A Song Flung Up to Heaven (12 page)
Thirty-two
I was so excited that the telephone call hardly penetrated.
“My name is Robert Loomis, and I am an editor at Random House. Judy Feiffer spoke of you. She said you told wonderful stories.”
“How nice of her. James Baldwin and her husband told the best.”
“I am calling to ask if you’d like to write an autobiography.”
I said, “No, thank you. I am a poet and playwright.”
He asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes, quite. In fact, I’m leaving in a few days to write and host a television series for PBS in San Francisco. I’ll be there for a month or more.”
“May I have a California number for you?”
I gave him Aunt Lottie’s San Francisco telephone number and my mother’s number in Stockton, California, where she had moved.
“I’m pretty certain that I will not write an autobiography. I didn’t celebrate it, but I have only had my fortieth birthday this year. Maybe in ten or twenty years.” We both laughed and said good-bye.
In San Francisco I collected dancers and singers and musicians and comedians. I went to churches and synagogues and community centers. On the day of the first shoot, Bob Loomis telephoned again.
“Miss Angelou, I’m calling to see if you’ve had a change of mind, if you are certain that you don’t want to write an autobiography for Random House.”
I said, “Mr. Loomis, I am sure that I cannot write an autobiography. I am up to my lower jaw in this television series. When I come back to New York, I’d like to talk to you about a book of poetry.”
He said, “Fine,” but there was no eagerness in his voice. “Good luck to you.”
In San Francisco I was pleased that all the pieces were falling into their proper places. The ministers I approached were agreeable, the choir conductors were talented and willing. I borrowed an entire collection of Makonde sculpture from Bishop Trevor Hoy at the Pacific School of Religion and church officials allowed me to film their services. I took television crews into elementary schools and people’s private homes.
Blacks. Blues. Black
was well received. The
Sun Times,
the local black newspaper, gave it a rousing review. Rosa Guy and Dolly came out for the premiere.
People who had looked askance when I began the series were now standing in line to participate. Schools had adopted the programs, and I was told that some preachers were using my subjects as topics for their sermons in San Francisco.
On my last day, Robert Loomis called again. I have always been sure that he spoke to James Baldwin. He said, “Miss Angelou, Robert Loomis. I won’t bother you again. And I must say, you may be right not to attempt an autobiography, because it is nearly impossible to write autobiography as literature. Almost impossible.”
I didn’t think. I didn’t have to. I said, “Well, maybe I will try it. I don’t know how it will turn out, but I can try.”
Grandmother Henderson’s voice was in my ear: “Nothing beats a trial but a failure.”
“Well, if you’d like to write forty or fifty pages and send them to me, we can see if I can get a contract for you. When do you think you can start?”
I said, “I’ll start tomorrow.”
Thirty-three
Rosa and Dolly and I traveled to Stockton to spend a last weekend with my mother before returning to New York.
She cooked and laughed and drank and told stories and generally pranced around her pretty house, proud of me, proud of herself, proud of Dolly and Rosa.
She said black women are so special. Few men of any color and even fewer white women can deal with how fabulous we are.
“Girls, I’m proud of you.”
In the early morning, I took my yellow pad and ballpoint pen and sat down at my mother’s kitchen table.
I thought about black women and wondered how we got to be the way we were. In our country, white men were always in superior positions; after them came white women, then black men, then black women, who were historically on the bottom stratum.
How did it happen that we could nurse a nation of strangers, be maids to multitudes of people who scorned us, and still walk with some majesty and stand with a degree of pride?
I thought of human beings, as far back as I had read, of our deeds and didoes. According to some scientists, we were born to forever crawl in swamps, but for some not yet explained reason, we decided to stand erect and, despite gravity’s pull and push, to remain standing. We, carnivorous beings, decided not to eat our brothers and sisters but to try to respect them. And further, to try to love them.
Some of us loved the martial songs, red blood flowing and the screams of the dying on battlefields.
And some naturally bellicose creatures decided to lay down our swords and shields and to try to study war no more.
Some of us heard the singing of angels, harmonies in a heavenly choir, or at least the music of the spheres.
We had come so far from where we started, and weren’t nearly approaching where we had to be, but we were on the road to becoming better.
I thought if I wrote a book, I would have to examine the quality in the human spirit that continues to rise despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Rise out of physical pain and the psychological cruelties.
Rise from being victims of rape and abuse and abandonment to the determination to be no victim of any kind.
Rise and be prepared to move on and ever on.
I remembered a children’s poem from my mute days in Arkansas that seemed to say however low you perceive me now, I am headed for higher ground.
I wrote the first line in the book, which would become
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
“What you looking at me for. I didn’t come to stay.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Poet, writer, performer, teacher and director
MAYA ANGELOU
was raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and then went to San Francisco. In addition to her bestselling autobiographies, beginning with
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,
she has also written five poetry collections, including
I Shall Not Be Moved
and
Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?,
as well as the celebrated poem “On the Pulse of Morning,” which she read at the inauguration of President William Jefferson Clinton.
ALSO BY MAYA ANGELOU
Autobiography
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Gather Together in My Name
Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas
The Heart of a Woman
All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes
Essays
Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now
Even the Stars Look Lonesome
Poetry
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’fore I Diiie
Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well
And Still I Rise
Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?
I Shall Not Be Moved
On the Pulse of Morning
Phenomenal Woman
The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou
A Brave and Startling Truth
Children’s Books
My Painted House
Kofi and His Magic
Picture Books
Now Sheba Sings the Song
Life Doesn’t Frighten Me at All
A SONG FLUNG UP TO HEAVEN
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Random House hardcover edition published April 2002
Bantam trade paperback edition / April 2003
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2002 by Maya Angelou
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001034914
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eISBN: 978-0-553-89731-9
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