Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman, Excellent Human Being, 1928-2014
Maya Angelou died Tuesday at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, following a long illness. She leaves behind a list of accomplishments that threatened to overwhelm headlines: poet, essayist, actress, memoirist, historian, educator, civil rights advocate, Poet Laureate, excellent human being, take your pick. The first of her many memoirs, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is a true modern classic, the story of her youth in the Jim Crow South, of her being silenced by sexual violence, and of her rediscovery of language.
I was lucky enough to hear her at the University of Cincinnati in the early 1990's. I was going to say "hear her speak," but it was so much more than that. The room was crowded and people were standing in the hallway, but she had no trouble making herself heard, and listening to her was like receiving a rare gift that you had all to yourself, despite the hundreds of other people there who undoubtedly thought the gift was theirs as well.
"Try to be a rainbow in someone else's cloud." Maya Angelou
Turning corny into sublime is what the gifted poets do.