Did
You Know?
Writer's Quirks
 She
habitually rises at 5 a.m. to go to a motel room near her Winton-Salem,
N.C., home. There she reclines on a fully made bed with a Bible,
a dictionary, a thesaurus and a bottle of sherry close at hand to
write her poetry and prose on yellow legal pads. |
Imposing Stature
| Her 6-foot frame only adds to her commanding presence. New York Times writer Catherine Manegold captured her like this: "Her features are broad, like chunks of clay collected roughly on a frame. Her hands are large, her mouth a cut of red across her face. Even her laugh seems big. But she has the innate and compelling grace of a woman who has constructed a full life, one lived without concession or false excuse." |
Call Her Miss Calypso
|
In her youthful days, Angelou performed folk and jazz in clubs in New York and Los Angeles with a bass player, pianist and a conga man: "I sang the blues, calypso and folk." In 1957, at age 27, made a record for the fledgling Liberty Records titled "Miss Calypso." It was reissued on CD in 1996. Also in 1996, she joined in on another recording, "Been Found." But she didn't sing the second time. Instead she melded her strong spoken words with the melodies of Ashford & Simpson. |
Gift for Languages
| Speaks French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and West African Fanti. |
