April 4:
On this day in 1928 Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, as Marguerite Johnson.
As a child she got the nickname "Maya" ("mine") from her
brother; she chose the "Angelou" later, an adaptation of her first
husband's name. The title of I Know Why
the Caged Bird Sings, the first and most famous volume of her
autobiography, she took from a Paul Laurence Dunbar poem:
I know why the caged bird
sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised
and his bosom sore….
Angelou says that her
remarkable and varied life—prostitute, dancer, actor, writer, activist,
educator, academic—has been made possible by a "remedy of hope"
forged from reading, courage, and "insouciance." The reading began
early, as a way to combat the troubles inflicted on her early years—her
parents' divorce, racism, rape at the age of eight, five years of mute
withdrawal, motherhood at sixteen. The courage is chronicled throughout all six
volumes of the autobiography, for example in her decision to return to America
from Ghana to work with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King (and her determination
to carry on after their murders, King's on this day in 1968). Among the
episodes of insouciance is this encounter between Angelou and her Ghanaian "husband,"
a demanding type who followed her to Los Angeles despite her forewarnings.
After they returned from the movies one night, she made dinner while he stood
frowning in the living room "like a Yoruba carving":
"Why can't we be like
them?"
"Like whom?"
"Those two actors in
the film."
"Doris Day and Rock
Hudson?"
"I don't know their
names, but why can't we be to each other the way they are?"
"Are you
serious?"
"Do you think I am
playing?"
"Those are actors.
They are not real. I mean, the roles are just roles. . . . You want me to
become a perky little blond woman? Is that what you want? . . ."
I picked up my car keys
and my purse and went into the kitchen. I took the corners of the tablecloth
and let the food and plates and silverware and glasses fall down into the
center. I dragged the whole thing to the living room.
"Here's dinner if you
want it. I'm leaving."
Daybook is contributed by Steve King, who teaches in the English Department of Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. His literary daybook began as a radio series syndicated nationally in Canada. He can be found online at todayinliterature.com.
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