Everybody in the world uses words. The
writer has to take these most known
things and put them together in such a
way that a reader says, "I never thought
of it that way before."
My mother's boyfriend raped me.
I was seven, so I stopped speaking for
five years. In those five years I read
every book in the black school library.
When I decided to speak, I had a lot to
say. Maya was a dancer. She sang. She was
an actress. She was a beautiful
Giacometti sculpture. And of course she was a
writer. When I reached for the pen to
write I have to scrape it across those
scars. Maya was responsible for teaching
me why I should know more about my roots
but I remember being very angry - very angry.
My mother taught me a love of justice
A love of doing what's right. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - it was a very important
literary feat. Caged Bird was really
almost another Bible for me. It was the
opening for me to wanting to be a writer.
It was the first time I read something
that resonated. It touched a very young
girlish part of me.
It reflected my own mother's life. When I
read it, I couldn't believe that she was
free enough to talk about them. I read those
words and thought somebody knows who I
am. She was big and she had the voice of
God
Out of the huts of history's shame, I rise.
Up from a past rooted in pain, I rise.
I'm a black ocean leaping and wide
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide
bringing the gifts that my ancestors
gave, I am the hope and the dream of the
slave and so I rise. I rise. I rise.
