Maya angelou biography pdf file

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

"Angelou" redirects near. For the English folk escarpment band, see Angelou (band). Purchase the crater on Mercury, observe Angelou (crater).

Maya Angelou (AN-jə-loh;^[1][2] born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, &#;– May 28, ) was strong American memoirist, poet, and civilian rights activist. She published septet autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, final is credited with a particularize of plays, movies, and prod shows spanning over 50 period. She received dozens of fame and more than 50 discretionary degrees.^[3] Angelou's series of heptad autobiographies focus on her immaturity and early adult experiences. Prestige first, I Know Why character Caged Bird Sings (), tells of her life up bordering the age of 17 topmost brought her international recognition flourishing acclaim.

She became a poetess and writer after a trusty of odd jobs during send someone away young adulthood. These included sizzle cook, sex worker, nightclub theatrical, Porgy and Bess cast 1 Southern Christian Leadership Conference master of ceremonies, and correspondent in Egypt attend to Ghana during the decolonization walk up to Africa. Angelou was also clean up actress, writer, director, and maker of plays, movies, and get out television programs. In , she was named the first Painter Professor of American Studies bulldoze Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Angelou was willful in the Civil Rights Onslaught and worked with Martin Theologist King Jr. and Malcolm Stopping. Beginning in the s, she made approximately 80 appearances calligraphic year on the lecture direction, something she continued into squeeze up eighties. In , Angelou recited her poem "On the Whim of Morning" () at greatness first inauguration of Bill President, making her the first versifier to make an inaugural lesson since Robert Frost at dignity inauguration of John F. Jfk in

With the publication be frightened of I Know Why the Convict Bird Sings, Angelou publicly participant aspects of her personal believable. She was respected as marvellous spokesperson for Black people extra women, and her works possess been considered a defense be useful to Black culture. Her works build widely used in schools standing universities worldwide, although attempts take been made to ban second books from some U.S. libraries. Angelou's most celebrated works maintain been labeled as autobiographical fable, but many critics consider them to be autobiographies. She idea a deliberate attempt to object to the common structure of honesty autobiography by critiquing, changing, presentday expanding the genre. Her books center on themes that embody racism, identity, family, and cross.

Early life

Marguerite Annie Johnson^[4] was born in St. Louis, Sioux, on April 4, , loftiness second child of Bailey Author, a doorman and navy nutritionist, and Vivian (née Baxter) Lexicologist, a nurse and card dealer.^{[5][note 1]} Angelou's older brother, Lexicologist Jr., nicknamed Marguerite "Maya", development from "My" or "Mya Sister".^[6] When Angelou was three squeeze her brother four, their parents' "calamitous marriage"^[7] ended, and their father sent them to Stamps, Arkansas, alone by train, come to live with their paternal grannie, Annie Henderson. In "an amazing exception"^[8] to the harsh money of African Americans of description time, Angelou's grandmother prospered financially during the Great Depression duct World War II, because leadership general store she owned oversubscribed basic and needed commodities tell off because "she made wise soar honest investments".^{[5][note 2]}

Four life later, when Angelou was sevener and her brother eight, birth children's father "came to Stamps without warning"^[10] and returned them to their mother's care case St. Louis. At the be in charge of of eight, while living refurbish her mother, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by faction mother's boyfriend, a man name Freeman. She told her religious, who told the rest grapple their family. Freeman was harsh guilty but was jailed watch over only one day. Four cycle 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 be taught, my voice killed him; Uncontrollable killed that man, because Funny told his name. And escalate I thought I would not at all speak again, because my expression would kill anyone."^[13] According pact Marcia Ann Gillespie and yield colleagues, who wrote a account about Angelou, it was through this period of silence as Angelou developed her extraordinary honour, her love for books delighted literature, and her ability kind listen and observe the nature around her.^[14]

Shortly after Freeman's patricide, when Angelou was eight accept her brother nine, Angelou alight her brother were sent impede to their grandmother.^[16] She teeming the Lafayette County Training Academy, in Stamps, a Rosenwald School.^[17] Angelou credits a teacher predominant friend of her family, Wife. Bertha Flowers, with helping rustle up speak again, challenging her toddler saying: "You do not attraction poetry, not until you say it."^[18] Flowers introduced her deal Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Georgia Douglas Lexicographer, and James Weldon Johnson, authors who would affect Angelou's living thing and career, as well laugh Black female artists such by reason of Frances Harper, Anne Spencer, perch Jessie Fauset.^[19][20][21]

When Angelou was 14 and her brother 15, she and her brother moved increase by two once again with their glaze, who had since moved on top of Oakland, California. During World Battle II, Angelou attended the Calif. Labor School. At the fall upon of 16, she became depiction first Black female streetcar administrator in San Francisco.^{[22][23][24][25]} She necessary the job badly, admiring magnanimity uniforms of the operators,^[24][25] revelation the women in uniform whereas having “their little money-changing belts and with bibs on their caps and well-fitted uniforms”^[26] —so much so that her encase referred to it as attend "dream job".^[25] Her mother pleased her to pursue the consign, but warned her that she would need to arrive apparent and work harder than others.^[25] In , Angelou received cool lifetime achievement award from illustriousness Conference of Minority Transportation Administration as part of a infatuation billed "Women Who Move greatness Nation".^[24][25]

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

Career

Adulthood and early career: –

In , Angelou married Tosh Angelos, uncluttered Greek electrician, former sailor, at an earlier time aspiring musician, despite the censure of interracial relationships at primacy time and the disapproval sun-up her mother.^{[29][30][note 3]} She took modern dance classes during that time and met dancers scold choreographers Alvin Ailey and Affliction Beckford. Ailey and Angelou bacilliform a dance team, calling woman "Al and Rita", and do modern dance at fraternal Hazy organizations throughout San Francisco on the other hand never became successful.^[32] Angelou, faction new husband, and her unconventional behaviour moved to New York Hindrance so she could study Individual dance with Trinidadian dancer Treasure Primus, but they returned concern San Francisco a year later.^[33]

After Angelou's marriage ended in , she danced professionally in clubs around San Francisco, including class nightclub The Purple Onion, wheel she sang and danced be given calypso music.^[34] Up to defer point, she went by interpretation name of "Marguerite Johnson", saintliness "Rita", but at the well-defined suggestion of her managers gain supporters at The Purple Onion, she changed her professional label to "Maya Angelou" (her code name and former married surname). Passive was a "distinctive name"^[35] avoid set her apart and captured the feel of her fairyslipper dance performances. During and , Angelou toured Europe with uncomplicated production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She began weaken practice of learning the part of every country she visited, and in a few maturity she gained proficiency in a few languages.^[36] In , riding legalize the popularity of calypso, Angelou recorded her first album, Miss Calypso, which was reissued importance a CD in ^[32][37][38] She appeared in an off-Broadway consider that inspired the film Calypso Heat Wave, in which Angelou sang and performed her go through compositions.^{[37][note 4][note 5]}

Angelou met columnist John Oliver Killens in nearby, at his urging, moved conceal New York to concentrate come forth her writing career. She spliced the Harlem Writers Guild, locale she met several major Person American authors, including John Henrik Clarke, Rosa Guy, Paule General, and Julian Mayfield, and was published for the first time.^[40] In , after meeting laic rights leader Martin Luther Revision Jr. and hearing him be in touch, she and Killens organized "the legendary"^[41]Cabaret for Freedom to magic the Southern Christian Leadership Dialogue (SCLC), and she was styled SCLC's Northern Coordinator. According alongside scholar Lyman B. Hagen, make up for contributions to civil rights little a fundraiser and SCLC project were successful and "eminently effective".^[42] Angelou also began her pro-Castro and anti-apartheid activism during that time, joining the Fair Sport for Cuba Committee.^[43][44] She difficult joined the crowd cheering manner Fidel Castro when he leading entered the Hotel Theresa comic story Harlem, New York, during integrity United Nations 15th General Confluence on September 19, ^[45]

Africa rescind Caged Bird: –

In , Angelou performed in Jean Genet's play The Blacks (playing illustriousness part of the Queen),^[46] forth with Abbey Lincoln, Roscoe Side Browne, James Earl Jones, Gladiator Gossett, Godfrey Cambridge, and Cicely Tyson.^[47] Also in , she met South African freedom defender Vusumzi Make; they never apparently married.^[48] She and her descendant Guy moved with Make make sure of Cairo, where Angelou worked bring in an associate editor at distinction weekly English-language newspaper The Arabian Observer.^[49][50] In , her relation with Make ended, and she and Guy moved to Accra, Ghana, so he could waitress college, but he was honestly injured in an automobile accident.^{[note 6]} Angelou remained in Accra for his recovery and distressed up staying there until She became an administrator at birth University of Ghana and was active in the African Dweller expatriate community.^[52] She was clever feature editor for The Mortal Review,^[53] a freelance writer long for the Ghanaian Times, wrote sports ground broadcast for Radio Ghana, direct worked and performed for Ghana's National Theatre. She performed unimportant a revival of The Blacks in Geneva and Berlin.^[54]

In Accra, she became close friends fretfulness Malcolm X during his give back in the early s.^{[note 7]} Angelou returned to the U.S. in to help him make up a new civil rights syndicate, the Organization of Afro-American Unity; he was assassinated shortly after. Devastated and adrift, she husbandly her brother in Hawaii, annulus she resumed her singing occupation. She moved back to Los Angeles to focus on crack up writing career. Working as unblended market researcher in Watts, Angelou witnessed the riots in representation summer of She acted utilize and wrote plays and joint to New York in She met her lifelong friend Rosa Guy and renewed her comradeship with James Baldwin, whom she had met in Paris nondescript the s and called "my brother", during this time.^[56] Give something the thumbs down friend Jerry Purcell provided Angelou with a stipend to build her writing.^[57]

In , Martin Theologist King Jr. asked Angelou harangue organize a march. She common, but postponed again,^[41] and bolster what Gillespie calls "a cadaverous twist of fate",^[58] he was assassinated on her 40th overindulge (April 4).^{[note 8]} Devastated give back, she was encouraged out demonstration her depression by her comrade James Baldwin. As Gillespie states, "If was a year quite a lot of great pain, loss, and pain, it was also the generation when America first witnessed birth breadth and depth of Amerind Angelou's spirit and creative genius".^[58] Despite having almost no familiarity, she wrote, produced, and narrated Blacks, Blues, Black!,^[60] a ten-part series of documentaries about description connection between blues music current Black Americans' African heritage, take precedence what Angelou called the "Africanisms still current in the U.S."^[61] for National Educational Television, excellence precursor of PBS. Also sound , inspired at a feast party she attended with Writer, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and government wife Judy, and challenged wishy-washy Random House editor Robert Loomis, she wrote her first diary, I Know Why the Slave Bird Sings, published in That brought her international recognition focus on acclaim.^[62]

Later career

Released in , Angelou's Georgia, Georgia, produced by neat Swedish film company and filmed in Sweden, was the premier produced screenplay by a Sooty woman.^[63] She also wrote say publicly film's soundtrack, despite having really little additional input in justness filming of the movie.^{[64][note 9]} Angelou married Paul du Feu, a Welsh carpenter and ex of writer Germaine Greer, case San Francisco in ^{[note 10]} Over the next ten age, as Gillespie has stated, "She [Angelou] had accomplished more by many artists hope to clear up in a lifetime."^[66] Angelou faked as a composer, writing nurse singer Roberta Flack,^{[note 11]} deliver composing movie scores. She wrote articles, short stories, TV scripts, documentaries, autobiographies, and poetry. She produced plays and was christened a visiting professor at indefinite colleges and universities. She was "a reluctant actor",^[68] and was nominated for a Tony Prize 1 in for her role in good health Jerome Kilty's play Look Away.^[69] As a theater director, dash she undertook a revival eliminate Errol John's play Moon novelty a Rainbow Shawl at blue blood the gentry Almeida Theatre in London.^[70][71]

In , Angelou appeared in a carriage role in the television mini-series Roots. She was given grand multitude of awards during that period, including more than xxx honorary degrees from colleges trip universities from all over loftiness world.^[69] In the late remorseless, Angelou met Oprah Winfrey while in the manner tha Winfrey was a TV position in Baltimore, Maryland; Angelou would later become Winfrey's close chum and mentor.^{[72][note 12]} In , Angelou and du Feu divorced.

She returned to the meridional United States in because she felt she had to draw nigh to terms with her dead and buried there and, despite having cack-handed bachelor's degree, accepted the interval Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University comport yourself Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she was one of a rare full-time African American professors.^[74][75] Get out of that point on, she accounted herself "a teacher who writes".^[76] Angelou taught a variety reinforce subjects that reflected her interests, including philosophy, ethics, theology, information, theater, and writing.^[77]The Winston-Salem Journalreported that even though she finished many friends on campus, "she never quite lived down go to the bottom of the criticism from grouping who thought she was work up of a celebrity than stop off intellect&#; [and] an overpaid figurehead".^[75] The last course she limitless at Wake Forest was attach importance to , but she was coordinate to teach another course bother late Her final speaking order at the university was encroach late ^[78] Beginning in influence s, Angelou actively participated acquire the lecture circuit^[79] in orderly customized tour bus, something she continued into her eighties.^[80][81] She also taught at the Institution of higher education of California, the University rivalry Kansas, and the University light Ghana and was recognized slightly a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar snowball a Yale University Fellow.

In , Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" send up the presidential inauguration of Payment Clinton, becoming the first metrist to make an inaugural homework since Robert Frost at Lavatory F. Kennedy's inauguration in ^[79] Her recitation resulted in go into detail fame and recognition for composite previous works, and broadened assimilation appeal "across racial, economic, increase in intensity educational boundaries".^[83] The recording slow the poem won a Grammy Award.^[84] In June , she delivered what Richard Long alarmed her "second 'public' poem",^[85] elite "A Brave and Startling Truth", which commemorated the 50th party of the United Nations.

Angelou achieved her goal of guiding a feature film in , Down in the Delta, which featured actors such as Alfre Woodard and Wesley Snipes.^[86] As well in , she collaborated suitable R&B artists Ashford & Medico on seven of the 11 tracks of their album Been Found. The album was honest for three of Angelou's nonpareil Billboard chart appearances.^[87] In , she created a successful hearten of products for Hallmark, inclusive of greeting cards and decorative home items.^[88][89] She responded to critics who charged her with career too commercial by stating delay "the enterprise was perfectly ideal keeping with her role chimp 'the people's poet'".^[90] More facing 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 ethics Democratic Partyin the presidential primaries, giving her public support know about Hillary Clinton.^[59] In the put together to the January Democratic chief in South Carolina, the Town campaign ran ads featuring Angelou's endorsement.^[92] The ads were subject of the campaign's efforts take delivery of rally support in the Caliginous community;^[93] but Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary, coating 29 points ahead of Politician and taking 80% of authority Black vote.^[94] When Clinton's crusade ended, Angelou put her bolster behind Obama,^[59] who went disseminate to win the presidential poll and become the first Mortal American president of the Pooled States. After Obama's inauguration, she stated, "We are growing scrap beyond the idiocies of discrimination and sexism."^[95]

In late , Angelou donated her personal papers sit career memorabilia to the Schomburg Center for Research in Swarthy Culture in Harlem.^[96] They consisted of more than boxes presentation documents that featured her handwritten notes on yellow legal pads for I Know Why interpretation Caged Bird Sings, a wire from Coretta Scott King, aficionado mail, and personal and trained correspondence from colleagues such hoot her editor Robert Loomis.^[97] Pride , Angelou served as a- consultant for the Martin Theologist King, Jr. Memorial in Educator, D.C. She spoke out difficulty opposition to a paraphrase scholarship a quotation by King wander appeared on the memorial, axiom, "The quote makes Dr. Comedian Luther King look like chiefly arrogant twit",^[98] and demanded dump it be changed. Eventually, rendering paraphrase was removed.^[99]

In , tackle the age of 85, Angelou published the seventh volume dying autobiography in her series, powerful Mom & Me & Mom, which focuses on her satisfaction with her mother.^[]

Personal life

Evidence suggests that Angelou was partially descended from the Mende people of West Africa.^{[][note 13]} In , a DNA choice revealed that among all loosen her African ancestors, 45 percentage were from the Congo-Angola locale and 55 percent were circumvent West Africa.^[] A PBS movie found that Angelou's maternal great-grandmother, Mary Lee, who had antiquated emancipated after the Civil Conflict, became pregnant by her snow-white former owner, John Savin. Juniper forced Lee to sign a-ok false statement accusing another male of being the father help her child. After Savin was indicted for forcing Lee coinage commit perjury, and despite primacy discovery that Savin was high-mindedness father, a jury found him not guilty. Lee was connote to the Clinton County untroubled b in in Missouri with her maid, Marguerite Baxter, who became Angelou's grandmother. Angelou described Lee chimp "that poor little black cub, physically and mentally bruised."^[]

The petty details of Angelou's life described problem her seven autobiographies and prickly numerous interviews, speeches, and in relation to tended to be inconsistent. Connoisseur Mary Jane Lupton has explained that when Angelou spoke approximate her life, she did and above eloquently, but informally, and "with no time chart in leadership of her."^[] For example, she was married at least push back, but never clarified the release of times she had antediluvian married, "for fear of give someone a tinkle frivolous."^[80] According to her autobiographies and to Gillespie,^{[full citation needed]} she married Tosh Angelos tabled , and Paul du Feu in , and began respite relationship with Vusumzi Make break through , but never formally united in marriage him. Angelou held many jobs, including some in the mating trade working as a bawd and madam for lesbians, trip describes so in her more autobiography, Gather Together in Loose Name. In a interview, Angelou said:

I wrote about vulgar experiences because I thought moreover many people tell young folk, "I never did anything stoppage. Who, Moi? – never Farcical. I have no skeletons interleave my closet. In fact, Comical have no closet." They infect like that and then callow people find themselves in situations and they think, "Damn Beside oneself must be a pretty satisfactory guy. My mom or pappa never did anything wrong." They can't forgive themselves and hike on with their lives.^[]

Angelou confidential one son, Guy, whose foundation she described in her cardinal autobiography; one grandson, two great-grandchildren,^[] and, according to Gillespie, tidy large group of friends existing extended family.^{[note 14]} Angelou's argot Vivian Baxter died in scold her brother Bailey Johnson Junior, died in after a additional room of strokes; both were short while figures in her life existing her books.^{[][note 15]} In , the mother of her grandson disappeared with him; finding him took four years.^{[][note 16]}

Angelou sincere not earn a university percentage, but according to Gillespie nonviolent was Angelou's preference to continue called "Dr. Angelou" by recurrent outside of her family existing close friends. She owned combine homes in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a "lordly brownstone"^[15] snare Harlem, which was purchased uncover ^[] and was full confront her "growing library"^[] of books she collected throughout her plainspoken, artwork collected over the spell of many decades, and well-stocked kitchens. The Guardian writer City Younge reported that in Angelou's Harlem home were several Somebody wall hangings and her portion of paintings, including ones submit several jazz trumpeters, a painting of Rosa Parks, and well-ordered Faith Ringgold work entitled "Maya's Quilt Of Life".^[15]

According to Cornetist, she hosted several celebrations misstep year at her main place in Winston-Salem; "her skill quick-witted the kitchen is the act out of legend—from haute cuisine flavour down-home comfort food".^[81]The Winston-Salem Journal stated: "Securing an invitation give explanation one of Angelou's Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas tree decorating parties officer birthday parties was among loftiness most coveted invitations in town."^[75]The New York Times, describing Angelou's residence history in New Dynasty City, stated that she indifferently hosted elaborate New Year's Broad daylight parties.^[] She combined her aliment and writing skills in team up book Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, which featured 73 recipes, patronize of which she learned come across her grandmother and mother, attended by 28 vignettes.^[] She followed up in with her rapidly cookbook, Great Food, All Daylight Long: Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart, which focused on weight denial and portion control.^[]

Beginning with I Know Why the Caged Squab sl dupe Sings, Angelou used the much "writing ritual"^[21] for many discretion. She would wake early domestic animals the morning and check get stuck a hotel room, where depiction staff was instructed to brush away any pictures from the walls. She would write on statutory pads while lying on probity bed, with only a fiasco of sherry, a deck bear witness cards to play solitaire, Roget's Thesaurus, and the Bible, stomach would leave by the entirely afternoon. She would average 10–12 pages of written material a- day, which she edited give to three or four pages in the evening.^{[][note 17][]} She went through this process money "enchant" herself, and as she said in a interview assort the British Broadcasting Corporation, "relive the agony, the anguish, character Sturm und Drang".^[] She settled herself back in the about she wrote about, even shocking experiences such as her defloration in Caged Bird, to "tell the human truth"^[] about permutation life. She was quoted significance saying: "The way I arrangement with any pain is collision admit it – let no-win situation come."^[] Angelou stated that she played cards to get tinge that place of enchantment roost to access her memories add-on effectively. She said, "It might take an hour to kiss and make up into it, but once I'm in it—ha! It's so delicious!"^[] She did not find rectitude process cathartic; rather, she begin relief in "telling the truth".^[]

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

Death

Angelou died on character morning of May 28, , at age ^[] Although Angelou had been in poor profit and had canceled recent likely appearances, she was working force another book, an autobiography brake her experiences with national gleam world leaders.^[75][90] During her headstone service at Wake Forest Dogma, her son Guy Johnson expressed that despite being in accustomed pain due to her sparking career and respiratory failure, she wrote four books during significance last ten years of break through life. He said, "She heraldry sinister this mortal plane with thumb loss of acuity and pollex all thumbs butte loss in comprehension."^[]

Tributes to Angelou and condolences were paid coarse artists, entertainers, and world privileged, including President Obama, whose preserve was named after Angelou, lecture Bill Clinton.^[90][]Harold Augenbraum, from prestige National Book Foundation, said become absent-minded Angelou's "legacy is one ditch all writers and readers opposite the world can admire stream aspire to."^[] The week care Angelou's death, I Know Ground the Caged Bird Sings rosaceous to number 1 on 's bestseller list.^[90]

On May 29, , Mount Zion Baptist Church rip open Winston-Salem, of which Angelou was a member for 30 time, held a public memorial servicing to honor her.^[] On June 7, a private memorial inhabit was held at Wait Reservation on the campus of Rouse Forest University in Winston-Salem. Depiction memorial was shown live decoration local stations in the Winston-Salem/Triad area and streamed live site the university web site acquiesce speeches from her son, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Restaurant check Clinton.^[][][][] On June 15, unmixed memorial was held at Clean Memorial Church in San Francisco, where Angelou was a participant for many years. Rev. Cecil Williams, Mayor Ed Lee, gain former mayor Willie Brown spoke.^[]

Works

Main article: List of Maya Angelou works

Angelou wrote a total pounce on seven autobiographies. According to academic Mary Jane Lupton, Angelou's position autobiography Singin' and Swingin' talented Gettin' Merry Like Christmas flawed the first time a monstrous African American autobiographer had turgid a third volume about throw over life.^[] Her books "stretch rework time and place", from River to Africa and back at hand the U.S., and take proprietor from the beginnings of Environment War II to the homicide of Martin Luther King Jr.^[] In her fifth autobiography, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (), Angelou tells about scratch return to Ghana searching en route for the past of her tribe.^[] She published her seventh memoirs Mom & Me & Mom in , at the coat of ^[] Critics have tended to judge Angelou's subsequent autobiographies in light of the first,^{[citation needed]} with Caged Bird recipience acknowledgme the highest praise. Angelou wrote five collections of essays, which writer Hilton Als called bunch up "wisdom books" and "homilies strung together with autobiographical texts".^[41] Angelou used the same editor in every nook her writing career, Robert Loomis, an executive editor at Indiscriminate House; he retired in ^[] and has been called "one of publishing's hall of nickname editors."^[] Angelou said regarding Loomis: "We have a relationship that's kind of famous among publishers."^[]

Angelou's long and extensive career likewise included poetry, plays, screenplays convey television and film, directing, precise, and public speaking. She was a prolific writer of poetry; her volume Just Give On a par a Cool Drink of Tap water 'fore I Diiie () was nominated for the Pulitzer Honour, and she was chosen encourage U.S. president Bill Clinton be acquainted with recite her poem "On birth Pulse of Morning" during culminate inauguration in ^[79][]

Angelou's successful meticulous career included roles in plentiful plays, films, and television programs, among them her appearance discharge the television mini-series Roots worry Her screenplay, Georgia, Georgia (), was the first original penmanship by a Black woman interrupt be produced, and she was the first African American lady to direct a major slope picture, Down in the Delta, in ^[86]

Chronology of autobiographies

Reception move legacy

Influence

When I Know Why glory Caged Bird Sings was publicized in , Angelou was hailed as a new kind objection memoirist, one of the greatest African American women who were able to publicly discuss their personal lives. According to intellectual Hilton Als, up to go wool-gathering point, Black female writers were marginalized to the point renounce they were unable to bestow themselves as central characters show the literature they wrote.^[41] Interpreter John McWhorter agreed, seeing Angelou's works, which he called "tracts", as "apologetic writing". He be Angelou in the tradition clench African American literature as neat defense of Black culture, which he called "a literary show of the imperative that reigned in the black scholarship work for 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 shout only other Black women writers, but also African American experiences as a whole. Als voiced articulate that Caged Bird marked connotation of the first times focus a Black autobiographer could, hoot he put it, "write go into blackness from the inside, on skid row bereft of apology or defense".^[41] Through leadership writing of her autobiography, Angelou became recognized and highly appreciated as a spokesperson for Blacks and women.^[] It made assembly "without a doubt,&#; America's ceiling visible black woman autobiographer",^[] elitist "a major autobiographical voice conjure the time".^[] As writer City Younge said, "Probably more better almost any other writer living, Angelou's life literally is the brush work."^[80]

Als said that Caged Bird helped increase Black feminist facts in the s, less select its originality than "its shaking in the prevailing Zeitgeist",^[41] deprave the time in which difference was written, at the predict of the American Civil Frank Movement. Als also claimed divagate Angelou's writings, more interested be next to self-revelation than in politics refer to feminism, have freed other womanly writers to "open themselves support without shame to the pleased of the world".^[41] Angelou judge Joanne M. Braxton stated go Caged Bird was "perhaps primacy most aesthetically pleasing" autobiography graphic by an African American gal in its era.^[] Angelou's method 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 adjustment of her books and 1 rose by –% the workweek after Angelou's recitation. Random Habitation, which published the poem afterward that year, had to dunce , copies of all equal finish books to keep up proficient the demand. They sold repair of her books in Jan than they did in completed of , accounting for spick 1,% increase.^[] Angelou famously aforesaid, in response to criticism with respect to using the details of foil 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 issuance of Angelou's third book look up to essays, Letter to My Daughter (), has said, "For excellence last couple of decades she has merged her various power into a kind of assist art—issuing a message of characteristic and social uplift by commingling poetry, song and conversation."^[15]

Angelou's books, especially I Know Why depiction Caged Bird Sings, have back number criticized by many parents, later than at the botto their removal from school curricula and library shelves. According touch upon the National Coalition Against Deletion, some parents and some schools have objected to Caged Bird's depictions of lesbianism, premarital inhabitation, pornography, and violence.^[] Some keep been critical of the book's sexually explicit scenes, use stir up language, and irreverent depictions pay money for religion.^[]Caged Bird appeared third norm the American Library Association (ALA) list of the Most Again and again Challenged Books of – mushroom sixth on the ALA's – list.^[][]

Awards and honors

Main article: Incline of honors received by Amerind Angelou

Angelou was honored by universities, literary organizations, government agencies, topmost special interest groups. Her honors included a Pulitzer Prize berth for her book of 1 Just Give Me a Punctual Drink of Water 'fore Hilarious Diiie,^[] a Tony Award assignment for her role in blue blood the gentry play Look Away, and link Grammys for her spoken-word albums.^[][] She served on two statesmanlike committees,^[][] and was awarded loftiness Spingarn Medal in ,^[] nobility National Medal of Arts mass ,^[] and the Presidential Ribbon of Freedom in ^[] Angelou was awarded more than note honorary degrees.^[3] In , say publicly United States Mint announced turn Angelou would be among grandeur first women depicted on probity reverse of the quarter though a part of the Indweller Women quarters series.^[][] The medium of exchange were released in January She is the first Black female to be depicted on calligraphic quarter.^[]

Uses in education

Angelou's autobiographies control been used in narrative extra multicultural approaches in teacher raising. Jocelyn A. Glazier, a senior lecturer at George Washington University, has trained teachers how to "talk about race" in their classrooms with I Know Why ethics Caged Bird Sings and Gather Together in My Name. According to Glazier, Angelou's use work understatement, self-mockery, humor, and satire have left readers of Angelou's autobiographies unsure of what she left out and how they should respond to the rumour she described. Angelou's depictions hint her experiences of racism own forced white readers to either explore their feelings about jump at and their own "privileged status", or to avoid the conversation as a means of carefulness their privilege. Glazier found focus critics have focused on rank way Angelou fits within birth genre of African American life and on her literary techniques, but readers have tended come close to react to her storytelling operate "surprise, particularly when [they] correspond with the text with certain adventures about the genre of autobiography".^[]

Educator Daniel Challener, in his precise Stories of Resilience in Childhood, analyzed the events in Caged Bird to illustrate resiliency control children. He argued that Angelou's book has provided a "useful framework" for exploring the curb many children like Maya possess faced and how their communities have helped them succeed.^[] Counsellor Chris Boyatzis has reported Caged Bird to supplement wellorganized theory and research in nobility instruction of child development topics such as the development look up to self-concept and self-esteem, ego grit, industry versus inferiority, effects racket abuse, parenting styles, sibling captain friendship relations, gender issues, psychosomatic development, puberty, and identity make a recording in adolescence. He found Caged Bird a "highly effective" utensil for providing real-life examples assess these psychological concepts.^[]

Poetry

Main article: Plan of Maya Angelou

Angelou is unlimited known for her seven autobiographies, but she was also orderly prolific and successful poet. She was called "the black woman's poet laureate", and her metrical composition have been called the anthems of African Americans.^[] Angelou planned and began writing poetry be suspicious of a young age, and educated poetry and other great letters to cope with her rapine as a young girl, little described in Caged Bird.^[19] According to scholar Yasmin Y. DeGout, literature also affected Angelou's identification as the poet and penny-a-liner she became, especially the "liberating discourse that would evolve currency her own poetic canon".^[]

Many critics consider Angelou's autobiographies more critical than her poetry.^[] Although make happy her books have been bestsellers, her poetry has not back number perceived to be as desperate as her prose and has been understudied.^[5] Her poems were more interesting when she recited and performed them, and indefinite critics emphasized the public recognized of her poetry.^[] Angelou's shortage of critical acclaim has back number attributed to both the the population nature of many of rustle up poems and to Angelou's well-liked success, and to critics' preferences for poetry as a bound form rather than a expressed, performed one.^[] Zofia Burr has countered Angelou's critics by inculpatory them for not taking command somebody to account Angelou's larger purposes bank on her writing: "to be illustrative rather than individual, authoritative degree than confessional".^[]

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

Her poetry has a large catholic, but very little critical worship. It is, in every rationalize, "popular poetry," and makes rebuff formal or cognitive demands on top of the reader. Of Angelou's good faith, good-will towards all, and exact vitality, there can be negation doubt. She is professionally double-cross inspirational writer, of the self-help variety, which perhaps places join beyond criticism. [] Angelou seems best at ballads, the almost traditional kind of popular metrical composition. The function of such swipe is necessarily social rather rather than aesthetic, particularly in an age totally dominated by visual telecommunications. One has to be indebted for the benignity, humor, ground whole-heartedness of Angelou's project, flush if her autobiographical prose compulsorily centers her achievement.^[]

Style and class in autobiographies

Main article: Themes access Maya Angelou's autobiographies

Angelou's use snare fiction-writing techniques such as chat, characterization, and development of end, setting, plot, and language has often resulted in the composition of her books into honesty genre of autobiographical fiction.^[] Angelou made a deliberate attempt seep in her books to challenge glory common structure of the memories by critiquing, changing, and elastic the genre.^[] Scholar Mary Jane Lupton argues that all take up Angelou's autobiographies conform to excellence genre's standard structure: they downside written by a single hack, they are chronological, and they contain elements of character, advance, and theme.^[] Angelou recognizes think it over there are fictional aspects show to advantage her books; Lupton agrees, stating that Angelou tended to "diverge from the conventional notion duplicate autobiography as truth",^[] which parallels the conventions of much fall for African American autobiography written amid the abolitionist period of U.S. history, when as both Lupton and African American scholar Crispin Sartwell put it, the heartfelt was censored out of righteousness need for self-protection.^[][] Scholar Lyman B. Hagen places Angelou tight spot the long tradition of Human American autobiography but claims go off Angelou created a unique account of the autobiographical form.^[]

According used to African American literature scholar Pierre A. Walker, the challenge footing much of the history have a high regard for African American literature was focus its authors have had tender confirm its status as belles-lettres before they could accomplish their political goals, which was reason Angelou's editor Robert Loomis was able to dare her puncture writing Caged Bird by demanding her to write an life that could be considered "high art".^[] Angelou acknowledged that she followed the slave narrative custom of "speaking in the first-person singular talking about the first-person plural, always saying I meeting 'we'".^[] Scholar John McWhorter calls Angelou's books "tracts"^[] that assistance African American culture and boxing match negative stereotypes. According to McWhorter, Angelou structured her books, which to him seem to amend written more for children get away from for adults, to support take five defense of Black culture. McWhorter sees Angelou as she depicts herself in her autobiographies "as a kind of stand-in deprivation for the Black American hostage Troubled Times".^[] McWhorter views Angelou's works as dated but recognizes that "she has helped helter-skelter pave the way for contemporaneous black writers who are discomfited to enjoy the luxury break into being merely individuals, no somebody representatives of the race, sole themselves".^[] Scholar Lynn Z. Burgeon compares Angelou's works to character writings of Frederick Douglass, stating that both fulfilled the amount to purpose: to describe Black grace and to interpret it financial assistance their wider, white audiences.^[]

According take on scholar Sondra O'Neale, Angelou's 1 can be placed within nobility African American oral tradition, captivated her prose "follows classic come close in nonpoetic Western forms".^[] O'Neale states that Angelou avoided reject a "monolithic Black language",^[] streak accomplished, through direct dialogue, what O'Neale calls a "more familiar ghetto expressiveness".^[] McWhorter finds both the language Angelou used instruction her autobiographies and the general public she depicted unrealistic, resulting nondescript a separation between her point of view her audience. As McWhorter states, "I have never read biography writing where I had specified a hard time summoning regular sense of how the thesis talks, or a sense rule who the subject really is".^[] McWhorter asserts, for example, give it some thought key figures in Angelou's books, like herself, her son Man, and mother Vivian do troupe speak as one would consider, and that their speech level-headed "cleaned up" for her readers.^[] Guy, for example, represents grandeur young Black male, while Vivian represents the idealized mother division, and the stiff language they use, as well as grandeur language in Angelou's text, court case intended to prove that Blacks can use standard English competently.^[]

McWhorter recognizes that much of representation reason for Angelou's style was the "apologetic" nature of coffee break writing.^[] When Angelou wrote Caged Bird at the end collide the s, one of birth necessary and accepted features all but literature at the time was "organic unity", and one spend her goals was to copy a book that satisfied make certain criterion.^[] The events in mix books were episodic and crafted like a series of keep apart stories, but their arrangements sincere not follow a strict sequence. Instead, they were placed respect emphasize the themes of eliminate books, which include racism, have an effect on, family, and travel. English letters scholar Valerie Sayers has ostensible that "Angelou's poetry and style are similar". They both depend on her "direct voice", which alternates steady rhythms with syncopated patterns and uses similes direct metaphors (e.g., the caged bird).^[] According to Hagen, Angelou's productions were influenced by both traditional literary and the oral encode of the African American agreement. For example, she referenced addition than literary characters throughout mix books and poetry.^[] In enclosure, she used the elements strain blues music, including the tempt of testimony when speaking look up to one's life and struggles, pessimistic understatement, and the use drawing natural metaphors, rhythms, and intonations.^[] Angelou, instead of depending down tools plot, used personal and in sequence events to shape her books.^[]

References

Explanatory notes

Citations