NONFICTION - Oct. 3, 1993

WOULDN’T TAKE NOTHING FOR MY JOURNEY NOW; by Maya Angelou (Random House: $17 ; 142 pp.) This is a buoyant spirit, all right. If you don’t know her yet, if you didn’t see her deliver her poem, “On the Pulse of Morning” at President Clinton’s inauguration, if you haven’t read her best-selling book, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” if you never saw her 10-part TV series on African traditions in American life, now is as good a time as any to jump in and partake of her bounteous wisdom. A good rule of thumb, as you read through chapters with titles such as: “The Sweetness of Charity,” “Style,” “Complaining,” and “Planned Pregnancy,” is to read the most simple and obvious, even annoyingly obvious statements more than once. More than twice; again and again, for example: “ . . . if we try to understand each other, we may even become friends,” and “We can too easily become what we are called. . . .” The secret of her happiness may in fact be her ability to reinvent herself, to know when to adjust and when to flee, to meet the unexpected gracefully. “We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.” As always, Angelou lives and breathes courtesy, prudence and human dignity.