Disagree about Bukowski who is, in my opinion, uniformly awful.
You’re lucky never to have heard of Stepanek. He was a very young boy with a terminal disease who was then paraded around on Oprah and became a bestselling poet.
It’s because she’s black, with CR cred. That’s enough, I think, to explain it.
Yep. She’s a black female who came along at just the right time to impress the pretentious with her “poetry.” Nothing wrong with riding that horse to the bank, but History will consign her to her rightful position.
Nah, try a little bit harder. I don’t know what “CR cred” means, but I do know that she’s far from the first or only black woman who has attempted poetry, and there were highly acclaimed black female poets who predate her by quite a bit (ever heard of Phillis Wheatley?). Plus, previous posters have already listed non-black poets who are inexplicably famous. So why should Maya Angelou’s fame be so easily explained by her blackness?
Add the Oprah factor and you have it. There are much better black female poets out there, but nobody reads them because Oprah hasn’t pushed them into the public mainstream. With that attention, she fulfills the checklist for political correctness, leaving everybody to feel good about everything without actually critically analyzing her works.
People love to bring up Oprah in conjunction with Angelou’s fame. “Caged Bird” was published in 1969. The books containing the bulk of her poetry were first published in the seventies, well before anyone had heard of Oprah Winfrey. For chrissake, the woman used to appear on the Merv Griffin show way back in the day. (No, I don’t have a cite, but I saw her more than once on Merv’s show, and remember at least one appearance on the Tonight Show of the same era.) Angelou had role in the Roots mini-series in 1977, which I am pretty sure was based more on her general fame than on her acting resume.
I also think that this thread is over-emphasizing her poetry as the centerpiece of her literary career. I like, others, do not believe it will stand any test of time. However, I think her work as a memoirist (the five complete autobiographical works) are of a much better quality, fill an important niche (there aren’t a huge number of such works by African-American women of her generation), and will last on that account.
No one’s said “I do not think that word means what she thinks it means” yet?
One day this bold Russian, he shouldered his gun
And donned his most truculent sneer,
Downtown he did go where he trod on the toe
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.
Now that’s poetry.
This may all be so, but I do believe her current fame is due primarily to the fact that she read at Clinton’s inauguration and because of Oprah’s strong championing of her not only as a writer/poet but as a huge inspiration in her own life. If it were not for these I don’t believe she would be the household name she is today.
True. I know my own opinion of her, though admittedly vague, was fairly high until this thread came along. I could hardly believe my eyes when reading some of it. Perhaps it’s a case of someone who, once they found they could do something well (writing, in this case), began to assume they could do everything well.
She was in Calypso Heat Wave in 1957 Calypso Heat Wave (1957) - IMDb as a singer from Trinidad.
Who knew?
Civil Rights credibility. Caged Bird came out at the same time as the rise of Black Power - ties her in to a whole movement, makes her a mouthpiece for that “Strong Black Woman” stereotype. Here, it was lyricised as “You strike the woman, you strike a rock”, and stuff like Sarafina. I guess you guys got Maya Angelou instead.
Also there is undeniably the Oprah factor, but I also think that comes from her being who she is - Oprah likes championing “outsider” artists like that Stepanek kid too, or that fraud junkie-con guy. I didn’t hear of her until the Clinton inauguration, for one data point. Then again, I’d never heard of Phillis Wheatley, either.
Ay caramba, you just explained to me why my mother likes her! Thanks.
(The translations are as bad as the original, to my taste, but then, I’m “not into poetry”)
Just like to add, that, for my taste, I prefer Gwendolyn Brooks. There’s someone who could say a lot while saying a little - I especially like her On Robert Frost
All true. She also appears in the PBS special, Elmo Saves Christmas. I kid you not. And, given the limited demands of such a piece of fluff, she’s actually not a bad actress, I have to say.
Same here. And I love “Phenomenal Woman”, partly for itself and partly because of its meaning to people I relate to.
And I like her poetry because I can tell what she’s talking about, like Langston Hughes.
People who vociferously dislike art come across as pretentious far more often than people who are enthusiastic about it do.
People as a whole like their poetry to be easy to understand. They like their poets to be dramatic and enigmatic. Maya Angelou fits that perfectly.
I’ve read more bad poetry embraced by the masses than I think anyone should have to read. Truly glurge at it’s worse. People like it. It rhymes! It’s about girls liking themselves! It’s about mommies! weeee!
I’m not a fan of poetry, but I’ve learned enough to know that bad poetry will always manage to find a following.
Luckily, I don’t consider what Angelou does to be “Art” in any sense of the word. 
So I can actually tell what it’s about, and it’s about something real, and reflects human experience, so it must suck?? Does good poetry really have to be so inscrutable?
I can tell by your username that you don’t mean it. 
No, it doesn’t.
But good poetry generally does something more than just be about something. If I wanted just to write about something in plain language to make sure I’m understood, I’d write something like a message board post, in prose. Good poetry can do so much more than simply tell you what happens.
I read the “Caged Bird” and kept thinking–this woman wrote four more books about her life? How egotistical and narcissistic do you have to be to write 4 autobiographies?
I was somewhat repulsed by her annoying habit of always mentioning her sexual prowess. Ok, move on, we’ve established that, I kept thinking.
I wasn’t interested enough to read the other 3 books. As for her “poetry”, I have to agree with upthread–she is asked because she is a name. She (IMO) works hard at perpetuating that name.
Can’t Oprah find some new minority talent? Wouldn’t it be great if Oprah spotlighted some new anyone–any race, nationality, gender, orientation–on her cover and in her mag? But no, we have Dr Phil, Maya, Gayle (Gail? Gale?), and Susie. Now, I like Susie Orman, but…
Re Maya’s poetry: I don’t think she actually writes poetry. She may well write performance art, and excel at that and that’s fine, but don’t claim the title of poet, please.