Most of us know Maya Angelou as a poet and autobiographical writer. But before she wrote her first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou studied drama and dance in school, worked as a waitress, cook, and San Francisco cable car conductor; toured Europe with a production of Porgy & Bess (1954-55); studied with Martha Graham and danced with Alvin Ailey; worked as a nightclub singer and recorded an album Miss Calypso (1957);
moved to New York to perform for wider audiences; joined the Harlem Writers Guild (1958); wrote a musical revue Cabaret for Freedom in which she also performed (1960); was the editor for the Cairo, Egypt Arab Observer, taught drama and dance in Ghana where she edited and wrote for the Ghana Times; moved back to the US from Ghana in order to work with Malcolm X, worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964-1968); and,in the late 1960's, with the help and encouragement of James Baldwin, began writing her memoirs. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published in 1970, when she was 42 years old.
Since 1982, Dr.Angelou has been the Reynolds Professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. She teaches a master class in World Poetry and Dramatic Performance. "Teaching literature [is] an affair of the soul...To educate is to liberate,” and great teachers “remind people of what they already know instinctively,” though they have wonderful allies in great literature. Of her poetry class at WFU, "it has been a transformative experience for [her students]." From an article in Wake Forest University's The Daily Deac, 16 February 2011.
This is how Angelou sums up her path to becoming a writer:
"Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a natural writer' - which is right after being a 'natural' heart surgeon."
Since 1982, Dr.Angelou has been the Reynolds Professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. She teaches a master class in World Poetry and Dramatic Performance. "Teaching literature [is] an affair of the soul...To educate is to liberate,” and great teachers “remind people of what they already know instinctively,” though they have wonderful allies in great literature. Of her poetry class at WFU, "it has been a transformative experience for [her students]." From an article in Wake Forest University's The Daily Deac, 16 February 2011.
At the age of seventy, Angelou was the first African American woman to direct a major motion picture, Down in the Delta, in 1998.
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| photo by Adria Richards. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Click to hear Angelou perform her poem: On the Pulse of Morning or And Still I Rise For more information about Maya Angleou, check out the following links, and be sure to visit Fogelson Library to see some of the items in our collection authored by her. |
