Featured
Writer:
Maya Angelou
Born Marguerite Ann Johnson April 4, 1928 in St. Louis,
Missouri, is an American poet, memoirist, actress and an important figure in
the American Civil Rights Movement. In 2001 she was named one of the 30 most
powerful women in America by Ladies Home Journal.
Best
Known Works:
Maya Angelou is known for her series of six autobiographies,
starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, (1969 which was nominated for a
National Book Award and called her magnum opus. Her volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I
Die (1971) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Versatile
Talents/Themes/Innovative Approach:
She has made a deliberate
attempt to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing,
changing, and expanding the genre. Her books center on themes such as racism,
identity, family, and travel. Angelou is best known for her autobiographies,
but she is also an established poet, although her poems have received mixed
reviews.
A poet, memoirist, actress and an important figure in the
American Civil Rights Movement. In 2001 she was named one of the 30 most
powerful women in America by Ladies Home Journal.
She has published three books
of essays, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows
spanning more than fifty years. Despite
almost no experience, she wrote, produced, and narrated “Blacks, Blues, Black!”
a ten-part series of documentaries about the connection between blues music and
black American’s African heritage and what Angelou called the “Africanisms
still current in the U.S. for National Educational Television, the precursor of
PBS.
Inspiration Behind First Autobiography:
In 1968, at a dinner party she attended with
writer James Baldwin, she was challenged and inspired by cartoonist Jules
Feiffer, and his wife Judy, and Random House editor, Robert Loomis to write her
life story. I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings, published in 1969, brought her international recognition and acclaim.
Ms.
Angelou’s quote on writing:
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside
you.
Interview
with George Plimpton:
Q: You once told me
that you write lying on a made-up bed with a bottle of sherry a dictionary, Roget’s Thesaurus, yellow pads, an ashtray
and a Bible. What’s the function of the
Bible?
A: The language of all
the interpretations, the translations, of the Judaic Bible and the Christian
Bible is musical, just wonderful. I read
the Bible to myself; I’ll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud,
just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful
English is. Though I do manage to mumble
around in about seven or eight languages, English remains the most beautiful of
languages. It will do anything.
On Writing
Process:
‘I write in the morning and then go home about midday and take
a shower, because writing is very hard work, so you have to do a double ablution. Then I go out and shop – I’m a serious cook –
and pretend to be normal. And I go
home. I prepare dinner for myself, I do
the candles and the pretty music and all that.
Then after all the dishes are moved away I read what I wrote that
morning. And more often than not if I’ve
done nine pages I may be able to save two and a half or three.
Dominant
Themes for each Book:
‘I try to remember times in my life, incidents in which there
was the dominating theme of cruelty, or kindness, or generosity, or envy, or
happiness … perhaps four incidents in the period I’m going to write about. Then I select the one that lends itself best
to my device and that I can write as drama without falling into melodrama.
How Much
Polish??
Dominant
Themes for each Book:
‘I try to remember times in my life, incidents in which there
was the dominating theme of cruelty, or kindness, or generosity, or envy, or
happiness … perhaps four incidents in the period I’m going to write about. Then I select the one that lends itself best
to my device and that I can write as drama without falling into melodrama.
‘I must have such control of my tools, of words, that I can
make this sentence leap off the page. I
have to have my writing so polished that it doesn’t look polished at all. I want a reader, especially an editor, to be
a half-hour into my book before he realizes it’s reading he’ doing.’
Comments:
Maya is an astounding poet, writer, activist, and on, and on,
and on. If any of you have enjoyed
reading this small snippet about this remarkable woman, I recommend you do
further research. It will be worth it.
Keep on writing…..
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