Born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Marguerite Johnson "Maya Angelou" harkens back to the time when one talented person did many things. Not only has she been a prolific writer, Angelou is known for her songwriting and singing ability, her acting skills, as well as her work as a film director and civil rights activist.

Growing up in a segregated area of St. Louis, Angelou is a product of a broken home. Her troubled early years included being raped at age eight and became an unwed mother at 16 years old.

Angelou's most famous book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is a graphic account of those youthful years. In it she not only writes of the trauma of being a rape victim but of the death of the man who attacked her. She also notes her refusal to speak for five years after these violent events

Maya Angelou would become the first black woman director in Hollywood, was twice nominated for a Tony award for acting on Broadway and for an Emmy award for her work in the miniseries Roots. Her poetry is known for its raw emotion and its ability to speak directly to the human heart, with some of the same rhythmic feelings that appear in the work of Langston Hughes.

Such is the case with her most well known poem, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.