世界著名诗人简介：Maya Angelou
2014-10-03 11:44阅读：
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Ann Johnson in
St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928. In 1931, her parents divorced
and she and her older brother Bailey were sent to live with their
grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. While she was living with her
grandmother, Maya participated in many dance classes including tap,
jazz and salsa. She performed at many recitals and won numerous
awards for her inspirational dancing. After five years apart from
their mother, the children returned home. This move eventually took
a turn for the worse when Angelou, 8, was raped by her mother's
boyfriend. This devastating act caused her to become selectively
mute for nearly four years, speaking only to her brother. She was
sent back to Stamps because no one could handle the grim state
Angelou was in. With the constant help of a woman named Mrs.
Flowers, Angelou began to evolve into the girl who had possessed
the pride and confidence she once had.
In 1940, she and her brother were sent to San
Francisco to live with their mother again. Life with her mother was
in constant disorder; it soon became too much for her so her father
came and took her to live with him and his girlfriend in their
rundown trailer. Finding that life with him was no better, she
ended up living in a graveyard of wrecked cars that housed mainly
homeless children. It took her a month to get back home to her
mother. Angelou's bad childhood spent moving back and forth between
her mother and grandmother caused her to struggle with maturity.
She became determined to prove she was a woman and began to rush
toward maturity. Angelou soon found herself pregnant, and at the
age of sixteen she delivered her son, Guy. She later danced and
sang tropical island songs with an ersatz Caribbean accent at
Enrico Banducci's famed hungry i San Francisco nightclub.
Works
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Angelou's first work of literature, I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings, is an autobiography. Angelou's sometimes disruptive
life inspired her to write this book. It reflects the essence of
her struggle to overcome the restrictions that were placed upon her
in a hostile environment. Angelou wrote with a twist of lyrical
imagery along with a touch of realism. The title of this book is
taken from the poem 'Sympathy' by the great black poet, Paul
Laurence Dunbar. The work displays an impulse towards
transcendence.
Gather Together in My Name
Gather Together in My Name centers on Angelou and her
brother's move away from their grandmother. This transition takes
place from her later teen years through her mid twenties, focusing
on her experiences as a mother, a Creole cook, a madam, a tap
dancer, a prostitute and a chauffeurette. Also in the novel,
Angelou writes about an affair with a customer at a restaurant and
her brief experience with drugs.
Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like
Christmas
Angelou's third novel covers about five years of her life from the
ages of twenty-two to twenty-seven. During this period she was
married to Tosh Angelos, a white man and an ex-sailor, who she
shows to be intelligent, kind, and reliable. He was a temporary
source of stability for her and her son, but after three years of
marriage they fell out of love. She divorced him and returned to
her career as a dancer. Shortly afterwards she joined the European
touring production of Porgy and Bess. She devotes over half of the
book to describing the tour. She talks about how the guilt over her
neglect of her son nearly drove her to suicide, but her love of
life, motherhood, and dancing sent her running home.
The Heart of a Woman
The title of her fourth novel, The Heart of a Woman, comes
from a poem that was written during the Harlem Renaissance by the
poet Georgia Douglas Johnson. Once again, in this book, Angelou is
in search of her identity and place. The book is told from a
perspective that matches that of her first novel and has a similar
psychological depth. Narrating her thirties, Angelou reflects on
her son Guy, the civil rights movement, marriage, and her own
writing. During this period, she became more committed to her
writing and was inspired by her friend, John Killens, a
distinguished social activist author. Also, during that time she
made a commitment to promote black civil rights and examine the
nature of racial oppression, racial progress and racial
integration.
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes
Angelou's fifth autobiography, All God's Children Need
Traveling Shoes, shows her to have developed an even greater
sense of connection with her African past. She dedicates this book
to Julian Mayfield and Malcolm X, who both were passionately and
earnestly in search of their symbolic home. After her visit to
Ghana, she was swept into adoration for the country and adopted it
as her homeland.
Film and Television
Angelou wrote the screenplay and score for the film Georgia,
Georgia in 1971; the screenplay was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1973 for Look Away (her debut
role), and an Emmy for her role in the 1977 miniseries Roots. In
1976 she directed an episode of the award-winning television
anthology series, 'Visions.' She was the first
African-American woman admitted to the Directors Guild of America.
In 1998 she directed the feature film, Down in the Delta,
starring Alfre Woodard. She was also on the popular childrens
television show, Sesame Street. She also appeared in Tyler
Perry's 'Madea's Family Reunion' (2006).
In another piece of Maya Angelou TV trivia, she had another TV
appearance in 1977 in a brief cameo on The Richard Pryor
Special? (a special to showcase Pryor's talents) as the wife
of a drunkard, Willie (played by Pryor). The scene had begun
humorously in a bar, so viewers expected that, when Willie came
home, the laughs would continue. However, when Ms. Angelou greets
him at the door, she begins a heart-wrenching monologue that
continues as she watches him collapse on the couch into a drunken
sleep (the crowd can even be heard laughing as she begins, not
expecting the turn it takes). It comments on Willie's deterioration
into drunkness and the way in which it (and racial inequity)
crushes his spirit. The monologue effectively exposes the truth of
the situation, converting Willie's character and antics from
humorous to sad, and at the end of the monologue, the audience
(which has, by now, become silent) gives her a heartfelt
applause.
In 1978, Angelou served as host to a 30-episode educational series
produced by the Coast Community College District in Southern
California in conjunction with the City Colleges of Chicago. The
series, entitled 'Humanities in the Arts', covers broad topics
including film, architecture, literature, and poetry. Still used in
colleges throughout the United States as a telecourse series, the
series offers many opportunities to hear Angelou read various
poetry -- including her own -- in her sonorous voice, infusing the
poetry with great meaning.
