Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou was known throughout the world for her poetry, her books, and her work as an actress, director, composer, and college professor. Her popularity began in the late 1960s and forged on throughout the next several decades. She endured terrible tragedies in her early life, including family abuse and the consequences of racism, which began for her as a young child in Arkansas, where she lived with her grandmother.
Watch our video filmed on location in her hometown, highlighting her early life, here: https://youtu.be/VTpFgSZgrwo.
Angelou eventually distanced herself from that life and spoke about her feelings about the place of her youth when interviewed as a middle-aged woman for a PBS special: Maya Angelou in Stamps, Arkansas.
Read more about the life and times of this influential writer at poets.org/poetsorg/poet/maya-angelou.
Writing Achievements
Maya Angelou gained a doctorate and was a professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University and ultimately published more than 40 books, all frequently on bestseller lists. She is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to her by former US President Barack Obama.
On The Pulse of Morning
When former US President Bill Clinton, also originally from a small town in Arkansas, was choosing the components for the program of his first inauguration, he decided to follow in the footsteps of former US President John F. Kennedy by inviting a reading of an original inauguration poem by a popular poet of the day. He chose Maya Angelou, who read a poem she wrote for the occasion on January 20, 1993.
The poem she created, “On the Pulse of the Morning,” can be found here: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-pulse-of-morning-2.
Stamps is the final stop on our Arkansas Author Adventures Trail.
Patricia Smart
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