And what better way to commemorate her influence on so many people than to revisit some of her most popular poems?Ģ. She even published two cookbooks in her later years, because cooking was a lifelong passion of hers.Įven a quick rundown of her life proves how much of a remarkable person Maya Angelou was. via GiphyĪnd while all this was going on, she was also writing. She continued her work for social justice well into the later years of her life, supporting and campaigning for then Senator Barack Obama to become the first African-American President of the United States. As a civil rights activist, she was a close friend to the likes of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. She was also a theater actress, playwright, screenwriter, and composer.
She first began with modern dance but reached popularity as a singer and performer of calypso music. In fact, she even wrote a book called “Gather Together in My Name” about her experience during those years of her life. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (audio cassette with filmstrip and teachers guide), Center for Literary Review, 1978, abridged version, Random House (New York, NY), 1986. An Evening with Maya Angelou (audio cassette), Pacific Tape Library, 1975. She worked in the sex trade for some years as a prostitute, table dancer, and as a brothel manager-a fact she did not seek to hide from the public. The Poetry of Maya Angelou (audio recording), GWP Records, 1969. She had her first born, a boy, at 17 years old.Īs an adult, Maya Angelou held a lot of jobs. She became the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco at 14, working while she was also studying at the California Labor School. As a child, she went through her parents’ separation, being sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend, and becoming mute for five years as a result of her belief that she caused the death of the man who raped her. Complement it with Angelou’s stirring meditation on home, belonging, and (never) growing up.A well-known poet and beloved icon of the civil rights movement of America, Maya Angelou had a difficult yet colorful life. Life Doesn’t Frighten Me is an absolute treat in its entirety, a priceless primer on poetry and contemporary art for little ones and a timeless reminder of the power of courage in all of us. Hear Angelou read the poem herself, which she says she wrote “for all children who whistle in the dark and who refuse to admit that they’re frightened out of their wits”: Eliot, Mary Shelley, Leo Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde, Aldous Huxley, Gertrude Stein, James Thurber, Carl Sandburg, Salman Rushdie, Ian Fleming, and Langston Hughes - so has Angelou: The 1993 gem Life Doesn’t Frighten Me ( public library), conceived and edited by Sara Jane Boyers, pairs Angelou’s simple, strong words with drawings by legendary artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose signature style of child-like fancy and colorful emotional intensity offers a perfect match for Angelou’s courageous verses.
Like a number of other celebrated “adult” poets and novelists who have also written for children - including Sylvia Plath, Mark Twain, Anne Sexton, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T.
Few embody the defiance of fear with greater dignity and grace than Maya Angelou, who has overcome remarkable hardship - childhood rape, poverty, addiction, bereavement - to become one of today’s most celebrated writers. Fear is the enemy of creativity, the hotbed of mediocrity, a critical obstacle to mastering life.