Biography The Life Of Maya Angelou Maya Angelou, a well known African American Artist, she is best known for her beautiful poetry, a former dancer and also an actress. she was born April 4 1928 in St.Luis which is located in Missouri. As a child she was costantally moving between her mother and her grandmother. When she was eight years old she was raped by her moms boyfriend. After that tramatizing inncodent he was killed by Mayas uncles and Maya barely talked for six years. In her early teenage years until her early twenties is when she became a dancer. at 16 uears of age is when her son was concived, which she named guy after she gave birth to her son she toured Europe and Africa in the musical Porgy and Bess.When she was coming back to New York City in the 1960s she joined the Harlem Writers Guild and became involved in black activism.She spent many years in Ghanna as editor of african review,there she began taking her life, her activism and her writing more seriously. Maya Angelou's five-volume autobiography commenced with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in 1970. Later books include All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken and Me in 1994. She has published several volumes of verse, including And Still I Rise in 1987 and Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou in 1995. Her volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die in 1971, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1993 Maya Angelou read "On The Pulse Of Morning at Bill Clintons presidential inauguration,a poem requested by Bill Clinton.It was only the second time a poet was asked to read at an inauguration,the first being Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.As you see Maya Angelou is a sucessful afican American woman.