On Maya Angelou

About standing up and be counted; personal is political; change through arts; speaking out; artist as a game-changer

On Maya Angelou: How a caged bird sang

The eight-year girl who became mute

Fearing her own voice that named

Terrible things done to young girls

By the likes of Freeman,

And miraculously recovered

Her strong voice,

With the aid of Mrs. Bertha Flowers,

Her teacher and

Shakespeare,

Dickens,

Poe,

And others who taught her literature;

From a pimp, prostitute, club-dancer to international artist,

Maya Angelou proved that caged birds can sing and fly,

By becoming the main author of their own life,

By naming all the demeaning things done by brutes

To helpless women and girls young,

She confronts truths bitter and names things unashamed,

Thus stripping coy images and docile stereotypes,

Of the accumulate paint of the centuries,

A bold awakened Maya, thus,

Finds a voice strong to critique,

And re-write all the old narratives of racism and oppression,

Embedded deep in every culture,

By devising and singing new songs of delicious freedom,

And, via her songs, liberate other sisters still abused and maimed

By unfeeling patriarchy and overarching capitalism;

From a mute bewildered victim   to civil rights activist to an inspiring

Global icon, for the oppressed men and women,

Maya has proved,

You can cage the body but

Not a soaring spirit,

Songs cannot be imprisoned,

By totalitarian systems anywhere

In the world

But---

They will burst forth forcefully,

Like the surging waters of the dam,

And tear asunder all the visible

And all the

Invisible chains.