Author, poet, playwright, stage and screen producer, director, and actress, Maya Angelou was born April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. She has received 32 honorary degrees as well as nominations for a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, and an Emmy Award. She became a professor of American studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina in 1981. At age eight, Angelou endured a lengthy period when she was unable to speak after her mother's boyfriend raped her. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), her first autobiographical work, concerns this early part of her life. Before receiving support for her writing just prior to 1960 from the Harlem Writers' Guild in New York City, Angelou worked in a number of jobs, including as a dancer, a prostitute, a madam, a cocktail waitress, and a cook. Her various life experiences provide her with rich subject matter for her many creative talents.

Visions: Maya Angelou: A celebrated poet issues a call to arms to the nation's artists

An interview. From the site: "Maya Angelou speaks in the lilting cadence of the dancer she was trained to be. She moves with the sure grace of the poet she was born to be. She laughs with crackling exuberance, as she did during our interview--the first time she has talked about President Clinton since his inauguration--and with her low, resonant, emphatic voice she fills the room; it overflows."

Maya Angelou

From Poets.org, this site provides a biography of the poet as well as other links to information about her on the Internet.

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