Inaugural Poet Says She Hopes to Speak for All

As she stands before the nation on the steps of the Capitol today, Maya Angelou, the poet Bill Clinton chose to write a poem for his inauguration, hopes to speak for each and every American.

“I intend to be speaking of myself as a black woman and as a white woman and as a Jewish boy from the Bronx with braces on his teeth,” said Angelou, 62, her rich voice resonating through a restaurant at a lunch given in her honor Tuesday.

“I mean to be speaking as an Asian old man who has not yet conquered anything but himself. . . . I intend to speak as a middle-class woman in Des Moines, Iowa,” she continued to a mesmerized audience.

The poet was raised in a small Arkansas town about 40 miles from where Clinton grew up and, like the President-elect, rose from poverty and obscurity to influence and fame. She also knew pain. After being raped at the age of 8, she retreated into a silence that lasted for almost five years.

Through her career, Angelou has been an actress, whose roles include Kunta Kinte’s grandmother in the TV miniseries “Roots,” director, producer and teacher. But above all, she has been an author, whose work includes 11 books of poetry and autobiography, and five plays. For the last 10 years she has been a professor of American studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.

John F. Kennedy was the last President to have a poet--Robert Frost--at his inauguration. Friends say Angelou accepted Clinton’s invitation to speak with humility, honor and a great sense of purpose.

“She’s trying to make a statement that will reach all of America, something that will speak to the entire world about our need to band together,” said Dolly McPherson, a professor of English at Wake Forest, who has known Angelou for about 30 years.