SIMA JALAL KAMALI

 

 

 

Maya Angelou: an Appreciation

 

Although the acclaimed African-American author and poet, Maya Angelou passed away recently (28th of May 2014) and her presence will be greatly missed, her legacy will live on with the works she has left behind. Her heritage is a literary oeuvre, which consists of a seven-volume autobiographical series, collection of personal essays, and several volumes of poetry. Her autobiographical series transformed her literary career and brought her international fame. Even though its success overshadows her poetry career, it does not take any merits away from her poetical canon. Ironically, in the beginning of her career Angelou saw herself as a poet and playwright and had to be persuaded by her longtime editor at Random House, Robert Loomis to write her first autobiography. However, she never forgot her passion for poetry and balanced writing prose and poetry in the early stages of her career by alternating one volume of autobiography with one volume of poetry.

 

Angelou's desire to become a poet is rooted in her childhood love for literature. Her writing style is influenced by her interest in the works of great white and black writers such as Shakespeare, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allen Poe, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson just to name a few. However, poetry meant more than just a hobby for a young black girl living in the segregated Southern town of Stamps, Arkansas in the 1930s, as it was actually a lifeline for her. After being raped at the young age of eight, she became mute as the result of this traumatic experience. It was only through poetry that she found the courage to speak up again which highlights the importance of this medium for her. Poetry transformed to a medium for Angelou to deal with her traumatic childhood experience. The impact of this experience on the young Angelou can be traced in her writing career, both prose and poetry, in which she transferred her own personal experiences as a means of confronting and challenging the existing stereotypical racial and sexual discriminations in her society.

 

Angelou's poetry career also had some huge achievements of its own. Her first volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, published in 1971 was a huge success and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The turning point and highlight of her poetry career was to read her poem, "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993. This was a pinnacle moment in her career as she was the first poet to read a poem at the president's inauguration since Robert Frost read his poem at President John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961 and the first African-American poet ever to be given this honor. This poem brought her more fame and she was invited to read her poems at a few more public and historical events such as reading her poem, "A Brave and Startling Truth", in 1995 at the 50th anniversary of the United Nations and reciting a poem at the Million Man March in the same year.

 

Angelou had always experimented with the mediums she worked by trying to expand the form she was working with and her poetry is no exception to that. Her collection of poems, Now Sheba Sings the Song, published in 1987 was a collaborative work with illustrator Tom Feelings, which matches each of the poems with a sketch of African-American women. The combination of the poem and illustration complements each other and creates a lasting impression on the readers. Through her poetry, she has also honored the death of two of the legends of her time by writing two poems about them, "We Had Him" for Michael Jackson in 2009 and "His Day is Done" for Nelson Mandela in 2013.

 

However, her biggest achievement is the connection her readers make with her poems, which cover a huge range of topics such as love, loss, music, racism and discrimination and overcoming obstacles. The popularity of her poems is due to Angelou's talent to convey powerful messages about human nature through very simple accessible poetry. Robert Loomis described her ability as a poet perfectly: "You really are the American poet. All sorts of people read your poetry and take it to heart."[i]  Although her poetry borrows a lot from the African-American tradition, folklore, gospel music, and black vernacular, it is not limited to the African-American audience as people from all different backgrounds, race, and religion can relate to it, which is a further testimony to the value of her poems. In Angelou's memorial service, Michelle Obama's tribute to Maya Angelou by recounting the influence of reading the famous poem "Phenomenal Women" for the first time as a black woman is a great example of the extent of the influence of Angelou's writing on many of her readers:

 

The first time I read 'Phenomenal Woman' I was struck by how she celebrated black woman's beauty like no one had ever dared to before … Her words were clever and sassy. They were powerful and sexual and boastful. And in that one singular poem, Maya Angelou spoke to the essence of black women, but she also graced us with an anthem for all women, a call for all of us to embrace our God-given beauty.[ii]

 

In conclusion, the following quote of Angelou captures the underlying message of her works, indomitable spirit: "We encounter many defeats but must never be defeated". This message of survival is a recurrent theme in her work that can be traced back into early African American literature. Finally, I would like to honor Angelou's literary legacy by quoting some of the lines of her famous poem "Still I Rise", which I personally admire and believe is the culmination of her poetic skills:

 

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

 

 

[i] Williams, Jeannie. "Maya Angelou Pens her Sentiments for Hallmark." USA Today. 10 Jan. 2002. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.

[ii] Cadet, Danielle. "Michelle Obama Tribute to Maya Angelou Will Give You Chills." The Huffington Post. 1 July 2014. Web. 9 June 2014. 

 

 

Sima Jalal Kamali is a third-year PhD student of American History and Literature at the University of Sussex. Her PhD research is on African American autobiography and is focused on the autobiographical oeuvre of Maya Angelou, the relationship between contemporary African American autobiography and the African American autobiography tradition as it relates to the racial and social issues brought up in Angelou's autobiographical series. She has presented papers related to her research at various symposiums and conferences and has taught English as a second language and undergraduate courses.

 

 

 

SARA ALLEN

 

 

Let Freedom Ring

 

From the Motherland

I took flight

From Ghana

Back to a place

Where black still was not free.

To share my story

Times when I couldn’t speak

When bloodshed was the only justice

For a seven-year-old who

Had been torn to pieces

‘And still I rise’ on wings to fight

Visionary without sight

As that man from New York

Is lain to rest

Violence erupts

Watts is on fire,

Blarin’ alarms

Burnin’ rubber

National Guards

Bricks, lootin’ riots, war

All in the name of…change…

‘A brave startling truth’

Ran into a King, had my vision restored

Until another leader was slain

Isolation shields my pain

Childhood silence made alive with words

Scribbled late into the night

‘On the pulse of morning’

I am alive

To inspire all those who need my glasses

‘A phenomenal woman’ has left

Her footprints

Marking the past

With pride

‘I know why the caged bird sings’

I also know that the struggle was

Long, 

Hard

Not in vain

With every step I took

I knew someone would follow

My voice

My song

Until they understood

My words

 

 

Sarah Allen is an inmate at a Florida Correctional Institution. The first book Sarah ever received was by Maya Angelou, and she has been continually inspired by Angelou's emotional writing. "Let Freedom Ring" was written in her ArtSpring, Inc. poetry class. 

 

 

 

LINDA ASHOK

 

 

The Caged Bird Sings
After Maya

 

My daughter

 

looks up at

my sodden collar
 

She dabs her

tiny kerchief

 

on my neck
She takes me out

 

of kitchen fire
and puts her ears

 

on my breast

 

Mother, did you 
hear a caged bird sing?

Nonplussed; I turn at her-
She lifts the note I croon

 

 

 

For Maya

All things perishable

 

 

All plays are timed bound

 

So is this life…

 

Your recurrent dream

 

of losing out
on answering

 

essential questions
has failed 
to chew over

 

the fact that-

 

all things perishable tremble
at the sound of home…

 

and nothing can stop that!

 

 

Linda Ashok lives in Hyderabad, India. She is employed as a creative writer in a social media company. Significance of the Insignificance is her first book of poetry published in 2012. Her works have appeared or forthcoming in The Statesman, The Telegraph, Haiku News, The Dhauli Review, The Linnet’s Wings, The Bones Journal etc. 

 

 

 

HEATHER M. BROWNE

 

 

Maya

 

She sings a varied song

Somehow, somewhat familiar

building within me

catching notes

claiming some misplaced melody,  forgotten hymn.

 

Do I know, this?

this growing, this crescendoing

this re-remembering?

I want to take it in and make it mine

and hers and yours

and all of ours

this song I know

I must remember.

 

Help me

in my key, my pitch

 

help me with my breath

make it full and deep and wide

help me, so I can sing

 

 

Heather M. Browne is a faith-based psychotherapist and recently emerged poet, published in the Orange Room, Boston Literary Review, Page & Spine, Eunoia Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Poetry Bus, Red Fez, The Muse, An International Journal of Poetry, Deep Water Literary Journal, Electric Windmill, Maelstrom, mad swirl, and Dual Coast.  Her first chapbook, We Look for Magic and Feed the Hungry has just been published by MCI. She just won the Nantucket Poetry Competition and will be featured on their website. She has been married 20 years to her love, has 2 amazing teens, and can be found frolicking in the waves.  Follow her here 

 

 

 

DON KINGFISHER CAMPBELL

 

 

Maya’s Face

 

Even when she smiled

she looked like she

experienced pain

 

From her gray

raging fire hose

water spray hair        

 

To her brow furrowed

like a street

crumbling by decades

 

Her tender dark

smoky wispy eyebrows

questioning patriarchy

 

Her gleaming orbs

wet and ready

for another mourning

 

Full muscular cheeks

strong and elastic still

from returning smiles

 

Smiling lips proudly frame

rows of straight white teeth

like love poems for everyone

 

Two white crosses

attached to her ear lobes

remind us all in poesy

 

We have been told the truth

we are mortal

and we are immortal.

 

 

Don Kingfisher Campbell has just earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles. His poems have recently appeared in About Place, ..and it happened under cover, A Poet Is A Poet No Matter How Tall, Bicycle Review, Crack The Spine, The Gambler, L.A. Poetry Examiner, Literary Burlesque, Lummox, Men In The Company Of Women, New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, P2F2, Poetic Diversity, Poetry & Cookies, Poetry Breakfast, Poetry Super Highway, Revolutionary Poets Brigade, Sassafras, Spilt Ink, Statement, Subtopian, Sun Runner, Tower Journal, The Write Room, Writers At Work, and Zouch.

 

 

 

ADRIAN ERNESTO CEPEDA

 

 

Maya Angelou’s dream

 

Although time had lost me,

my eyes were open fountains

 

as this pen erected pages dripping

of my most naked lines. Each rhyme

 

sipped like a new answer, an even louder

awakening, the gift of our conversational

 

verses rebirthed in stanzas of Maya Angelou’s

promised theme. Putting my ear to these couplets,

 

I could actually hear her exhaling proudly,

the sound of this poem becoming my own dream.

 

 

 

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda was born in Detroit, Michigan. After graduating from the University of Texas at San Antonio, he has spent the last sixteen years on The Road Not Taken, living the writer’s life immortalized by Robert Frost. He is currently in the MFA Graduate program at Antioch University in Los Angeles and lives in L.A. with his wife and their adorably spoiled cat Woody Gold. 

 

 

 

MAGGIE HARRIS

 

 

Maya

 

Maya – is there anything left to say? I think the First Lady said it all. You opened our eyes and mouths and we rushed like water knowing it was ok to love our hair and skin, walk down the road loving our sexiness and finding no shame in a flat nose or a fat behind. Maya, I tried your silence once, but it didn’t work. Yours was the kind of pain I was lucky not to suffer, the horror kept you closed tight like a tap but all the time you were thinking and feeling and learning and wording and figuring it all out. Oh Maya, you sure had the grounding, you sure had the countryside, the bloodied earth, the grandparents, the colour bar, the mother away in the city – all of it to stoke your yearning, build the fire which would set so many of us alight. You grew that thick skin to ready you, Maya; all the lows, all the pain, get you ready for the light and the dancing which would come to us, shine on us. Your putting pen to paper was the law. We needed to see you do it first, give us the strength to come after.

 

We can talk about caged birds till the cows come home but you know, it was the sassy poem that does it for me! I wanted to sing at anyone who told me to put a sock in it, say ‘Does my sassiness upset you?’ I too wanted to walk like I had oil wells pumping in my living room! Sometime ago I met a taxi driver who was boasting he met you, had picked you up from some hotel to some festival and had the cheek to say you were arrogant. I smote that guy down with the curl of my lip. ‘Do you have any idea of what that woman has had to deal with in her life?! She has earned the right to be arrogant!’

 

But that’s not what so many of us would call you Maya. Goddess comes to mind. Freedom Fighter. Humanitarian. Writer. Lover. Mother.

 

Thank you for paving the way for us, for the love and the light and the dancing. 

 

 

 

Maggie Harris is a Guyanese poet, prose writer and artist living between Kent and Wales. Her latest collection of poetry is Sixty Years of Loving, Cane Arrow Press. She was International Teaching Fellow at Southampton University, and has worked extensively as an arts practitioner, involved in several collaborations and performances. Her first collection of poetry, Limbolands, won the Guyana Prize for Literature 2000, and her memoir, Kiskadee Girl is published by Kingston University Press. Her poem, ‘Canterbury’ won Canterbury City Council’s 2014 competition and will be displayed in the City’s Underpass. She was Regional Winner for the Caribbean in the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2014 with Sending for Chantal. Her short story collections, published by Cultured Llama Press, are Canterbury Tales on a Cockcrow Morning and In Margate by Lunchtime (Autumn 2014). www.maggieharris.co.uk

 

 

 

CHRISTINE LAWRENCE

 

 

In Her Name

 

Did you know

Maya Angelou?

She was the rainbow

In everyone's cloud.

Did you know

There's an angel

In her name?

 

 

Christine Lawrence is a fifty-something university administrator, wife and mother who has been writing poetry for around five years.

 

 

 

 

PIPPA LITTLE

 

“My life has been long and believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things, sometimes trembling, but daring still”  Maya Angelou

 

 

For Maya Angelou

 

life loves the liver

loves the dark drop on dry ground

that believes in green

and the million bright fragments

in a kaleidoscope’s tunnel

that fall into pattern

too perfect for the eye to follow

random enough for the heart

to know

 

life loves the liver

as air loves to be breathed

as light loves to be the first thing

and the last thing

a falling and leaping up of tatters

a turning and turning into stars

 

 

 

Maya Angelou, First Female African-American Cable Car Conductor

 

Every morning you clanged the bell

took nickels and change

gave a hand with the brake

hefted the turntable come the end of the line,

called ‘Heeere we go!’ before a hill, had a grin

for raincoated lonely men and mean,

tight-mouthed women who sat straight up

in your flat-topped little boat that rocked towards the sky,

eleven miles of steel-wrapped cable

in slack-absorbing racks

threading and unthreading through figure eights:

 

you’d wanted that job so bad

but they turned you away,

16, a girl and oh so Black…

sat in the applications office

reading your ‘big Russian books’

you wore them out, issued

the form-fitting jacket, the cap with a bib

you coveted, sent you out

on the SF Ferry Building route.

 

Seventy years later you are gone but not your words:

I have dared

to try many things,

sometimes trembling,

but daring still.

 

 

Pippa Little was born in East Africa and raised in Scotland. She now lives in Northumberland with her husband, sons and dog. Her first collection, The Spar Box (2006) was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. Her latest collection, Overwintering, (Carcanet) was published in 2012.

 

 

 

JULIE MACLEAN

 

 

Flamingo

It's the way she’s bent
into a bird

 

Right knee tucked 
into a shoulder

 

making a sculpture
as if in a ballet class
for a painter

 

Her toes, painted red
make a feathery tail
It's the beak that looks
wrong

 

as if someone has taken
the wet rag mouth and twisted it
into a shape that can't speak

 

Lips, nose and cheeks
are gone into the knee

 

A vermillion river is the leg
slashing her fine china skin

 

            First blood of a girl

           

  turning woman

 

One ear is open; human.
Not of a bird, it is listening.

 

 

Originally from Bristol, UK, Julie Maclean is based in Victoria, Australia. She is the author of When I saw Jimi (Indigo Dreams) and Kiss of the Viking, (Poetry Salzburg) as part of its pamphlet series, due August., 2014.  Poetry and fiction features in leading international journals and The Best Australian Poetry (UQP). Forthcoming in Poetry. 

 

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