Maya Angelou

What can you say about Maya Angelou? She’s the sort of person who gets schools named after her. She rose from a childhood marred by poverty, racism, and rape to a status as one of our most distinguished writers, a dignified and sometimes imperious living embodiment of African-American cultural pride. Her life has been one of great accomplishment, which she herself has documented in six volumes of autobiography beginning with her now-classic I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and continuing up to last year’s A Song Flung Up To Heaven. She worked for civil rights alongside Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, speaks six languages fluently, and has been a newspaper editor in Cairo, a film director, and even a not-half-bad calypso singer (seek out her 1957 album Miss Calypso, re-released during the mid-90s swing craze). She’s been nominated for the Pulitzer, Tony, Emmy and National Book Award, and was asked by fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton to compose a poem for his first inauguration. She’s also an incredibly inspiring speaker, so don’t miss this chance to see her in person. O’Shaughnessy, 2004 Randolph Ave., St. Paul, (651) 690-6700, www.st kate.edu/oshaughnessy