| Help | Credits

Maya Angelou | "Graduation" (1970)

African American author, playwright, actress, poet, and singer. Born in St. Louis, Angelou attended public schools in Arkansas and California before studying music and dance. In a richly varied life, she has been a cook, streetcar conductor, singer, actress, dancer, teacher, and director, with her debut film Down in the Delta (1998). Author of several volumes of poetry and ten plays (stage, screen, and television), Angelou may be best known for her poem "On the Pulse of Morning,'' which she read at the inauguration of President William Jefferson Clinton in 1993. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), the first volume of her autobiography, is one of the fullest accounts of the African American woman's experience in contemporary literature.

Sites about Maya Angelou:

  • Link 1: http://www.mayaangelou.com/

    The official Maya Angelou Web site, provided by the company that represents Angelou, contains a short biography, a comprehensive bibliography of her works, and a link to Web coverage of recent Angelou events.

  • Link 2: http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/87

    Poets.org offers this short biography and list of Angelou's works, as well as links to two of her poems.

© 2024 W. W. Norton & Company. All rights reserved.