Maya Angelou

## Biographical Information

Marguerite Annie Johnson was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, MO. She was an American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She was the second child of Bailey Johnson, a doorman and navy dietitian, and Vivian (Baxter) Johnson, a nurse and card dealer. Bailey Jr., her older brother, and she went to live in Stamps, AR with their paternal grandmother after their parent's marriage ended. Years later, their father joined them in Stamps and returned both of them to St. Louis under their mother's care. At the age of eight, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend, a man named Freeman. She disclosed to her brother who alerted the family and Freeman was charged and found guilty. Four days after his release, he was found murdered. Angelou became mute for almost five years and was sent back to their grandmothers. "I thought, my voice killed him; I killed that man, because I told his name. And then I thought I would never speak again, because my voice would kill anyone."

When Angelou was 14, she and her brother moved in with their mother once again, who had since moved to Oakland, California. She attended the California Labor School during World War II. Three weeks after completing school, at the age of 17, she gave birth to her son Clyde (who later changed his name to Guy Johnson).

In 1951, Angelou married Tosh Angelos, a Greek electrician, former sailor, and aspiring musician, despite the condemnation of interracial relationships at the time and the disapproval of her mother. Angelou, her new husband, and her son moved to New York City so she could study African dance with Trinidadian dancer Pearl Primus, but they returned to San Francisco a year later. After Angelou's marriage ended in 1954, she danced professionally in clubs around San Francisco, including the nightclub the Purple Onion. This is when Marguerite changed her professional name to "Maya Angelou."

Angelou would go on and travel to different places around the world where she met Malcolm X. Once she returned to the U.S. in 1965, she helped him build a new civil rights organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. asked Angelou to organize a march. She agreed but postpones the march as he is assassinated on her 40th birthday (April 4, 1968).

In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton, becoming the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961.

Angelou died May 28, 2014. She was found by her nurse. There had been reports that Angelou had been poor in health. She had canceled recent scheduled appearances and she was working on another book, an autobiography about her experiences with national and world leaders.

## Themes / Styles

Maya Angelou explored many of the same themes throughout her writing. The themes include love, painful loss, music, discrimination, racism, and struggle. Her music and musical forms have been compared to the blues, which include laughter and ridicule instead of tears to cope with pain. Angelou's poems are about love, relationships, and overcoming hardships. The themes and topics in her writing apply universally to any and all races. She uses everyday language, the Black vernacular, Black music, and forms. The rhetorical techniques that she included are shocking language, the occasional use of profanity, and unacceptable subjects (tough topics). Her poems not only speak for herself but for others of her gender and race (the struggle and hardships experienced by her race).

## Criticism

Many critics consider Angelou's autobiographies more important than her poetry. Her book are known to be been best-sellers. However, her poetry has been studied less. Angelou's lack of critical acclaim has been attributed to her popular success and to critics' preferences for poetry as a written form rather than a spoken, performed one.

## Bibliography

Maya Angelou wrote a total of seven autobiographies

### **Autobiographies**

* *I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings* (1969): Up to 1944 (age 17)
* *Gather Together in My Name* (1974): 1944–48
* *Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas* (1976): 1949–55

* *The Heart of a Woman* (1981): 1957–62
* *All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes* (1986): 1962–65
* *A Song Flung Up to Heaven* (2002): 1965–68
* *Mom & Me & Mom* (2013): overview

> "All my work, my life, everything I do is about survival, not just bare, awful, plodding survival, but survival with grace and faith. While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated." -Maya Angelou
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### **Collections**

* *Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie* (1971)
* *Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well* (1975)
* *And Still I Rise* (1978)
* *Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?* (1983)
* *Poems* (1986)
* *Now Sheba Sings the Song* (1987)
* *I Shall Not Be Moved* (1990)
* *The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou* (1994)
* *Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women* (1995)
* *Poetry for Young People* (2007)

### **Single publications**

* "On the Pulse of Morning" (1993)
* "A Brave and Startling Truth" (1995)
* "From a Black Woman to a Black Man" (1995)
* "Amazing Peace" (2005)
* "Mother: A Cradle to Hold Me" (2006)
* "Celebrations, Rituals of Peace and Prayer" (2006)
* "We Had Him" (2009). ***A poem about Michael Jackson***
* "His Day is Done" (2013) ***This is a tribute to Nelson Mandela after his death***

## Other Information

* Maya Angelou became the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco, California, in the 1940s.
* Angelou was honored by universities, literary organizations, government agencies, and special interest groups. Her honors included a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her book of poetry, *Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie,* a Tony Award nomination for her role in the 1973 play *Look Away*, and three Grammys for her spoken word albums.

* She served on two presidential committees
* Awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1994, the National Medal of Arts in 2000, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011
* Angelou was awarded over fifty honorary degrees