Maya Angelou


Ellen Labrerque (2016). Who Was Maya Angelou? 


Labrerque is a freelance writer with over 20 children's book (previously writer for Sports Illustrated for Kids). This work is a biography of Maya Angelou. Very readable with illustrations that provide a good sense of significant moments in Angelou's life including: 

  • stopped talking for 5 years after being molested as a young child, 
  • gave birth to her only child Guy when she was 17 as a senior in high school,
  • supported herself and her child through singing and dancing, including a world tour of 22 countries, 
  • joined the Harlem Writer's Guild who at first told her her writing was "terrible," 
  • lived in Cario and Ghana for four years before returning to the states and building her writing career with books like, I know Why the Caged Bird Sings (autobiography), and And Still I Rise (poems),
  • 30 years giving lectures and poetry readings around the world, 
  • appointed professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University despite not having attended college.

Some of the wisdom of Maya Angelou's words that stood out for me:

  • try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud
  • it takes a human voice to infuse words in books with the shades of deeper meaning
  • i write for the voice, not for the eyes
  • a bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song
  • people forget what you say and do but they never forget how you make them feel
  • poems are meant to be read out loud
  • teach forgiveness, love, and peace with your life

find one of Angelou's poems on the internet, or better yet a book of her poems at the library, or best yet support her work by buying a book of her poems...find one that appeals to you and read it OUT LOUD several times, let the words sink in, imagine how she would read them (see if you can find her reading that particular poem--or any of her poems--to get a feel for how she brings the written words to life through voice)...extend this practice by creating your own poem and reading it out loud...notice the difference between reading your poem silently versus reading the poem aloud with vocal expression...as Angelou writes, "the human voice infuses the words with shades of deeper meaning."




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