Pause For The Phenomenal Woman

The day was just waking up from her night rest when there was first a post, then another, and finally a flooded space of the news. Dr. Maya Angelou, poet, activist, memoirist, professor, feminist, mentor, silently and sweetly left the world she so changed with the magic of her pen. News reports, postings, pictures, quotes, connections, a lifetime of a generation or two fondly remember where they were when they first read her transformative words or heard that bass in her musical cadence. I first encountered her book, I know why the caged bird sings, when I was a young woman seeking to free myself from my own sea of questions. Her words invited me to be authentic and encouraged me to find healing in the power of writing. Throughout my now 50 years, she, along with her literary sister, Toni Morrison, have been the black women literary giants at the background of my chorus, encouraging me to etch what I could not say and be released in what I could not sing. The feeling was a m