Responding to such kindness, Maya began to speak again. Flowers introduced her to authors such as Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, and Edgar Allen Poe. This began a friendship that Maya knows changed her life as Mrs. She had made cookies for me and read to me from her favorite book.” “I was liked and what a difference it made. “Next time you pay a visit, I want you to recite.” She ran home that day with books in hand and her heart over-flowing. Flowers gave her a book of poems and asked her to memorize one for her. “I heard poetry for the first time in my life,” recalls Maya, mesmerized by the sounds. Flowers brought out A Tale of Two Cities and opened the page and read aloud the opening, “It was the best of times it was the worst of times.” It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning.” Words mean more than what is set down on paper. “Now no one is going to make you talk-possibly no one can. The teachers report they have trouble getting you to talk in class,” said Mrs. “I hear you’re doing very good school work, Marguerite, but that it’s all written. Flowers invited Maya to come to her home where she served her cold fresh lemonade and homemade sugar cookies.īut more important, she talked with her about the beauty of the human voice. One summer afternoon, to her surprise, Mrs. “She handed me my first life-line,” recalls Maya in her groundbreaking memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Bertha Flowers, an aristocratic beautiful African American woman who often visited the General Store. A hard-working entrepreneur, her grandmother owned the General Store in this deeply segregated Southern town.Īfter years of staying silent, she experienced a heart-healing friendship with Mrs. Her mother then sent Marguerite and Bailey back to live again with their grandmother, Annie Henderson, in Stamps, Arkansas. After this life-changing trauma, she became unwilling to talk, except to her brother Bailey. Louis, her mother’s boyfriend raped her and then was murdered.

Literally!”īecause for almost five long years, little Marguerite Johnson (now famous as Maya Angelou), was mute.Īs an eight-years old, while living in St. Without their kindness and wisdom, I might never have found my voice.

In the cacophony of voices of praise for Angelou’s evocative writings and dramatic readings, I can imagine she might shout out, “WAIT, WAIT, WAIT! Please remember that a few very important people came into my life during pivotal moments. I loved introducing her writings with college students. Though we didn’t ‘know’ her, we came into her world through the 31 books, essays, plays and poetry that she so eloquently wrote. It’s no wonder that millions around the world are grieving her death. Sometimes gifted writers, like Maya Angelou, feel like a friend because they invite you into their heart and mind with such a generosity of spirit.

Friends quotes maya angelou