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In 1971, Angelou s first book of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool
Drink of Water Fore I Diiie, was published and nominated for
a Pulitzer Prize. One reviewer said that the book was not
accomplished but some readers are going to love it. They
did. It included some poems originally published as songs in
her 1969 recording of The Poetry of Maya Angelou. The collec-
tion included love poems, which described the happiness of
finding love and the pain of losing it. Others were poems of
the skin, describing slavery s agonies, the anger of the Watts
riots, and war s injustices.
Angelou starts a poem by writing down pages and pages
of what she knows about the subject while looking for its
rhythm. Then I start to work on the poem, and I will pull and
push it and kick it and kiss it, hug it, everything.... It costs me.
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MAYA ANGELOU
It might take me three months to write that poem. And it
might end up being six lines.
Harlem Hopscotch showed how Angelou always com-
bines rhythm and theme in a poem. The poem used the
unique beat of a sidewalk game while describing triumph over
discrimination and life s difficulties.
You know, all kids when they jump hopscotch, they have a
dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum rhythm, Angelou explained,
but Harlem s rhythms are a bit different. They re poli-rhythms.
So it s dum-dum-dickey-dickey-dum-dum-de-dum.
In 1972, Angelou added another accomplishment to her list
of firsts. Her Georgia, Georgia was the first screenplay by an
African-American woman to be produced. She had no train-
ing in writing music, but she composed its score with a tape
recorder. I d sing the piano part, sing the first violin part, the
second violin, cello, and bass. Then I d put the whole score in
a shopping bag for the transcriber.
Angelou s story is about a black entertainer on tour in Swe-
den who falls in love with a white photographer. The enter-
tainer s traveling companion, who hates whites, interferes with
the two lovers. The entertainer is eventually murdered.
Produced in Sweden by a young Swedish filmmaker, the
film received mixed reviews; viewers either liked it very much
or hated it very much. Angelou saw it as a learning experience.
In 1973, Angelou returned to the stage to play Mary Todd
Lincoln s dressmaker in Look Away. Though the play closed on
opening night, Angelou received a Tony nomination for her
performance.
A NEW HUSBAND
The same year, Angelou was married for a third time, to Paul
Du Feu, a white Briton she met at a London dinner party. At
first, she worried about the interracial marriage. But her friend
James Baldwin told her, You talk courage, and you encourage
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The Writer
us all to dare to love. You love this man and you are question-
ing ... what?
They married at the multiracial Glide Memorial Church in
San Francisco and settled in Sonoma s Valley of the Moon. For
a time they gardened, raising corn, cabbage, lettuce, onions,
collard greens, and potatoes to share with their neighbors.
Both loved to cook as well.
My mother says I have married a few times, but this is the
first time I ve given her a son-in-law, Angelou said shortly
after her marriage. At the ceremony my brother took his
glasses off and tears were on his face and said, I want to go on
record and look Paul Du Feu in the eyes and call him brother.
Her life was very busy. Her grandson, Colin Ashanti Murphy-
Johnson, was born. Colleges and universities wanted her to
speak. After the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings, she received a Yale University fellowship and was
appointed writer-in-residence at the University of Kansas. A
few years later, she became a distinguished visiting professor at
Wake Forest University, Wichita State University, and Califor-
nia State University, Sacramento.
In 1974, Angelou published the second volume of her autobi-
ography, Gather Together in My Name. It told of her brushes with
prostitution and drugs. She talked about the subject matter with
her family before she sent in the manuscript. My mother said,
Write it, Angelou recalled. My brother said, Send it in. My
son got up ... and reached over and got Paul and me in those
massive arms and said, You re so great, Mom. Please tell it.
I had said, People will hate me.
[My husband] said, Write it if it s true. It s important that
you write it.
GROWING RECOGNITION
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was a hard act to follow.
Still, critics were pleased that she had written more about her
life. Angelou seemed to alternate between writing her life
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MAYA ANGELOU
story and writing poetry. After Gather Together in My Name,
she published 36 poems in the collection Oh Pray My Wings
Are Gonna Fit Me Well in 1975. She dedicated it to her hus-
band, Paul Du Feu. President Gerald Ford appointed her to the
American Revolution Bicentennial Council. President Jimmy
Carter would appoint her to his Presidential Commission for
International Women s Year three years later. She wrote six
half-hour programs, Assignment America, for television.
In 1976, Singin and Swingin and Gettin Merry Like Christ-
mas, the third volume of her autobiography, told of her tour with
Porgy and Bess. The title referred to a time when blacks sang and
danced all weekend, stocking up on good times so they could
live through difficulties the rest of the week. Her mother found
long letters that Angelou wrote to her during the tour. They
proved Angelou s memory was accurate.
Angelou was chosen as Woman of the Year in Communica-
tions by Ladies Home Journal. She finally directed All Day
Long, the play she had written in California.
Angelou continued to pick up recognition. In 1977, she was
nominated for an Emmy Award as Best Supporting Actress for
playing Nyo Boto in the TV miniseries Roots. Though on
screen just a short time, critics remembered her performance
IN HER OWN WORDS&
For Maya Angelou, the process of writing sometimes even turns up in her
sleep. She said:
There is a dream which I delight in and long for when I m writing. It means
to me that the work is going well. Or will go well. Or that I m telling the truth
and telling it well.
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