DATE: Tuesday, March 11, 1997               TAG: 9703110066

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  102 lines

MAYA ANGELOU AWARD-WINNING POET AND AUTHOR MAKES A TIMELY VISIT TO HAMPTON ROADS

MAYA ANGELOU saw the Civil Rights movement swirl up from Southern soil already rich in black history - watched it rise, gather momentum and spin faster and faster until it was a tornado that roused the nation.

But despite gains, racism and other -isms continue to carve chasms in the American landscape, says the poet, with a gaze that spans nearly four decades of the struggle for equality.

``Racism and ageism and sexism are still with us,'' she intones in a voice as softand soothing as her name sounds when spoken.

Angelou, poet-in-residence at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., is scheduled to speak here tonight at a National Conference of Christians and Jews humanitarian awards banquet. She made her comments during a recent telephone interview.

The major poet's visit to Hampton Roads seems particularly timely. February was Black History Month and March is Women's History Month.

``The women's movement and the civil rights movement worked diligently'' to make liberty and justice for all a reality, says the 68-year-old author of 12 best-selling books of poetry and prose. Yet, in some ways, ``the more things change, the more they stay the same.''

``There has been progress, yes, but we mustn't become lackadaisical,'' continues Angelou. ``We must strive for fair play in the marketplace, the home, schools, the courts - that's for all of us, white, black, Asian, Hispanic,'' men or women.

The acclaimed black writer is optimistic President Clinton will continue that progress.

As far as his first term goes, ``I could wish for more, but each president does on-the-job training,'' said Angelou. ``I expect more in this term.''

Angelou read her poem, ``On the Pulse of Morning,'' at Clinton's 1993 inaugural. In it, she challenges humanity in verse:

You, created only a little lower than

The angels, have crouched too long in

The bruising darkness

Have lain too long

Facedown in ignorance,

Your mouths spilling words

Armed for slaughter.

Born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis in 1928, Angelou grew up in Stamps, Ark., where she called upon a deep spirituality to rise above the injustice she experienced. Her metaphysical quest continues:

``I'm taken aback when people walk up to me and tell me they are Christians,'' she writes. ``My first response is the question `Already?' It seems to me a lifelong endeavor to try to live the life of a Christian. It is in the search itself that one finds ecstasy.''

Her childhood experiences left scars that healed hard and slow, as evidenced in her poem, ``Why Are They Happy People?'' in which the speaker admonishes a ``black boy'' to ``grin as your toes / spade / up your grave'' - a ``black gal'' to ``smile when the trees / bend / with your kin.''

In contrast to her voice, Angelou's poetry is resonant with the clank of iron on iron, of a South where the minds of blacks and whites were still shackled by shades of slavery.

Asked which writers exerted the greatest influence on her, Angelou rattles off names of white male literary giants: Shakespeare, Poe, Dickens, those she ``read when young.''

Other major influences came early, as detailed in her autobiographical, ``I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.'' The first was Bertha Flowers, ``the lady who threw me my first life line. . . the aristocrat of Black Stamps,'' writes Angelou.

She recalls, in prose, the day Flowers first read to her.

``She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life. . . Her voice slid in and curved down through and over the words'' of ``A Tale of Two Cities.'' ``She was nearly singing. . . ''

Now, writers of ``all sorts make me laugh and think,'' Angelou says. ``Gwendolyn Brooks. . . James Baldwin. He was my mentor.''

Angelou's current reading includes Flaubert, but she says, with a soft chuckle, she'd have to look at her bed in North Carolina to bring all works in progress to mind.

After her rape at age 8, Angelou stopped speaking, and other people's words took on special importance to her.

``When I was very young, I fell in love with words,'' she recalls. While spoken ``words can be cruel,'' Angelou says she's ``never heard'' a voice she has not liked.

Angelou's poem, ``From a Black Woman to a Black Man,'' was read at the Million Man March in October, 1995 and recognized with a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

As well, she has been nominated for Emmys, Tonys and National Book Awards.

Angelou, who is not at present married, has one son and two grandchildren.

She was herself caught up in the whirling dervish of Civil Rights. In the 1960s, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

As Angelou looks back over the lengthening ribbon of road that is the struggle for equality, other names cross her lips gently, sorrowfully - ``Kennedy. . . King . . . it would be dangerous to suggest that there has been no progress. Then, the young people would say, `what's the point of trying?' ''

Angelou knows what the point is: We are all of us on the same journey, writes the poet in ``On the Pulse of Morning'' - ``arriving on a nightmare'' and ``praying for a dream.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

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