Still I Rise,” in which she included
poetry from my third book, Songs from
an Afro/Phone), film directorships
(Georgia, Georgia and, decades later,
Down in the Delta), awards (Ladies’
Home Journal: “Woman of the Year”),
nominations (Pulitzers, Tonys),
residencies (csus, Wichita State
University, The Rockefeller Foundation’s
Bellagio Center in Italy) and an
honorary Ph.D. from Oakland’s Mills
College (1975), the first of a string
ending in a total of 74 before her death
this year.
University in Winston-Salem [nc],
Redge Hanes, of “the” Hanes empire,
hosted a reception. And the repast after
the memorial itself was held at Graylyn
Estate [think Reynolds as in r.j.]).
Another brother-friend Alex Haley,
in whose movie, Roots, Maya played
Kunta Kinte’s grandmother, said
in 1976 that she possessed “at least
six women,” besting Nina (“Four
Women”) by two. And like The Amen
Corner, a play by James Baldwin, yet
another brother-friend-mentor, had
become a staple of black community
theater in the Fifties and Sixties, so
was Maya’s life, fecundity and creative
brilliance becoming a staple of new
Black/Ethnic and Women’s Studies classes
and departments across the country.
Into this mix was stirred our own
individual or joint poetry readings and
lecture tours, with time thrown in
for us to get caught up on each other.
As “forever”/new friends and artists,
we took up the ageless practice of
reading out loud, face-to-face or by
phone, from our published poems as
well as pieces-in-progress. Occasionally
included for good “measures” were
canonical and newly emerging bards
like Shakespeare, Wheatley, James
Weldon Johnson, Hughes, Dunbar,
Georgia Douglass Johnson, Hayden,
Brooks (Gwen), Clifton, Roethke,
Mirikitani, Baraka and Brown (Sterling).
Maya threaded these poets, along with
poems from my books (like Sentry of
the Four Golden Pillars, River of Bones
and Flesh and Blood and, especially,
In a Time of Rain & Desire) into her
touring repertoire. We spoke, ate,
laughed and danced to sounds of
Satchmo, Duke, Sarah, Bird, Miles,
Makeba, Nina (a dear friend of Maya’s)
and Billie, whose prophetic issuance,
“You’ll be famous — but not for singing,”
rang stubbornly true for Maya, once
an aspiring singer. And, yes, Maya’s
own star continually “rose,” as she liked
to put it, but, as she also said to me,
this “rise” created consternation among
some of her artistic peers whose
stars simultaneously took tailspins or
“stagnated.” Nevertheless “sister”
continued to “cook” creatively, both
literarily and culinarily. There were
books (Gather Together in My Name,
Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry
Like Christmas), plays (Oakland
Ensemble Theatre’s production of “And
In closing this brief recollection of my
time with Maya in California’s 1970s,
I’m thinking of three things that a
sit-down visit with this raconteur
required: 1) that you share stories
and tall tales (aka “lies”); 2) that you
take a drink, preferably alcohol but
a softer one is acceptable – though
it might win you a quizzical look;
and 3) that you eat some “to die
for” (Maya-made) cuisine. Almost
as renowned for her kitchen cookin’
as for her virtuosic page and stage
performances — “My brother, let me
tell ya, I strode onto that stage carryin’
ALL of this ‘Black’ female equipment”
— her multi-personae, cuisinartistic
and poetic stance is what I tried to
capture in “Maya’s Kitchen: Homage
to SisterCook,” the opening lines of
which are:
Maya’s cookin’ again . . . & we,
epicurious old salts & newly seasoned/newly wrought,
voyage thru her kitchens as words,
roasting like turkey on her tongue,
roll over lips of her oven & feed our famished minds
with loaves of poetry,
(purple) onion rings of biography,
tart salads of song & yeasty yields of drama.*
* From Arkansippi Memwars: Poetry, Prose & Chants
1962-2012 (Chicago: Third World Press, 2013)
BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE
In 1974, following publication of I Know
Why the Caged Bird Sings, the first of
several of her autobiographical sequels
(with its title’s nod to “Sympathy” by
Dunbar, a favorite poet of Maya’s
from childhood), and the release of
the bo