We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love’s light we dare be brave

— Maya Angelou, “Touched by an Angel”

Hailed as one of the greatest voices of contemporary literature, Maya Angelou is a poet, educator, best-selling author, actress, playwright, historian, civil rights activist, producer and director. She appears at the San Diego Civic Theatre on May 12 as part of a celebrity-based spoken word series called Smart Talk. A powerful speaker by anyone’s standards, Angelou will share lessons on the human spirit and offer up messages of wisdom, hope and inspiration.

Angelou was born in Missouri, raised in rural Arkansas, and worked in San Francisco as a street car conductor as well as in Cairo, Egypt as a journalist before penning such American classics as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and the Pulitzer Prize-nominated poetry collection, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I DIIIE. She received an Emmy nomination for her role as Nyo Boto in the 1977 miniseries Roots, appeared in the films Poetic Justice and How to Make an American Quilt as well as on “Sesame Street”, “Touched by an Angel” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. In addition, she arranged the musical score for the Sidney Poitier film For the Love of Ivy and directed Down in the Delta in 1998.

In 1993, at the request of Bill Clinton, Angleou wrote and delivered a poem, “On the Pulse of Morning”, at his presidential inauguration. In 1996, the United Nations appointed her UNICEF’s National Ambassador. Angelou is currently a professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Gay & Lesbian Times caught up with her for a phone conversation during her current lecture tour.

Maya Angelou: I lecture sometimes twice a year, sometimes in the late spring. I usually teach a class at my university – a master class – in the early spring, and then sometimes from February on I will lecture around the country and maybe in other places of the world. And then sometimes in the late summer, early autumn – October, November is a beautiful time to go around the United States.

MA: I think that adults ought to be able to display their feelings; their senses of obligation – obligation sounds awfully binding, and I don’t mean that so much as I mean commitment. There should be a public statement of commitment if people want to do that, and I don’t see that anyone can say, “No, you can’t.” It’s not wise. It never works really, because love is so important. I know it’s used loosely, the word, it’s used loosely, but it really may be that condition that keeps our blood running in our veins and the stars in firmament. It’s so important. So if two people find that they love each other, that is so amazing that the whole community should say, “Bravo! Keep it going. Thank you for having the courage to risk.” Because love asks for everything, you know. It doesn’t insist upon anything, but it asks for everything. And at its best, it gives everything.

MA: Well, any time human rights are refused and endangered then similarities can be drawn. If the right to one’s own body, the right to get married, the right to free access of public vehicles – they’re all the same. … When one is denied, it is a human right that is denied. I like the idea of calling it civil rights, but the truth is these are human rights –civil and uncivil and a-civil. This is a very large action, to deny a human being human rights.

MA: [Laughs] No, I mean, I might be, but I just mumble along, trying to tell the truth and maybe that makes me politically active. The truth is, a number of people stay too long at the fair. I mean, I’ve just celebrated my 76th birthday, I’m happy to report, and some people stay in the arena taking up space when there are younger people who have more passion, more activity, more energy; and so while I don’t want to be in the center of the arena, wherever I am I’m going to be trying to tell the truth as I see it.

MA: No, I am a writer. I am a writer.

MA: I would tell him – I can’t say “or her” at this time – but to any incoming President, I would say to him or her to remember he or she represents everybody: the gay and the straight, the rich and the poor, the plain and the pretty, the fat and the thin. He or she is our representative and he must remember that. Sometimes power so disturbs the balance of reason, that people forget that the Mexican American and the Jewish American, or the Arab American, or the Muslim American, or the gay American, the poor, the homeless – each one of us is looking to him or her to speak for us. And I would remind him – or her, I hope the time will come when I can say, “I will remind her” – to represent us: Don’t become a President of some of the people, but be a President of all the people. Take all our issues into consideration.