this is… The Neighborhood

stanza from Maya Angelou’s anthem of a poem, Still I Rise
Out of the hut’s 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. 

Maya Angelou, April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014

It was in 1969, that the world would begin to ponder the question, Why does the caged bird sing? Maya Angelou was an accomplished performer way before then – a stage actress,  touring Europe in a production of the acclaimed Porgy and Bess, a songstress, recording her first  studio album in 1957, and a dancer, teaming up with the legendary Alvin Ailey, no less, scorching the streets in a calypso.  But in 1969, Maya Angelou would become a star. The release of the autobiographical I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings stunned the literary world, remaining on The New York Times bestsellers list for two years. A revealing look into a challenged life of a young African American woman, battling racism and nearly succumbing to the trauma of rape. And while the subject matter was the foundation of Caged Bird, it was her breathtaking style of writing that would captivate generations.  Its poetic flow and literary nuances, added such depth to the raw, non fictional story, that was her childhood life, made it read more like a sweeping epic and felt like a tragic symphony, with a promising end.

Maya Angelou’s  Insomnia
There are some nights when
sleep plays coy,
aloof and disdainful.
And all the wiles
that I employ to win
its service to my side
are useless as wounded pride,
and much more painful.

Maya Angelou’s rise in stature was neither forced nor  free. She would accept every challenge. An activist during the civil rights era and a voice of the Women’s Rights Movement, but she understood what her contribution to society would be, and embraced the mastery of words, delivering them as gifts of strength, perseverance, truth and life to each of us. She understood the importance of the written-word and how it could transform sorrow into fight, and how it could uplift the soul, giving reason to hold on, even when  there seemed to be no reason to do so at all. I can still hear, as I stood  among a million men in Washington, D.C., her majestic voice floating in midair, capturing our attention in a rhythmic dance, forcing us all to take notice. Not just in her words – historic and strong as they were, but to give assurances, that we remembered she was there.

excerpt from Maya Angelou’s Million Man March Poem 
Clap hands, let us come together and reveal our hearts,
Let us come together and revise our spirits,
Let us come together and cleanse our souls,
Clap hands, let’s leave the preening
And stop impostering our own history.
Clap hands, call the spirits back from the ledge,
Clap hands, let us invite joy into our conversation,
Courtesy into our bedrooms,
Gentleness into our kitchen,
Care into our nursery.

Maya Angelou will always be remembered because she is everywhere. Her legacy of words, her fight for equal rights, her courage in battling through severe childhood trauma, her deliverance of  On the Pulse of Morning at the Presidential Inauguration of William Jefferson Clinton,  her regal display of humility as an icon of literature, and her calmness in accepting the 2011 Presidential Medal of Freedom, from the nation’s first Black President, even though, the knowing, that her life had come full-circle, must have been overwhelming.

Why does the caged bird sing? That is a question that every man and every woman must answer for themselves, because we sing at different times and for different reasons. But, do not waste too much time thinking about that caged bird. Find out what makes you sing and do it every day.** But if and when we understand the meaning of our life, and fear attempts to invade our happy space, read a poem left behind by Maya Angelou, not just for its literary value, of which it is great, but for the tranquility in the passing of the baton in the circle of life, for we will be holding a contribution from a legend.

– Kendall F. Person, thepublicblogger

** {except from Kendall F. Person’s An Angry World}