Maya Angelou has died. The list of jobs she held over the course of her life is astounding:
She became a poet and writer after a series of occupations as a young adult, including fry cook, prostitute, night-club dancer and performer, cast-member of the opera Porgy and Bess, coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the days of decolonization. She was an actor, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. Since 1982, she taught at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she holds the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies. She was active in the Civil Rights movement, and worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Since the 1990s she made around eighty appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration, the first poet to make an inaugural recitation sinceRobert Frost at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961.
This is your open thread to discuss her life and body of work and SNL’s delightful, loving tribute to her, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Laughs”:
“Sister Maya! Was this an act of malice?”
“No, Brother West. It was an act of whimsy.”
Tags: an act of whimsy, authors, Maya Angelou, open thread, poetry, women’s writing
anachronistique posted a link to this in the open thread and I’m reposting it here so that none of us have to cry alone today:
(From the official Sesame Street twitter account: “We’re saddened by the passing of our friend Maya Angelou. Thank you for all you’ve done, and for all the hugs.”)
And predictably, that is the goodbye to Maya Angelou that made me cry. Oh, Sesame Street, you always put so much into simple words.
I think there’s something about seeing people interact with Muppets that makes you indelibly aware that we’re all still the children we were. It’s hard to retain your cynicism about life when you realize that so many of us really do want to hug a Muppet.
That’s certainly some of the appeal of Sesame Street in general, and you put it beautifully.
But for me, I think this moment is so touching because it recognizes, as Sesame Street always does, that children know and care about the world and that they need and deserve to be told about loss.
They’re acknowledging that children care about Maya Angelou in a way appropriate to their age and understanding— not yet about the greatness of her work, though that is what brought her to fame, but about her.
Many obituaries and eulogies rightly focus on work and accomplishments. Sesame Street understands that children and adults want to say a loving goodbye to a friend. It pierces right to my heart.
Her poetry reached into my life as a young girl, and opened worlds to me. I’d always loved to read, I’d always loved words, but her work let me see poetry for the wonderful thing it is.
Thank you for being, Maya Angelou. We will miss you.
Emily Dickinson said it well: “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?”
I spent the summer after eighth grade reading all the volumes of her autobiography (at least, the ones that existed at that point). I learned So. Much. Her lived experiences, so beautifully rendered, allowed me to escape the boredom of my tiny, opposite-of-diverse town and begin the lifelong process of broadening my (at that point) very limited horizons.
Thank you, Dr. Angelou. For everything.
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
yes yes yes yes yes yes yes, thanks for posting that.
As I read this, I could hear Dr. Angelou’s voice in my head.
Here’s her reciting some of it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik4bnjUCTbE#t=29
Also this may be a controversial recommendation, but Ben Harper does an absolutely lovely (my opinion, ymmv) rendition of this poem set to song on his Welcome to the Cruel World album.
Encore Je Me Lèverai
(Poème « Still I Rise » écrit par Maya Angelou, traduit par Hébert Logerie)
Vous pouvez écrire sur moi, dans les pages de l’histoire,
Des mensonges amers, et tordus ;
Vous pouvez me piétiner dans la boue nue,
Encore je me lèverai, comme la poussière noire.
Est-ce que mon impertinence vous dérange?
Pourquoi êtes-vous plongé dans une tristesse étrange ?
Est-ce parce que je marche, comme si j’ai un puits de kérosène,
Qui pompe des millions de gallons dans mon salon d’ébène.
Tout comme des lunes et des soleils,
Avec la certitude des marées,
Tout comme l’espoir qui jaillit jusqu’au ciel,
Encore je me lèverai.
Voulez-vous me voir brisée, ruinée,
La tête baissée et les yeux abaissés,
Les épaules tombées, comme des larmes laconiques
Et affaiblies par mes cris mélancoliques ?
Est-ce que mon orgueil vous expose ?
Ne trouvez-vous pas que ces choses soient affreuses ?
Parce que je ris, comme si j’ai des mines d’or
Enfouies dans ma propre arrière-cour.
Avec vos mots, vous pouvez m’assassiner,
Avec vos yeux, vous pouvez me décapiter;
Avec votre haine, vous pouvez me tuer,
Mais encore, comme l’air, je me lèverai.
Est-ce que mon charme sexuel vous dérange?
Pour vous, c’est comme une surprise,
Que je danse comme si j’ai des diamants de Suisse,
Dans le triangle de mes cuisses ?
Sur les huttes de la honte de l’histoire
Je me lèverai
D’un passé enraciné dans une douleur noire
Je me lèverai.
Je suis un vaste océan noir qui peut sauter,
S’enfler et se dégonfler. Je porte dans la marée,
Laissant derrière des nuits de terreur
Et de peur.
Je me lèverai,
A l’aube d’un jour qui est clairement merveilleux.
Je me lèverai,
En t’offrant des cadeaux légués de mes Aïeux,
Je suis le rêve et l’espoir de l’esclave,
Je suis l’enfant des Braves.
Je me lèverai
Je me lèverai
Je me lèverai.
« Still I rise » poème écrit par Maya Angelou, traduit par Hébert Logerie
P.S. Dr. Maya Angelou, I thank you for all the gifts that you left behind. To honor you, I translated your beautiful poem “Still I Rise” in French. Thank you for the poems, the memories and the Love. Hébert Logerie)
Godspeed, Dr Angelou
My daughter said: I just like how she talks about how she refused to let what happened to her ruin her life
I feel like everyone should take that advice
I do too. What an example she was.
May she sail to the isle of the blessed
i once met maya angelou when i was in 5th or 6th grade and asked to take a photo with her. she was sitting in a chair and i slouched down to take the photo with her. she turned to me and just said “never, ever slouch.”
i recently came across her guest appearance on The Richard Pryor Show which is brilliant and difficult to watch. It’s the perfect example of comedy as a vessel for social commentary and its ability to approach subjects deemed too burdensome. I really recommend watching it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNFuxrxfM9c
Oh, wow. Thank you for the link to that.
BRB, rewriting my lesson plan for Year 11 English.
Addendum to the list of occupations: the first African-American female street car operator in San Francisco (at the tender age of 16)! She said her mother worried about her on the streets alone so early in the morning, so she would drive behind the streetcar until the sun came up, then honked the horn and drove home to cook for the family. Just heard this on an NPR interviewed replayed this afternoon.
In other firsts, she was the first African-American woman to have her script filmed, in 1972 for Georgia Georgia.
That is so lovely.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was one of my set texts for GCSE. I don’t remember much about it, but some of the amazingly evocative images have stayed with me.
I don’t remember him actually saying it, but we knew that my English teacher didn’t like the book much, which must have affected our reading. Looking back, I wonder how much of that was down to unconscious racism and sexism. Ugh.
I think I will suggest something by Angelou for my book club.
That is so lovely.
🙁 is all I have to say right now. Just 🙁
Also, I’ve not seen many people talking about it, but did anyone else grow up reading/being read Life Doesn’t Frighten Me At All? That was my first ever introduction to Maya Angelou as a child (and has illustrations by Basquiat!)
I know people have to die, but I’m never ready to lose them. Especially not such greatness.
I know people have to die, but I'm never ready to lose them. Especially not such greatness.
I felt such a pang when I heard the news. Fuck the dudebros who tried to tell me she was anything but brilliant: http://skepchick.org/2014/05/maya-angelou/