Boldness of Language and Breadth: An Interview with Maya Angelou

Author(s): Eugene B. Redmond

Source: Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 22, No. 2, Henry Dumas Issue (Summer,
1988), pp. 156-157
Published by: African American Review (St. Louis University)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2904487
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 Boldness of Language and Breadth: An
Interview with Maya Angelou

Eugene B. Redmond

The following interview was conducted on the afternoon of March

19, 1988, at the Knoxville, Tennessee, estate of Alex Haley, who was
hosting a "Maya Angelou Weekend." Specially invited guests
included Lerone Bennett, Jr., Calvin Hernton, Dolly McPherson,
Tom Feelings, Ruth B. Love, Mary Jane Hewitt, Jessica Mitford-
Treuhaft, Stephen D. McPherson, Roland and Velma Watts, Joe and
Aaronetta Pierce, Angelou's mother Vivian Baxter, Edward Rubin,
Roberta Flack, and Oprah Winfrey (the last two of whom were
unable to make it due to scheduling conflicts).

Redmond: Thank you, Maya, my sister, for doing this brief

interview. In the interest of time, I'll go right to the main event. You
and I have savored and discussed the works of Henry Dumas for
many years now. Can you recall your first impression of Dumas?

Angelou: Yes, I was impressed with his boldness of language and

his boldness of breadth. That was my first feeling upon
encountering Henry Dumas.

Redmond: Is there any one individual, group, or cluster of writers

you are reminded of when you read Dumas?

Angelou: More than any other writer of the twentieth century,

Dumas reminds me of Countee Cullen. Both fearlessly approached
ideas like love, anger, hate, disappointment, and maybe with
Dumas, and again more than any other writer in the twentieth
century, maybe retrieval.

Maya Angelou is currently Distinguished Reynolds Professor of American

Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Among
her many published works are the bestselling autobiographies I Know Why
the Caged Bird Sings and The Heart of a Woman.

Black American Literature Forum, Volume 22, Number 2 (Summer 1988)

? 1988 Indiana State University

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 Boldness of Language and Breath 157

Redmond: I like "retrieval." Could you speak a bit more about that?

Angelou: Yes. Dumas continued to set us up for the loneliness,

aloneness, and desperation, sometimes even desolation. But he
never leaves us there. With him as our guide, we're always brought
through to a better place. You know the Buddhist idea: The only
way over difficulty is to get through it. Well, Dumas brings us
through.

Redmond: In your view, how did he handle women in his writings?

Angelou: I'm sorry to say there are not large numbers of black male
writers who embrace women as equal beings, partners, friends,
adversaries, if you will. The group is extremely small. However, I
was most impressed with Dumas because he saw women as full
human beings. One problem: Unfortunately, so much of his
approach to racism caused him to take an unfair swipe at white
women. For the most part, though, his sympathy for white women
and black women was balanced and whole.... If we weren't all
afflicted by this madness of racism perhaps the problems Dumas
encountered wouldn't be so pervasive.

Redmond: Thanks for those insights, painful though they must

sometimes be. But getting back to Countee Cullen, would you say
a little more about similarities between him and Henry Dumas?

Angelou: Yes. For me, Cullen, more than any other poet, and I
include even Dunbar, traversed a very tricky ground, very shaky
ground. Cullen tried for and achieved a glasnost, a geniality of
ideas. He would try anything. The most beautiful love poetry ever
written by anyone was achieved by Countee Cullen in the twentieth
century. Henry Dumas and Countee Cullen cared. You know I love
Paul Laurence Dunbar. But I never got that from him.
Henry Dumas is not so immediately accessible as Cullen. If he
were still alive, and we could hear his voice and see his face, that
would be another matter. But we don't have those. Whenever a
writer presents a piece of work and he is at once dead and takes
a different position from the expected ... well, you have a Henry
Dumas. He's Countee Cullen all over again.

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