Angelou is a poet, essayist, songwriter, playwright, editor, actor, dancer, director, and professor. She was nominated for an Emmy for her performance in Haley's Roots.
Wearing Many Hats
One critic has said of her, "Maya Angelou has touched more bases in her career than Hank Aaron." Others might simply think of her as a renaissance woman for all of her accomplishments as poet, essayist, songwriter, playwright, editor, actor, dancer, director, historian, and professor.
Currently, when she is not traveling and delivering speeches, she serves as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University, where she has taught since 1981. She has been awarded numerous honorary doctorates, and she takes full advantage of them by calling herself Dr. Maya Angelou.
She recently teamed up with Target and the Poetry Foundation to create a project that introduces children and adults to poetry. The project is called Dream in Color.
Childhood
Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis on 4 April 1928. At age seven, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. She confided this information only with her brother, but later she learned that one of her uncles had killed the man who raped her. Fearing that her words had killed a man, she refused to speak and did not utter a word until she reached age thirteen.
She periodically lived with her mother and grandmother, who introduced her to literature. Leaving high school for short period, she became a cable car conductor in San Francisco. She returned to high school, and then she gave birth to her son a few weeks after graduation. Her life was difficult, but she never gave up on her interests in the arts, dancing, and writing.
Marguerite Johnson Becomes Maya Angelou
After marrying Tosh Angelos, a Greek sailor, she got a job as a nightclub singer. She changed her name from Marguerite to Maya and altered the Angelos to Angelou and became Maya Angelou. She toured Europe with a production company, studied dance with Martha Graham, and released an album titled Calypso Lady in 1957.
Her interest in writing became strong, and she moved to New York, where she joined a Harlem writing group. She continued acting in off Broadway plays.
Years Abroad
In 1960, Angelou met and married South African civil rights activist Vusumzi Make; the couple relocated to Cairo, Egypt, where Angelou worked as editor of the English language weekly paper The Arab Observer.
After the marriage dissolved, Angelou and her son moved to Ghana, where she worked as a music instructor at the University of Ghana; she also served as an editor at The African Review, while writing for The Ghanaian Times
Returning to America
After Angelou returned to America in 1960, she began her writing career in earnest, producing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, her first autobiography, which was published in 1970. This book gave her national recognition. And her play Georgia, Georgia was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1972.
Presidential Appointments
President Gerald Ford appointed Angelou to serve on the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission. For President Jimmy Carter, she served on the Presidential Commission for the International Year of the Woman. At President Bill Clinton’s inauguration, she read her poem, “On the Pulse of the Morning.”
“Phenomenal Woman”
One of Angelou’s most famous poems is “Phenomenal Woman.” The poems quite accessible, as are all of her poems. Angelou’s mystique is in her ability to perform many tasks and perform them well.
Angelou has explained that she decided to invent herself, because she did not like the inventions that others had invented for her. She is six feet tall, so not only is she physically imposing, but she is also a giant of talent, an artist with the ability to make people take notice.
Reference:
- Jeffrey M Elliot’s Conversations with Maya Angelou
- America’s Renaissance Woman
- Women of the Hall: Maya Angelou
