MAYA Angelou: A most powerful voice of contemporary literature.
MAYA Angelou, one of the most powerful voices of contemporary literature, died on Wednesday (May 28) at her home in North Carolina. She was 86.
I was alerted on a post by Guidepost, and immediately
re-posted the news on my facebook to which my good friend, Jo, responded that she “knew” Maya Angelou through me.
It took me a while to remember how and when did I introduce Angelou to Jo. It wasn’t long before I remembered – it was Angelou’s cookbook, Great food, all day long, published in 2011.
Angelou described herself as a cook, a driver and a writer.
She once described her writing regime thus: “I keep a hotel room in which I do my work – a tiny, mean room with just a bed, and sometimes, if I can find it, a face basin.
“I keep a dictionary, a Bible, a deck of cards and a bottle of sherry in the room. I try to get there around seven, and work until around two in the afternoon.
“Maybe after dinner I’ll read to (my husband, Paul du Feu) what I have written that day. He doesn’t comment. I don’t invite comments from anybody but my editor.”
In the political arena, Angelou campaigned for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic party presidential primaries but supported Barack Obama after Clinton’s campaign ended.
Delighted when Obama was elected president, she declared: “We are growing up beyond the idiocies of racism and sexism.”
Obama has also praised Angelou, awarding her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 and quoting these lines she had written: “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”
My favourite poem of Maya Angelou’s is her iconic poem which is a great shout of defiance that answers darkness with joy and despair with humour which Nelson Mandela recited at his 1994 presidential inauguration:
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history,
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt,
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells,
Pumping in my living room,
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard,
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines,
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
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.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise,
That I dance like I’ve got
diamonds,
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame,
I rise,
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain,
I rise,
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear,
I rise,
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear,
I rise,
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise,
I rise,
I rise.
Yes, there are many Maya Angelous who rise in our midst – some still working hard and faithfully in their own way to contribute to society and humanity, some had passed on.
But something still remains, big or small.
Last night, as many tweeted that the most influential quote of Angelou had been – I’ve learnt that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel – I also remember a good friend who passed on some 40 years ago but what he had done in his short span of time remains – he may not be in many people’s hearts like Maya Angelou but his life runs in many people’s lives.
I have always called this special friend, strawberry. I actually do not like strawberry, any food that has to do with strawberry is rejected outright.
But I love strawberry plants and the way they grow. There are many ‘runners’ on the strawberry parent plants. A number of shoots reach out in all directions.
The force comes from the
parent plant. After these shoots grow to some 10 over cm, the ends develop roots with new leaves grown on these shoots. And new shoots grow from these established shoots.
Likewise, there are a number of shoots growing from all directions. The process repeats.
It’s interesting how the parent plant sends out its runners and multiplies.
Like strawberry plant, my special friend, in his short span of earthly life, reached out in all directions with his talents to multiply and bring forth fruits. He, like the parent plant of the strawberry plant, died off but his life is perpetuated through others.
I am sure, in those days, many ‘runners’ in his own church group who had been inspired by him, were like strawberry plants, reaching in all directions to multiply and bring forth more strawberries today!
In the Bible, the story of Jabez is told in one paragraph (1 Chronicles 4). It is a beautiful story. The paragraph begins with “Jabez was more honourable than his brothers.”
It was what the Bible calls honour that drove Jabez to rise above his past, rise above even the pain of his mother and live the large and bountiful life God had ordained.
How beautiful it is if our lives are described as – He/she is more honourable than many others.
In the introduction to one of her books, Angelou commanded: “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. Do not complain. Never whine. Be certain that you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity.”
Rainbow and strawberries – they are all beautiful, awesome, amazing and wonderful – beyond description.