SOURCE: “Transcendence: The Poetry of Maya Angelou,” in Current Bibliography on African Affairs, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1984–85, pp. 139–53.

In the following essay, Ramsey argues that Angelou creates transcendent meaning from oppressive experience in her poetry.

Maya Angelou's physical shifts from Stamps, Arkansas' Lafayette County Public School to the Village Gate's stage in Manhattan and from New York to a teaching podium at Cairo University in Egypt represent an intellectual and psychological voyage of considerable complexity—one of unpredictably erratic cyclic movement. She has chronicled some of this voyage in her three autobiographies: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,¹ a bestseller (in 1970), Gather Together in My Name (1974),² and Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976).³ Her final and most recent autobiography is The Heart of a Woman (1982).⁴ Additionally she has written three collections of poetry: Oh Pray My Wings are Gonna Fit Me Well (1975),⁵ And Still I Rise (1978),⁶ and...