Maya Angelou

How they reason

Thinking

"I write for money", like Balzac did

Aphorism

Principle

I write poems to be performed, not only printed

My poems are written to be heard: public, representative and spoken aloud. Critics who prefer poetry as a written form have undervalued them, but that public purpose is the point of the art.

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Reflection

I became "a teacher who writes" at Wake Forest

In 1981, with no bachelor's degree, I accepted the lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University and taught philosophy, ethics, theology, science, theater and writing.

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Principle

I say "I" and mean "we" in every autobiography

I write in the slave narrative tradition, speaking in the first-person singular about the first-person plural. My autobiographies describe Black culture and interpret it for a wider, white readership.

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Go deeper

Insight timeline

How the thinking unfolded over time.

How they reason

Thinking

"I write for money", like Balzac did

Aphorism

Open card

Principle

I write poems to be performed, not only printed

My poems are written to be heard: public, representative and spoken aloud. Critics who prefer poetry as a written form have undervalued them, but that public purpose is the point of the art.

Open card

Reflection

I became "a teacher who writes" at Wake Forest

In 1981, with no bachelor's degree, I accepted the lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University and taught philosophy, ethics, theology, science, theater and writing.

Open card

Principle