A Night of Poetic Justice With Maya Angelou : Culture: Multiethnic audience of 2,000 students, alumni and fans at Pepperdine University acclaim her effective mixture of verse, comedy and spirit.

Showing talents in comedy as well as verse, Maya Angelou celebrated African-American poetry before an audience of about 2,000 at Pepperdine University Wednesday night.

During her 90-minute performance, attended by a multiethnic assembly of students, alumni and fans from all over Southern California, Angelou recited her work and that of others. She encouraged the audience “to make this country more than it is today.” She urged students to ask librarians for the poetry of African-Americans. “Don’t expect an immediate response,” she said, jokingly dramatizing the alarm with which that request might be met. “You’ll ill-serve yourselves and thumb your nose at your ancestors” by neglecting to enjoy multicultural poetry. “Don’t do it,” she intoned.

She made the crowd laugh with impressions of her grandmother, “The Culture Lady” (the woman in every church who arranges the Christmas pageant and talks in falsetto), and herself in varying stages of outrage, snobbery and childhood.

The evening appeared to be over after her emotional rendition of “Phenomenal Woman,” a poem she wrote for the film “Poetic Justice” which she dedicated to all the women in the audience, all their female ancestors and herself.

But when the editor of Pepperdine’s literary magazine, Expressionist, presented her with a framed poem he wrote inspired by her inaugural poem, “On the Pulse of Morning,” Angelou returned to the podium and read it with dramatic flair, as the author, senior Jason Presley, stood in the wings mesmerized, unconsciously mouthing the words along with her.

“It made my lifetime,” he said, adding that her reading of his work epitomized the necessary cultural exchange between people of different ethnic groups.

Other audience members were equally enthralled, using words like “uplifting,” and “incredible” to describe the evening. Others called her a character, said she had something for everyone in the audience, and expressed how proud she made people feel of themselves and all people.

One attendee captured the general audience reaction when she asked her friend, “Aren’t you mad it’s over?”