Posted on 05/28/2014 6:37:40 AM PDT by alancarp
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Award-winning author, renowned poet and civil rights activist Dr. Maya Angelou has died. She was 86.
Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines confirmed Angelou was found by her caretaker on Wednesday morning.
(Excerpt) Read more at myfox8.com ...
Oops, I meant #111.
Another addition to our GMTA chapter. :-)
BTW, I was in a dentist’s office today when the BREAKING NEWS came on the TV. I let out a “WHO CARES” as opposed to your original remark of “Who?”
Some call you "poet"
Don't know why you are famous
Your poetry sucks
Was she ‘hittable’?
I wonder if they’ll bring in Jesse Jackson to read her poetry, like he read “Green Eggs and Ham” when Dr. Seuss passed away. (Which BTW was the one thing Jesse Jackson ever did that I liked)
Not everybody finds it interesting.
Her writings were not poetry, lol
b. April 4, 1928, d. May 28, 2014
When I was 16, a boy in high school evinced interest in me, so I had sex with him — just once. And after I came out of that room, I thought, Is that all there is to it? My goodness, I’ll never do that again! Then, when I found out I was pregnant, I went to the boy and asked him for help, but he said it wasn’t his baby and he didn’t want any part of it.
I was scared to pieces. Back then, if you had money, there were some girls who got abortions, but I couldn’t deal with that idea. Oh, no. No. I knew there was somebody inside me. So I decided to keep the baby.
My older brother, Bailey, my confidant, told me not to tell my mother or she’d take me out of school. So I hid it the whole time with big blouses! Finally, three weeks before I was due, I left a note on my stepfather’s pillow telling him I was pregnant. He told my mother, and when she came home, she calmly asked me to run her bath.
I’ll never forget what she said: “Now tell me this — do you love the boy?” I said no. “Does he love you?” I said no. “Then there’s no point in ruining three lives. We are going to have our baby!”
What a knockout she was as a mother of teens. Very loving. Very accepting. Not one minute of recrimination. And I never felt any shame.
I’m telling you that the best decision I ever made was keeping that baby! Yes, absolutely. Guy was a delight from the start — so good, so bright, and I can’t imagine my life without him.
At 17 I got a job as a cook and later as a nightclub waitress. I found a room with cooking privileges, because I was a woman with a baby and needed my own place. My mother, who had a 14-room house, looked at me as if I was crazy! She said, “Remember this: You can always come home.” She kept that door open. And every time life kicked me in the belly, I would go home for a few weeks.
I struggled, sure. We lived hand-to-mouth, but it was really heart-to-hand. Guy had love and laughter and a lot of good reading and poetry as a child. Having my son brought out the best in me and enlarged my life. Whatever he missed, he himself is a great father today. He was once asked what it was like growing up in Maya Angelou’s shadow, and he said, “I always thought I was in her light.”
Years later, when I was married, I wanted to have more children, but I couldn’t conceive. Isn’t it wonderful that I had a child at 16? Praise God!”
Family Circle Magazine; October 8, 2001
BFL
To me yes, cute but not super pretty would be a good way to put it.
Tears streaming down my face now, laughing so hard at this thread and all the “poetry ....”
Now this was the one positive thing this lady did. For sure. Too bad libs never picked up on it — cherishing one’s child and all.
Lenny: Uh yeah, I’m a techno-thriller junkie, and I’d like to know, is the B-2 bomber more detectible when it rains?
Kent Brockman: Oh, what do you think, Tom Clancy?
Tom Clancy Well, the B-2…
Lenny: No, no, no, I was asking Maya Angelou!
Maya Angelou: The ebony fighter awakens, dabbled with the dewy beads of morn.
Moe: Maya Angelou is black?
Maya Angelou: It is a Mach-5 child, forever bound to suckle from the shriveled breast of Congress.
Lenny: Oh, Maya, you’re a national treasure!
It’s OK. It’s part of what I call the inner life. People need one for times when the outer life lets you down.
You said a mouthful.
You said a mouthful.
Nah. They’re directed at her.
I didnt understand the Clinton inaugural poem, but then I heard her talking about it on Oprah. It turns out that a lot of the allusions were to hymns and spirituals. I didnt know them, so it was outside my frame of reference. Oprah knew them. The poem still isn’t among my favorites, but I appreciate it a bit more now.
This was back when I still watched Oprah. I stopped in the early 2000s.
“This was back when I still watched Oprah. I stopped in the early 2000s.”
I watched Oprah for one week in 1994,just after I retired. I hated the show,she drove me nuts, and that was that.
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