Maya Angelou

Famed poet Maya Angelou, author of 12 best-selling books including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and A Song Flung Up to Heaven, spoke on the Common Experience theme "Courage" at 8 p.m. Sept. 28 at Texas State University.

Angelou, a Reynolds Professor of Literature at Wake Forest University, presented her lecture for the Lyndon Baines Johnson Distinguished Lecture Series on the mall on campus, between Alkek Library and the LBJ Student Center. The lecture was free and open to the public. Angelou's lecture was coordinated by Campus Activities and is a part of the Common Experience, a program at Texas State developed to incorporate and integrate the University Seminar and the Texas State Summer Reading Program with the wider community both on and off campus.

Angelou is hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary literature and as a remarkable Renaissance woman. Being a poet, educator, historian, best-selling author, captivates her audiences lyrically with vigor, fire and perception. She has the unique ability to shatter the opaque prisms of race and class between reader and subject throughout her books of poetry and her autobiographies.

In 1981, Angelou was appointed to a lifetime position as the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. In January 1993, she became only the second poet in U.S. History to have the honor of writing and reciting original work at the Presidential Inauguration.