Maya Angelou

Right now, Maya Angelou's funeral is on almost every TV channel. She spoke at Bill Clinton's first inauguration, and was the official poet laureate of the USA for Clinton's eight years in office, whatever the hell that's worth. A large entourage of people who consider themselves big deals in the Democratic Party are at the funeral, including Oprah, Michelle Obama, and Bill Clinton. Everybody is saying basically that we have all lost a national treasure.

I think this is one of those large scale examples of political correctness gone completely out of control. Angelou was one of the most pretentious, fake, self-absorbed writers and speakers of our time. She wrote seven books about herself; her favorite subject. Everything she said came out sounding like a cheap impersonation of Yoda from Star Wars, impressing the hell out of everyone who assumes that everything they can't understand must be profound.

Sorry, not everybody worships ego-centric, incomprehensible communication. As a veteran of the business world, I've learned that most of it is bullshit.

I know people who got their degrees at Wake Forest, and they say she had a reputation of hardly ever being on campus. They think she just got paid a salary so that WFU could list her name on their faculty for bragging rights. She insisted that everyone address her as Doctor Angelou, even though the only kind of doctorate degree she had was honorary, not earned.

Somebody at work yesterday said you can't say anything negative about her around here if you don't want to be called a racist. I see this in an opposite way; she was proof that pompous windbags come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Equality means that nobody gets a free pass.

I don't wish her dead, but the political reaction and press coverage is just nauseating.

 

Don't know a thing about her but you know how it goes:

De mortuis nihil nisi bonum

 

I don't know a lot about her so it was interesting to read your perspective, Karen. I think that's the first I've heard anything negative said about her.

I like some of her poetry but I haven't read a lot

 

I haven't read anything by her, and she is not very popular/widely known here.
However, everyone on FB and Instagram is posting her (inspirational) quotes, maaaybe because Beyonce and other celebs are doing it too.
I haven't even heard of her till recently.
This was a pointless post, but it is interesting to me.

 

She's another one of those big deal people I don't get why she's exactly a big deal.

 

If you run across any recent interview footage of her, it can be hard to watch. Everything about her face and body language communicates to me, "I'm on a higher intellectual level than you, so you should feel honored to be near me." Even the Dalai Lama has dropped those intimidation techniques in recent years. For a while, I thought she was blind, but found out she was wearing sunglasses indoors and moving her head like Stevie Wonder because she thought it looked cool.

In today's world, when you think you have something of value to say, you need to just put it out there and let others decide what they think of it, and of you. Coming across as unapproachable and iconic is a style that really needs to go away.

Seven autobiographies? Who does that? I know succees can go to anybody's head, but... damn. Maybe she handled things better when she was younger. I hope so.

Her first best seller came out in 1969. I read it a long time, ago, forgot all about it, and forgot all about her until the Clinton poem about "morning in America" in 1993.

 

I'm sure some of her material will age well after her death. Recent interviews will be forgotten, along with a lot of the hard to understand poetry. News media hype will go away too. Only her best writing will be remembered.

Technology has changed so many things. If we had extensive interview footage of Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, and Thomas Wolfe, would we think they were all obnoxious egotists? We'll never know. I kind of pick up a vibe about Mark Twain, but so much of his writing is still relevant today, and the rest doesn't matter.

 

There was a documentary about her life on TV the other day. It was extremely interesting, she sounded very compassionate and interesting to me. I like the contribution she has made and it has been significant in the U.S. Before she came along not many people (mainstream) had any interest in poetry at all. Also I'm really liking a lot of the quotes I see from her.

I don't think there's anything wrong with writing about yourself. Write what you know is one of the best known quotes for writers. She knows herself, she knows her life, she was around and a part of many interesting parts of history (working for MLK, etc.).

I don't understand the need to try to murder the character of a dead person. Maybe if they've done something really wrong to humanity...but she was happy about herself and maybe, perhaps over-confident? Who cares. Many of the most influential people in society have always had an air of being over-confident or self-centered or even narcissistic. It kinda comes with the territory, it doesn't negate the impact they may have had outside of their own personal character.

 

I like some of her quotes. They're very useful in trying to help the self-esteem of some people who need an inspirational quote now and again.

 

Yeah its difficult these days to separate art from the artist who created it but I think its necessary. Art should always be considered outside the confines of its creator.

Also one of my favorite authors is strictly a memoirist and while he's irreverent and funny and not at all comparable to Maya Angelou, I know from reading his books it is possible for an author to write entirely about themselves without being a total douche bag about it.

I guess I would have to read more of her work to make a real judgment call.

 

I wish the news media was taking an approach like yours. On the local and regional level especially, the hype is hard to take, presenting her as an ideal, down to earth role model in every way, and dissenting views cannot be mentioned. I'm not sure that's the proper role of the press.

It would be a lot different if she had been a civil rights leader who suffered to accomplish important things. That isn't the case.

I do struggle sometimes with making that separation you talk about with musicians. I try, but sometimes the bad stories are just too extreme. Everybody has their personal issues, and creative people seem to have more than their share.

My personal favorite poet laureate of the US was Billy Collins. Most people have never heard of him.

 

How do you know this?
I have always wondered how a person can speak for a whole nation.

 

.. same..
any knowledge Ive gained in this thread has been placed in the trash bin..

 

I have never seen a book by her in a bookstore. I have never heard anyone speak about her, or mention her, like people do with other writers.
And looking at my friends and acquaintances, I can pretty much say for sure that she wasn't ever mentioned or quoted till she died.
Not many people heard about her, I'm pretty sure.....or cared for that matter.

Oh just did a quick bookstore and city libraries search....there aren't even her books in Croatian. Makes sense.
And I highly doubt that people were eager to read a book in English, about struggles of an African American woman in America, with all due respect....if that is even what her books are about (I dare to assume so, based on what KarenJ said).

So yeah, I kind of dare to speak for a whole nation on this matter.

 

:frown:Fair enough

 

Karen - I haven't read much of her work and what I have read didn't mean a huge amount to me personally.
But I think this is a situation where the media create an icon, and to dissent from that view is taken as mean spirited, heretical even.
We only get a very one sided picture from the media who want to turn such people into saints, ignoring any negatives. Celebrities are eager to jump on the bandwagon to show their own political correctness.

 

This is exactly what I'm seeing. You explained it much better than I did.

I've seen the media do this many times, in many different specialty areas. It always makes me angry with them, especially when there is clearly an underlying agenda. For example, local leaders like to ignore High Point, NC native John Coltrane, because he died of a drug overdose, and people are afraid that celebrating his life and accomplishments might send young people the wrong message about recreational drug use. Most music scholars consider him the greatest jazz saxophonist in history. Also, a local news show recently proclaimed Richard Petty to be the most famous North Carolina resident, probably because he is seen as a poster child for redneck values and the redneck lifestyle. I doubt if many young people who aren't into auto racing have ever heard of him. Michael Jordan is much better known internationally, having won two Olympic gold medals. I've seen pictures of children in Africa playing basketball, wearing his #23 Chicago jersey. But he doesn't kiss the asses of regional conservative Republican leaders.

Truth is, the world is complicated, with many highly talented people who have made worthwhile contributions in many different fields. The media constantly tries to oversimplify this into a short list of key figures that everyone is expected to know and care about, to the exclusion of all others. That's just wrong.

Truly great artists are rarely appreciated in their own time. Thomas Wolfe wasn't even welcome in his home town of Asheville, NC after he became a highly respected author. They didn't like his audacious honesty.

 

"Man you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe" -John Lennon.


A lot of the best artists, writers etc are great because they explore areas outside the accepted consensus of their time and place. And often they can have a darker side. If we could go back and meet Mark Twain, I'm pretty sure he might seem like a prickly customer....

I think the media like to have everything black and white though - it's hard for them to present someone who's done some good work and at the same time draw attention to perceived flaws in their character or lifestyle. So they end up eulogizing them.

There are some quite extreme cases - one who springs to my mind is the British mathematician Alan Turing, a man who was instrumental in cracking the German 'enigma' code in WW II. This was a very significant contribution to winning the war. Far greater then that made by others who received much praise and glory. He also did work which later served as a basis for a lot of computer science.
After the war he was ignored - partly because of the secret nature of the work, and also because he was gay.
He was eventually prosecuted for 'gross indecency', and forced to take drug treatment to 'cure' him of this behaviour. He commited suicide, and it wasn't until the 90's that he got any recognition.
All because he didn't fit into the mould of the war hero the media were intent on pursuing at that time.

There are many other examples, and I agree with you, it makes me sick.

 

Do you think the present tendency for popular culture may be to turn our positive morals towards the instrumental conduct of the courage for values of drastic peace and insecurity about that? Thus should be a return to a rekindling of the topic of the Age of Anxiety.

 

Something I totally forgotten about in the context of Maya Angelou. Came back to me earlier when I was driving. 20 years ago when I was a mature student, I actually had to write an assignment on poems by 3 black poets, 2 from the Caribbean, and Maya A.
I forget the titles of any of the poems now, but the Caribbean stuff was more to my liking.
Unfortunately although I have the assignments on file, I don't have them in an accessible format. I got an A star for the essay anyway.

But what's interesting to me is that in writing such assignments, one has to act a bit like the media do!
It's a question of firstly getting the poem, and secondly assessing what hoops you need to jump through to satisfy the criteria of the tutor - what do they want you to see in it, which has usually some socio/political element, and how to package it neatly into the right form of words.
In other words, as a student of english and sociology, there is a definite agenda, a value system, a paradigm, or a set of prejudices, and you have to cater to that in what you say about a poem or other literature.

And there's the similarity to the media. A journalist writing about Maya A has a set of criteria in a similar way. Political correctness puts her almost beyond criticism. She is to be presented in a way that is defined politically. You don't talk about alleged egotism or question if the number of autobiographies might indicate a narcissistic personality, just as a student who wants to get a good grade doesn't criticise the form of the poem, or any other shortcomings.
Both journalist and student are spinning a type of illusion.

And that's also how a lot of literature stays on reading lists for courses. The required responses can be quickly assimilated.

This has been a ramble.....