The “Caged Bird” sings no more

Maya Angelou is dead. The world has lost a phenomenal woman. 

Many tributes will be recited, many glasses will be raised, and we will mourn this phenomenal woman. Much will be said and memories will be traded about this phenomenal woman. Lovers of well-crafted poems and admirers of carefully honed words will re-read the vast catalog of work produced by this phenomenal woman.

Maya Angelou’s dear friend Oprah Winfrey offered this statement: “What stands out to me most about Maya Angelou is not what she has done or written or spoken, it’s how she lived her life. She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence and a fierce grace.”

Fierce grace. Only a phenomenal woman can move in that way.

Although her pedigree was short, her accomplishments were long: she was San Francisco’s first female and first black streetcar conductor. She was a singer, a dancer, a novelist, a succesful single mom, an actress, a civil rights activist, a poet, a teacher, a playwright, a university professor, and a holder of 30 honorary doctoral degrees. She was nominated for a Pulitzer and a Tony and three Grammys. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was a bad-ass. 

This phenomenal woman spoke from the heart and did not mince words. Her friend James Baldwin paid her a high compliment when he said that she could hold both her liquor and her positions. 

Two of Maya Angelou’s quotes ran through my head often while I was enduring the shit-storm that is cancer: “We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated.” And “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” She came to know the truth in those profound statements from the earliest days, when she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend at age 7. Yes, you read that right: age 7. Seven. An incident she described as “a breaking and entering when even the senses are torn apart.” Yet this phenomenal woman would not be broken by it. Instead, she wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which won the National Book Award in 1970 and was on the NYT bestseller list for two years. “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill, of things unknown but longed for still.”

Despite her early, unimaginable hardship, this phenomenal woman lived to teach and to give. She said, “I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”

I for one am immeasurably grateful for all she threw back.

She refused to be discouraged by the many obstacles standing in the way of a young black woman in the South in the early days of civil rights. In her poem “Still I Rise,” she challenged and persevered:

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll Rise.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

My all-time favorite Maya Angelou poem is “Phenomenal Woman.” It’s too good to excerpt, so here it is, in its entirety. If I ruled the world, I would make it required reading for every girl and women on this earth, in hopes of it curing insecurity and self-doubt. I would require every male on this earth to memorize this poem, in hopes of eradicating crimes against women, both emotional and physical.

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say,

It’s in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It’s the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can’t touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them,

They say they still can’t see.

I say,

It’s in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Now you understand

Just why my head’s not bowed.

I don’t shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.

When you see me passing,

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It’s in the click of my heels,

The bend of my hair,

the palm of my hand,

The need for my care.

’Cause I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.