For the past few weeks, I’ve been creating a one act play I was commissioned to write about the legacy of writer Dr. Maya Angelou.
It’s been amazing getting to know her.
It’s not just a play either. The project is comprised of several unique storytelling tools that fill up (and out) the world in which Dr. Maya Angelou has directly and indirectly impacted throughout her life. Using dance, music, poetry, rap, critical fabulation, call and response, rep/rev and vignettes that were built using motifs collected from interviews, books and poetry.
One of the most alarming facts about approaching this project is that I didn’t know shit about Dr. Maya Angelou. She’s not glorified in the university like her peers James Baldwin or Toni Morrison. We didn’t learn about her in elementary school either; only Malcolm X and MLK (her personal friends). But though I’ve never learned about her, I’ve always known her. Like Hip-Hop or saying hella. This is just my culture. I never had to learn about her because she was always there. Tupac. E40. Maya Angelou. I remember seeing her in the film Poetic Justice and I already knew her name by then. I was only 3 or 4 when I saw the movie. My mom coming in during the Bar-b-q scene to let me and my sister know Maya Angelou wrote all the poetry in the movie.
Before this project, I only really knew two things about her. The first is that she was a poet. The second is that she was kinda family. My aunty fell in love with Bailey, Maya Angelou’s big brother. She’s from the Bay too you know? She is the godmother to my cousin but I had never met her. Everybody know somebody that know somebody in the Bay. So I never met her.
Still. I knew why the caged bird sang. A film my teacher put on for the last day of middle school. No one was really watching. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there.
I have learned so much about her. I love what I’ve learned. She was so good with children’s poetry, which is so hard to write, but she wasn’t only a writer who wrote poems for 10 year olds to recite at their 5th grade promotion.
She was a teen mother
A sex worker
A SA survivor
A singer
An activist
A actress
A filmmaker
A director too.
A friend
A lover (to many)
A voice
A body
A mute child
An Aries (like me)
A fighter
I love her so much. I believe I met her right when I needed to. Her complex love life was interesting and fascinating to pay attention to. She was married and remarried and dated and re-dated all the men she wanted to. And refused to stay with them if the love was lost.
Her best friend was her son Guy who was often asked if he felt like he grew up in his mother’s shadow at which he responded “I grew up in her light,” and I love that.
One of my skills as a writer is my ability to use critical fabulation to tell stories in vignettes. These collections are no different. Most of the vignettes (like Comb Your Hair) take on an approach of addressing a personal, historical and lyrical narrative all in one bite. I didn’t know that was a skill I could be proud of. She’s helped me be a stronger storyteller and writer and researcher.
I feel so seen.
I hope this body of work touches all of us who need her the most.
From one poet
To one mother
To one lover
To one teacher
To one person struggling to tell the truth
This is for you.
