Writer and Poet Maya Angelou Dies at Age 86
May 28, 2014
Maya Angelou, one of America’s most acclaimed writers and poets, has died at age 86. Best known for her autobiographical writings, Angelou drew from the African American storytelling tradition, weaving humor, wisdom, and folk sayings into her work. Her writings celebrated womanhood, the human spirit, and the will to overcome hardship. Angelou was also a civil rights activist, teacher, playwright, and filmmaker. In 2011, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the country’s highest civilian honors.
Angelou attracted national recognition with the publication of her first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), a frank recounting of her difficult childhood in the segregated rural South and early career as a cabaret singer and calypso dancer. She later appeared on Broadway and danced with the Alvin Ailey dance company. Angelou continued to record her life in Gather Together in My Name (1974). She followed it with Singin’ and Swingin’ and Getting Merry Like Christmas (1976). Other books in the series include The Heart of a Woman (1981), All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002), and Mom & Me & Mom (2013).
Maya Angelou (© Steve Dunwell)
Angelou also wrote some 25 volumes of poetry and essays. Her poetry is compiled in The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (1994). Several of her essays are collected in Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993). Other collections of essays are Even the Stars Look Lonesome (1997) and Letter to My Daughter (2008). Angelou was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1994 for her achievement in literature. She also won three Grammy Awards for spoken-word recordings of her poetry and prose
Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis. She spent much of her early life in Stamps, Arkansas. She adopted the name Maya Angelou in 1953.
In 1993, Angelou was invited to read an original poem at Bill Clinton’s first presidential inauguration. She was only the second poet honored in that way, after Robert Frost in 1961. In her poem, she said, “Yet, today I call you to my riverside,/ If you will study war no more. Come,/ Clad in peace and I will sing the songs/ The Creator gave to me when I and the/ Tree and the stone were one.”
