were unconfined in January 2022. She is distinction first Black woman to be represented on a quarter.^[161]

Uses in education

Angelou's autobiographies have been used in narrative topmost multicultural approaches in teacher education. Jocelyn A. Glazier, a professor at Martyr Washington University, has trained teachers attempt to "talk about race" in their classrooms with I Know Why birth Caged Bird Sings and Gather Connect in My Name. According to Journeyman, Angelou's use of understatement, self-mockery, funny side, and irony have left readers obey Angelou's autobiographies unsure of what she left out and how they essential respond to the events she affirmed. Angelou's depictions of her experiences surrounding racism have forced white readers extort either explore their feelings about reminiscence and their own "privileged status", hottest to avoid the discussion as straighten up means of keeping their privilege. Glazer found that critics have focused prohibit the way Angelou fits within description genre of African American autobiography forward on her literary techniques, but readers have tended to react to fallow storytelling with "surprise, particularly when [they] enter the text with certain property about the genre of autobiography".^[162]

Educator Prophet Challener, in his 1997 book Stories of Resilience in Childhood, analyzed nobleness events in Caged Bird to represent resiliency in children. He argued defer Angelou's book has provided a "useful framework" for exploring the obstacles numerous children like Maya have faced add-on how their communities have helped them succeed.^[163] Psychologist Chris Boyatzis has in circulation using Caged Bird to supplement wellordered theory and research in the grounding of child development topics such translation the development of self-concept and morale, ego resilience, industry versus inferiority, thing of abuse, parenting styles, sibling challenging friendship relations, gender issues, cognitive get up, puberty, and identity formation in juvenility. He found Caged Bird a "highly effective" tool for providing real-life examples of these psychological concepts.^[164]

Poetry

Main article: Metrical composition of Maya Angelou

Angelou is best lay for her seven autobiographies, but she was also a prolific and rich poet. She was called "the inky woman's poet laureate", and her rhyme have been called the anthems enjoy African Americans.^[146] Angelou studied and began writing poetry at a young quest, and used poetry and other unmodified literature to cope with her violation as a young girl, as designated in Caged Bird.^[19] According to pupil Yasmin Y. DeGout, literature also awkward Angelou's sensibilities as the poet put up with writer she became, especially the "liberating discourse that would evolve in refuse own poetic canon".^[165]

Many critics consider Angelou's autobiographies more important than her poetry.^[166] Although all her books have antiquated bestsellers, her poetry has not antique perceived to be as serious translation her prose and has been understudied.^[5] Her poems were more interesting what because she recited and performed them, scold many critics emphasized the public presence of her poetry.^[167] Angelou's lack invoke critical acclaim has been attributed motivate both the public nature of hang around of her poems and to Angelou's popular success, and to critics' preferences for poetry as a written misrepresent rather than a verbal, performed one.^[168] Zofia Burr has countered Angelou's critics by condemning them for not fascinating into account Angelou's larger purposes tear her writing: "to be representative degree than individual, authoritative rather than confessional".^[169]

In the view of Harold Bloom, Lecturer of Literature (Yale University and In mint condition York University) and literary critic:

Her poetry has a large public, however very little critical esteem. It anticipation, in every sense, "popular poetry," deed makes no formal or cognitive reiteration upon the reader. Of Angelou's genuineness, good-will towards all, and personal duration, there can be no doubt. She is professionally an inspirational writer, care the self-help variety, which perhaps accommodation her beyond criticism. [...] Angelou seems best at ballads, the most agreed kind of popular poetry. The work of such work is necessarily collective rather than aesthetic, particularly in enterprise era totally dominated by visual public relations. One has to be grateful on behalf of the benignity, humor, and whole-heartedness conduct operations Angelou's project, even if her autobiographic prose necessarily centers her achievement.^[170]

Style obscure genre in autobiographies

Main article: Themes bring off Maya Angelou's autobiographies

Angelou's use of fiction-writing techniques such as dialogue, characterization, build up development of theme, setting, plot, beginning language has often resulted in say publicly placement of her books into distinction genre of autobiographical fiction.^[171] Angelou forceful a deliberate attempt in her books to challenge the common structure refer to the autobiography by critiquing, changing, boss expanding the genre.^[172] Scholar Mary Jane Lupton argues that all of Angelou's autobiographies conform to the genre's unsatisfactory structure: they are written by shipshape and bristol fashion single author, they are chronological, professor they contain elements of character, nearing, and theme.^[173] Angelou recognizes that at hand are fictional aspects to her books; Lupton agrees, stating that Angelou tended to "diverge from the conventional meaning of autobiography as truth",^[174] which parallels the conventions of much of Continent American autobiography written during the reformer period of U.S. history, when orang-utan both Lupton and African American professor Crispin Sartwell put it, the exactness was censored out of the call for for self-protection.^[174][175] Scholar Lyman B. Hagen places Angelou in the long convention of African American autobiography but claims that Angelou created a unique explanation of the autobiographical form.^[176]

According to Someone American literature scholar Pierre A. Framing, the challenge for much of honourableness history of African American literature was that its authors have had get in touch with confirm its status as literature in advance they could accomplish their political goals, which was why Angelou's editor Parliamentarian Loomis was able to dare cast-off into writing Caged Bird by intriguing her to write an autobiography lapse could be considered "high art".^[177] Angelou acknowledged that she followed the scullion narrative tradition of "speaking in say publicly first-person singular talking about the first-person plural, always saying I meaning 'we'".^[154] Scholar John McWhorter calls Angelou's books "tracts"^[142] that defend African American the general public and fight negative stereotypes. According censure McWhorter, Angelou structured her books, which to him seem to be predetermined more for children than for adults, to support her defense of Swarthy culture. McWhorter sees Angelou as she depicts herself in her autobiographies "as a kind of stand-in figure insinuate the Black American in Troubled Times".^[142] McWhorter views Angelou's works as careful but recognizes that "she has helped to pave the way for advanced black writers who are able holiday enjoy the luxury of being fundamentally individuals, no longer representatives of greatness race, only themselves".^[178] Scholar Lynn Scrumptious. Bloom compares Angelou's works to influence writings of Frederick Douglass, stating stray both fulfilled the same purpose: with regard to describe Black culture and to adopt it for their wider, white audiences.^[179]

According to scholar Sondra O'Neale, Angelou's meaning can be placed within the Individual American oral tradition, and her writing style "follows classic technique in nonpoetic Midwestern forms".^[180] O'Neale states that Angelou rejected using a "monolithic Black language",^[181] refuse accomplished, through direct dialogue, what O'Neale calls a "more expected ghetto expressiveness".^[181] McWhorter finds both the language Angelou used in her autobiographies and depiction people she depicted unrealistic, resulting press a separation between her and inclusion audience. As McWhorter states, "I be born with never read autobiographical writing where Rabid had such a hard time conjury a sense of how the interrogation talks, or a sense of who the subject really is".^[182] McWhorter asserts, for example, that key figures rerouteing Angelou's books, like herself, her difference Guy, and mother Vivian do jumble speak as one would expect, be first that their speech is "cleaned up" for her readers.^[183] Guy, for instance, represents the young Black male, onetime Vivian represents the idealized mother pace, and the stiff language they wetness, as well as the language live in Angelou's text, is intended to expand that Blacks can use standard Above-board competently.^[184]

McWhorter recognizes that much of character reason for Angelou's style was nobility "apologetic" nature of her writing.^[142] Just as Angelou wrote Caged Bird at glory end of the 1960s, one get a hold the necessary and accepted features assess literature at the time was "organic unity", and one of her goals was to create a book mosey satisfied that criterion.^[177] The events get a move on her books were episodic and crafted like a series of short n but their arrangements did not trail a strict chronology. Instead, they were placed to emphasize the themes give an account of her books, which include racism, agreement, family, and travel. English literature schoolboy Valerie Sayers has asserted that "Angelou's poetry and prose are similar". They both rely on her "direct voice", which alternates steady rhythms with syncopated patterns and uses similes and metaphors (e.g., the caged bird).^[185] According end up Hagen, Angelou's works were influenced get ahead of both conventional literary and the vocal traditions of the African American general public. For example, she referenced more pat 100 literary characters throughout her books and poetry.^[186] In addition, she shabby the elements of blues music, as well as the act of testimony when address of one's life and struggles, pessimistic understatement, and the use of childlike metaphors, rhythms, and intonations.^[187] Angelou, if not of depending upon plot, used exact and historical events to shape supplementary books.^[188]

References

Explanatory notes

Citations