She never once kissed me the whole time in Stamps, that I can remember, but she loved me. Maya Angelou: It was terrible, because she (Annie) really loved me.

It was a big heart.ĪP: You were not happy with the notion of leaving your grandmother at 13 to return to your mother in California. She had respect, and when she saw people who were poor, who were crippled or uncomfortable in their skin, she didn't laugh at them, and I liked that in her. You know, she was pretty, she was young, she had money. I liked the fact that she didn't laugh at people. How did you come to that point with your mother? I'm sorry to say drugs had so taken him over.ĪP: This is a story about forgiveness. My mom had said she wanted my brother to write it, and I knew he wasn't going to. I had been trying to write it for about 25 or 30 years, but it wasn't ready to be written. Maya Angelou: Well, I don't want to say that because it sounds like it's The End. Her son, Guy, whom she had at age 17, remains with us, enduring years on crutches after numerous surgeries for spinal injuries he suffered in an auto accident.ĪP: Where does this book fit into your cycle of autobiography? Is this a completion of sorts? It's Angelou's eighth book to unravel her often painful and tumultuous life, including the 1969 National Book Award winner 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,' chronicling her rape as a girl that left her mute for five years.Īngelou lost her beloved older brother Bailey in 2000, after his slide into drugs, and her mom in 1991, at age 79 or 85, depending on who's doing the counting, joked Angelou in a recent telephone interview from her home in Winston-Salem, N.C., where she has lived part-time for more than 30 years while on the faculty of Wake Forest University. Her mom and Annie are familiar to admirers of the poet and spinner of autobiographical fiction. The fierce and fun Vivian was Angelou's abandoner and, later, her most loyal protector. Urgent: Is Obamacare Hurting Your Wallet? Vote in Poll and returned her at age 13, according to The Associated Press. Henderson took Angelou in when she was 3 in a tiny, segregated Stamps, Ark. Louis, and Henderson, refined believer in southern etiquette, are both long gone but figure big in Angelou's legendary life. Renowned author Maya Angelou honors her mother and grandmother in her upcoming literary memoir, 'Mom & Me & Mom,' which is a sweet ode to 'Lady,' also known as Vivian Baxter, her mother and 'Momma,' her paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson.īaxter, rough-and-tumble poor from St.

Maya angelou my mom and me