Maya Angelou, literary luminary
Maya Angelou, the People's Poet, passed away on May 28. She was 86.
Angelou’s failing health was reported as recently as May 27, when she canceled an appearance honoring her with a Beacon of Life Award due to "health reasons".
In a statement, President Barack Obama said, "Today, Michelle and I join millions around the world in remembering one of the brightest lights of our time - a brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman," adding, "She inspired my own mother to name my sister Maya."
Angelou was renowned for her seven autobiographies, where "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969), her first, received international acclaim. There were some reviewers who have reservations about Angelou's memoiristic style, calling it facile. Others dismissed her poetry as being more than prose with line breaks. But literature was more than any of those, able to touch a reader was what counted most. Moreover, if she did have shortcomings as a writer, she made it up with her honest recount of her life, which some find brutal.
Born Marguerite Ann Johnson, Angelou grew up in Stamps, Arkansas. It was the Great Depression, and the Deep South wasn't a good place for African-Americans during that time. Not only she witnessed the hardship, but she also endured a traumatic experience when her mother's lover forced into her. The man met his justice too soon, which Angelou suspected her uncles have something to do with it. It haunted her. She was mute for many years, saved by her passion for writing. (Like many great authors, literature became a refuge, if not their salvation.)
Then Angelou became an expatriate, her life became the stuff that writers liked to retell and probe over and over again. Some would see it checkered, not so different from Malcolm Little (a.k.a. Malcolm X) whom she befriended when both lived in Africa. (She also became good friends with Martin Luther King, Jr., supporting him in his cause.) Little's life ended in tragedy, but not Angelou's. At the urging of her friends, she turned to writing. (If not for this, then her life might have turned out different.)
"Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‘I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.’ "
Angelou's sunset years turned out to be the sweetest, as she ventured into acting, among other things. (She starred in the film adaptation of Whitney Otto's novel, "How to Make an American Quilt".) She was bestowed with numerous awards for her works, often citing "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", which became a must-read in African-American literature.
Her greatest honor was her presence at President Bill Clinton's inauguration on January 1993, where she recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning".
Clinton said in a statement: "America has lost a national treasure, and Hillary and I a beloved friend."
