The Angelou Effect

Dr. Maya Angelou

Of all the things I had imagined that Dr. Maya Angelou would be when I attended her speech at the Bob Carpenter Center last Friday, the last thing on my mind was alive. Wise? Certainly. With a past such as Dr. Angelou’s, working with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X in the long-standing fight for civil rights, she has more than made her way into the world, and would naturally have that air of experience about her. Passionate? Of course. Dr. Angelou is a renowned poet laureate and the author of the beautiful classic I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Awe-inspiring, magnificent, inspirational… I expected all of these adjectives and more from Dr. Angelou, but none fits her so well as the simplest: alive.

Maya Angelou visits the University of Delaware. Photograph by Claire Davanzo.

Despite her wheel-chair, Dr. Angelou arrived on stage with an astounding presence and charisma. Not only was she every inch as charismatic as I heard she’d be, she was funny in a way that had her audience laughing within the first minute of her discussion (I say discussion because although she was the only one speaking, it felt like a dialogue, she was so attuned to her audience). Dr. Angelou told dozens of moving stories, proclaimed quotable lines every time she opened her mouth, but one moment in particular stood out to me in a way I will remember for the rest of my life.

“Don’t you know I have something to say? And I don’t intend to leave here until I say it.”

The first time Dr. Angelou said this she meant it as a joke. She had just appeared on stage and was teasing about how long it had taken the staff to actually let her come in and start her speech, but I felt something serious in those words.  Sure enough, towards the end of her forty minute talk, those words returned, powerful and packed with meaning. Dr. Angelou’s entire life story, no matter which part we look at, is about saying what we mean to say without backing down or worrying what others might think. I didn’t realise I was crying until I heard one of the tears splash down onto my notepad, and as I looked around, I wasn’t surprised in the least to find that everyone else listening was tearful too.

Toward the end of a tough, homework-filled week, I had the honour and privilege of seeing and hearing Dr. Maya Angelou, and even in that bare hour, I felt my perspective shift. We all have things we are meant to say, things we have to say, and I think we can only hope that the words we share will hold meaning for someone else, somewhere.

Don’t you know I have something to say? And I don’t intend to leave here until I write it.

~Claire Davanzo