Talk:Maya Angelou/Archive 2

Angelou's mutism

In the on-going improvement of this article, I've been looking at the references and trying to find more reliable sources. I understand that university newspaper articles aren't as reliable as sources like The New York Times, but for the time being, I'd like to retain the Daily Nexus ref because it has that great quote about Angelou's mutism. Of course, if this gets in the way of this article's eventual GA or FA status, it should be (reluctantly) removed. The best next choice is the following, which I suggest should replace it if or/when it becomes necessary:

Horrified that her words had caused anyone's death, Maya withdrew into a silence that the Baxters were incapable of handling. She and Bailey were returned to Annie Henderson and the community of Stamps, where for five years Maya remained mute. She was finally released from the burden of speechlessness in 1940, through her study of literature and the guidance by a woman from Stamps named Mrs. Flowers. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 21:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Two new sections

I have added two new sections, "Writing style" and "Themes in Angelou's autobiographies", in the interest of the improvement of this article, and to make it more like the articles of other writers. I used my second sandbox to draft the new sections and then cut-and-pasted them into the article. I hope that this has brought it closer to GA and FA status. I believe that it's still far away from it, however; it needs more research in order to expand the bio section. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 22:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Die vs. Diiie

As far as I can tell, the title of the book was Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, with three I's, not Die. That's the way the phrase is spelled in her poem "No No No No", at any rate. - Montréalais (talk) 04:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

It depends upon where it's listed. Some of the entries on Amazon spell the word with one "i", and some do not. MA's webpage spells it as you do. Personally, it doesn't matter much to me. I'm willing to go with what she says. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 06:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing that it is spelled "diiie" because she is holding it, like in a song. She doesn't want to make it staccato, she wants it to be held lllllllllloooooooooonnnnnnnggggg. But that's my guess, and it could be as good as anyone's! =]--24.98.70.246 (talk) 23:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Gray lock

Why we semi-protect this. Have popel been making racist commnets.--Freewayguy ^{Msg USC} 21:57, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing that it is spelled "diiie" because she is holding it, like in a song. She doesn't want to make it staccato, she wants it to be held lllllllllloooooooooonnnnnnnggggg. But that's my guess, and it could be as good as anyone's! =] --24.98.70.246 (talk) 23:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Works of Maya Angelou

I've suggested that the "Work of Maya Angelou" be split from the main article and made into its own list. At ~130 lines, the length of the list in this article is a major interruption between prose sections above and below this section. In my opinion, it would be best to have this section imitate the "Honors and awards" section immediately below it or include just a selected bibliography. As an example, please see Works of William Gibson. --Millbrooky (talk) 15:13, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I kinda thought that's what you were gonna say. ;) Things are a little busy for me now, and I'm working on another article, but I'll try to get to this in a few days. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 16:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

It took a little longer than a few days, but I have finally created this article. It needs some work, though, along with the summary section here. I also think some re-structuring needs to be done, like moving the Awards and honors section to the end of the article. I will get to that, probably sooner than I was able to accomplish this task. Thanks to Millbrooky; I think it does significantly improve this article. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 07:17, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

"Clothes" hoax

I have removed this section and folded the content, with some copyediting, into the "Later career" section. I have done this because I don't think the information is important enough to warrant a separate section. However, controversy about Dr. Angelou should be included; as the article is improved and expanded, it will most likely be placed elsewhere. I'm not sure that Snopes.com is a reliable source, and I'm not committed to finding a better one at this time. I also suspect that its inclusion is part of a bias and agenda, which is why I removed the specific allegations of the poem. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 15:46, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

What bias or agenda are you talking about? You suspect a pro-Angelou bias? And Snopes is a fine source, AFAIK. IronDuke 16:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I just looked at this article's edit history: the section was removed on Feb. 12 by a vandal/unknown IP. Of course, there was no edit summary, and since this article is usually heavily vandalized (just wait for school to start in a couple of weeks), it was overlooked. To be honest, its removal wasn't a big deal to me, since I've never thought it was a crucial piece of information and adds very little to its quality. It was reinserted on July 29 by you, ID. So why did you do that, anyway?

All that to say that both the inclusion and deletion of this content is suspect. I believe that my solution is a good compromise. Regarding Snopes: Its reliability has been discussed before. My interpretation of the discussion is that Snopes tends to be reliable, but it should be supported by additional sources. This article does that by citing MA's webpage. I believe that it needs another source just to be sure. Of course, the time that I've spent responding could have been spent looking for it. What the heck, I'll go ahead and do it tonight; I'm just watching the Olympics, anyway. ;) --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:48, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

"All that to say that both the inclusion and deletion of this content is suspect." I'm confused by that statement. Can you clarify it? Also, don't know why information was removed from the statement. Thanks for help with sources... IronDuke 15:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so I looked at the edit history, and found that it was you, ID, who added the content originally, way back on 2007-04-08. It looks like it was deleted by a vandal, and was never corrected, so I take back what I've said. It seems that its deletion was suspect, and its inclusion was done by good faith. However, I'm not sure it's notable enough to include, but I'll wait for others to chime in, probably when and/or if this article is reviewed. BTW, I wasn't able to find any additional reliable sources. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 04:09, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

maya is a good person —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.9.25.24 (talk) 16:51, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Her prostitution background

Angelou explicitly states in her own book ``Gather Together in My Name`` that she worked as a prostitute and was a whorehouse madam, why is this rather startling history being supressed from her entry?? When I added this true account from Angelou herself..her own book, to this wiki article it was deleted and supressed.

Would you happen to have a page number for verification? I don't think anyone is trying to suppress the info - just following protocol by removing info until it has a direct source. ^{XF Law} _{talk at me} 23:31, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

As the person who's become the main editor of this article, I'm a little insulted at the charge that this information was "suppressed" (sic). If you look at the last paragraph of the Early years section (under Biography), you'll see that it states that Dr. Angelou held numerous jobs during this time. I made an editorial choice to not list all of her occupations, since this particular occupation is no more (or less) important than say, being a fry cook or a dancer. If you read Gather Together in My Name, an article I created and which is linked in the above-mentioned paragraph, it's very clear that she was a prostitute. There's even a well-documented statement by Dr. Angelou regarding her reluctance to be honest about it, and how her husband encouraged her to write about it. Sorry, but there's no conspiracy here. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 00:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The IP has every right to make an 'editorial choice' to add the list of occupations. It's often that a biography will contain specifics about an occupation, especially when it's an illegal endeavor. It should simply be sourced. I understand how your time and effort on this article can lead to feelings getting ruffled, but answering the question as ' the main editor' is sure to discourage newcomers. ^{XF Law} _{talk at me} 00:39, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, then, the IP has every right to reinsert them if he/she chooses. Just as I have the integrity to not suppress any other editor's additions, I also have the integrity to not revert a good-faith edit, even if I disagree with it. Let any future reviewers decide, I say, although I suspect that they'd agree with my position. I apologize, I do tend to get proprietary with my pet articles; I just can't help it. I suppose I should've said, "As the only editor who seems to have worked on this article other than the heavy vandalism-protection it, for some reason, regularly requires..." But that would've been TOO LONG! ;) But like I said, let the IP at it! --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:19, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Just a comment on the idea that being a prostitute is the same as being a fry cook or a dancer. To many people, this may be the case. However, being a prostitute is illegal in almost every jurisdiction in the United States, so comparing it with other (legal) occupations in anywhere but Nevada is akin to comparing, say, insider trading to regular stock trading or giving stock advice, or selling alcohol to a 22-year-old vs. a 20-year-old. Law enforcement agencies will not look at them as the same thing.--Gloriamarie (talk) 16:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Man, was I cranky when I responded to this issue back on Oct.! I apologize for that. Thinking about it, I think that there are two possible solutions. We can go ahead and add "prostitute" to Dr. Angelou's list of occupations. There's nothing shameful about this fact; Dr. Angelou has freely admitted it. A better solution, at least for me, is to include the information in other Angelou-articles (such as the above-mentioned Gather Together in My Name) about her hesitation to write about it and her husband's encouragement to be honest about it. I'd go ahead and do it, but in addition to being busy IRL, I also have some other WP-projects (including the beginning of the FAC process for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) I'm focusing my time on.

This article is in need of some major improvements. In a perfect world, it should've been FA (or at the very least, GA) before Dr. Angelou's birthday last April, but that didn't happen. In my mind, the bio section is most lacking. It has holes big enough to drive a mac truck through. Closing those holes for me requires that an editor become more knowledgeable about her life, and the best way to do that is to read all six of her autobiographies. I've read the first two myself, and have written an article about her second one. Up to now, I've been the only editor working on this article. Eventually, I'd like to see a Maya Angelou featured topic, but before that happens, I need to complete the other four books. (I'm assuming that's me, since I'm the only game in town.) If anyone else wants to take over those tasks (including following my above suggestions), feel free. One of the most annoying things about WP is that other editors will insist on things and expect other editors to follow through. If ya think something needs to be done, knock yerself out, kiddo! In other words, be part of the solution, not part of the problem! --Figureskatingfan (talk) 06:12, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Maya Angelou in Madea's Family Reunion: The Movie

{{editsemiprotected}} In Maya Angelou's wikipedia page, shouldn't the fact that she had a part in Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion: The Movie?

Well, there is a section of this article, "Works", that summarizes Dr. Angelou's accomplishments, as per this discussion on the talk page. Also, in the article, Works of Maya Angelou, which lists them out, the movie is mentioned. You ask a good question, and I hope my answer satisfies you. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 04:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the current situation's about right - the main article is already very long, and she's done a lot of things. I don't see anything particularly special about Madea's Family Reunion that means it needs to go in the summary in the main article; it does just fine in the separate Works article.

Wired for Books audio interviews

Unfortunately for Wikipedia users, Figureskatingfan has repeatedly erased the external link to the Wired for Books audio interview of Maya Angelou, which can be found at http://wiredforbooks.org/mayaangelou/ It is a very nice interview, available both in RealAudio and also as an mp3 download. The Don Swaim collection of CBS Radio interviews are found only at Wired for Books at Ohio University and the original, uncut interviews were never broadcast by CBS Radio. Compounding the damage, Figureskatingfan has apparently encouraged other editors to label our Wired for Books interviews as "spam" and "vandalism." It seems that these people have not made a minimal effort to determine the quality of the source material. If anyone is interested in literature in general, as well as May Angelou in particular, please check out Wired for Books at http://wiredforbooks.org . Perhaps it is the abundance of material that we have, nearly 700 interviews in the Don Swaim collection alone, that makes the links look like spam. In any case, if you think that the audio interviews should be included in Wikipedia, please contact Figureskatingfan and also, Anthony.Bradbury , who has also been erasing our work.

Thanks for your help with this. Write to me a kurz@ohio.edu or scribe711 at Wikipedia if you would like more information or simply to show support for adding the content to Wikipedia.

David Kurz Ohio University kurz@ohio.edu scribe711 Scribe711 (talk) 16:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Answered on Scribe's talk page. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 18:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Instead of retaining the link to Wired for Books in the "External links" section of this article, I'm placing it here, as per Wikipedia policy. As I've promised Mr. Kurz, it's my intention to listen to it and determine (as I'm sure it will) if the content can be used here or on any other Maya Angelou article. Wired for Books seems to be a valuable source for literature articles; I recommend that other editors committed to these articles utilize it.

• Audio interview with Maya Angelou (1987) with Don Swaim --Figureskatingfan (talk) 00:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

can you tell more about Maya Angelou like:she was a author,poet,historian,songwriter,dancer,playwright,stage and sceen prodcer,director,performer,singer,and civil rights activist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.34.195.226 (talk) 02:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Poetry critic beaten to death (bad review)

In the Spring of 1993, my cousin Eddie Ellington - a young poet working on an epic treatment of Maya Angelou's life - was found beaten to death in Tifton, Georgia. According to local newspapers the impetus for the beating was that he had published a blisteringly negative review of Maya Angelou's reading at the Clinton Inauguration. If I can find a copy of the review online, can I add these facts to your own epic biography here? Keith Ellington (talk) 15:41, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, Keith, I wouldn't call this bio "epic"; this is just Wikipedia, after all. However, if you're able to find a reliable source to improve this article, knock yourself out. It depends upon where the review was published. If you can find the "local newspapers" that describe this event, and they're reliable, there's nothing stopping you from adding the information. Be careful about WP:POV and WP:COI, though, since we are talking about a family member of yours. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 16:53, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Good article?

Has anyone considered nominating this as a WP:Good article, if not a WP:Featured article? It certainly fits the standards of a GA. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 17:57, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This article certainly does not fit the standard of a FA. If you think it qualifies for a GA, go ahead and nominate it. Personally, I think this article is a mess. For example, its bio section is terribly incomplete. Perhaps when I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings gets through the FAC-process, I'll focus on this one. My long-term goal is to have a Maya Angelou featured topic, you know. For that to happen, I think, all of her autobiographies need to have its own article, which means someone has to read them first, and then they need to be brought up to GA. And this article needs to be FA. With this subject, most of the sources about Dr. Angelou's life are her own autobiographies, and in this article's current state, it doesn't utilize them at all. Until that happens, I'm hesitant to bring it to GAN. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 18:44, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Images

Wiki manual says It is often preferable to place images of faces so that the face or eyes look toward the text.

This confuses some editors, because when a figure's head is turned to face the left of the page, then the eyes are often turned towards the opposite corner. The painter/photographer has done this so that even though the head is turned, the figures looks directly at the viewer. In this case, the figure needs to be placed to suit the the angle of the head and body. The pic of Shakespeare needs to be right, so his head and body face into the page. His eyes are not looking into the page. They will look at the viewer, no matter where the pic is placed.

Amandajm (talk) 00:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, as it stands now, the caption beneath old Billy Shakespeare reads, "whom she met and fell in love with as child." One little quibble, here: how could Angelou have met the Bard, as he'd been dead for, oh, 400 years (or so)? Perhaps some nice brackets for clarification are in order? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.27.19.254 (talk) 17:28, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me, Shakespeare died ~300 years before Angelou's birth. (I'm pretty awful at math, obviously...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.27.19.254 (talk) 17:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The article states that the pronunciation of Angelou is something like "AN-jell-oo". This seems to be the usual Anglo-Saxon pronunciation. But the name, as the article also tells us, is Greek, and the Greek pronunciation is different, something like "An-GELL-oo" (pure G like in "gas", and note the different stress too). My question is, does anyone have information on how she herself does pronounce her name? --89.15.195.84 (talk) 09:34, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the IPA table implies "AN-jell-oh", and this is consistent with how she pronounces it at this site [1]. Glenn L (talk) 18:37, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The above webpage is the source cited for the pronunciation of MA's name, the first reference listed in the article. It happens to be a recording of Dr. Angelou saying her own name: "AN-jell-oh". Most of the time, when people mispronounce her name, they say the last syllable, "lou", and that's VERY wrong. --Christine (talk) 22:38, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Except in Greek, of course, where it's right. Her first husband almost certainly would have pronounced the final syllable as "loo" rather than "loh". (He also wouldn't have used the "soft g" sound, which doesn't exist in Greek, and would have put the stress on the second syllable rather than the first.) But of course her own pronunciation is what's relevant here, not how the name Αγγέλου is pronounced in Greece. —Angr 06:18, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

However, as stated below, her husband's name wasn't "Angelou"; it was "Tosh Angelos". --Christine (talk) 11:53, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

"It is not known exactly how many times Angelou has been married"

Can this possibly be true? An autobiographist with a secret number of marriages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.154.213.3 (talk) 02:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Name change?

It seems misleading to say she changed her name from Marguerite Johnson to Maya Angelou. That suggests she picked the name herself. But all she did was start using her brother's childhood nickname for her in combination with her married name, rather than using her legal maiden name. —Angr 06:09, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. According to Angelou's third autobiography, Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas, she changed her name. There's a long scene describing the process that she and her bosses at The Purple Onion went through coming up with it. Actually, her married name was "Angelos"; they modified it so that it was more "exotic" and more like the Calypso style of dancing she was doing at the time. --Christine (talk) 11:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

See Greek name#Greek surnames. When a woman marries, she takes the genitive case of her husband's last name as her married name. Angelou is the genitive of Angelos; it is standard practice in Greece for a woman who marries a man named Angelos to use Angelou as her last name. Anyway, I think it would be less misleading to say she "changed the name she used professionally" rather than to say simply she "changed her name". —Angr 12:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Heh, okay I take your word for it since I'm no expert. I mean, that's certainly not the way it reads in the book. I have changed the phrase to now read, "She changed her professional name..." --Christine (talk) 18:55, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I haven't read the book, but from this article it seems that Maya Angelou can sometimes be a bit of an unreliable narrator when it comes to her own life. —Angr 20:21, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Now, that's a little unfair. Much of that is simply a literary technique she uses. We go into it in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Also read the first paragraph of the section "Early years" in this article. At the same time, though, one of my goals for this article is to read all of her autobiographies to flesh out the bio sections, since it makes sense (at least to me) to use her books as a major source for the information here. We don't want to depend solely on them, though, but there are too many sources that contradict her. For example, I decided to not use two websites at all because they said that she had been raped at the age of six (she was eight), and that she was raped in San Francisco, not in St. Louis. In other words, this has been an issue here before. Angelou's own website and even Lupton, one of her biographers and an Angelou scholar, states that she was nominated for an Emmy for Roots. She was not. The lists on the Emmy website don't include it, so after some discussion on this talk page, it was removed. (If I were to ever meet her, that's something I'd ask her about--respectfully, of course.) --Christine (talk) 00:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

African-American Criticism for Supporting Hillary Clinton?

Why is there no mentioning of Maya's criticism from the black community for supporting Hillary over Obama in the 2009 Presidential Primaries? Of course when Obama won, she immediately changed course like she was with him all along. [2], [3], [4] 16:19, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

This could potentially be an interesting item to add to this article. However, none of the three links you provide fall within Wikipedia's policy of Verifiability. If you provide reliable sources, the information from them should be added to this article. If you're able to find them (and as this article's main editor, I haven't found any such claims in my extensive research of the subject), bring them here. I'll be more than happy to help you include them. --Christine (talk) 20:23, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Copy and syntax edit 18 Nov 09 & trivia

I have done some copy and syntax edits - a work in progress. I have discussed making copy changes a long standing key editor for the page Figureskating Fan.

• The intro is edited for readability - to change list elements. And have taken out the dead links

• Early years - I have changed the syntax a little to make it sound more encyclopaedic - with a little less POV / biography close up view point. I put the PBS programme details in the notes. Dead links changed. No facts have been taken out - just rephrased.

• Adult years - edited for syntax and repetition. Dead links changed. No facts have been removed.

• Later career - took out dead links. Edited paras 1, 2 and 7 for syntax and readability. No facts have been changed.

Spanglej (talk) 14:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Spanglej, thanks for the copyedit; this article sorely needs it. For the most part, the ones you've made are good, but I have a few pieces of feedback.

• Many of your edits changed the chronological nature of this article. A bio article should be chronological, and read something like, "First this thing happened to Dr. Angelou, then this, and then this." For example, in the "Later career" section, you switched the paragraph starting with the lecture circuit info, which happened in the 90s, with the "Clothes" paragraph, which happened in 1999. Chronologically, the lecture circuit stuff should come first. (Weren't we also going to talk about removing the "Clothes" information?)

• Red links. Not all of 'em are bad. According to the Signpost I linked, they have an important purpose--to encourage the creation of new articles. That's exactly why Angelou's works that don't currently have an article about them were red-linked. If you don't mind, I'm gonna go ahead and change them back. My eventual goal, as you know, is for each of those works to have an article written about them, but I gotta do the research first (translation: actually read 'em!). If you or anyone can assist to that end, that would be great.

• There were a few small things you overlooked, like putting the periods after quotations and citations. I will go and fix those now.

Again, thanks for your help; it's much appreciated. Like I've told you, I've felt mostly alone in my attempts to improve MA-articles. Any assistance is welcome. --Christine (talk) 13:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Figureskating Fan - Ah - I didn't know about the use of red links. Sorry about that - and yes, the rest of the feedback is useful, too. I hope to be able to do more in the next few weeks (carefully). And yes, I would say there are several areas that could come out - especially sections concerning alleged things that didn't actually happen - rumours denied etc. Do you know the specific WP guidelines that point to what does and does not count as trivia? You are not alone! Spanglej (talk) 13:55, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Do not apologize; there's nothing to be sorry about! We're all learning here, and as an editor, I've depended upon the mentorship and tutelage of other more experienced editors to point stuff out to me. The cool thing about WP is that there's always new stuff to learn--from the articles we edit and about WP guidelines and policies. Another cool thing is that this project has a guideline for pretty much everything. The guideline about trivia, for example, which you can find here: WP:TRIVIA. I've just re-read that guideline, which states that if the information's "unnecessary", it should be removed. That's gives us a great amount of latitude. I've always thought that the "Clothes" hoax information was unnecessary, so I'm going to be bold and remove it. That brings up a question for me, though: what about the TMZ/Twitter rumor about Dr. Angelou that just happened last month? I was the one who added it. Personally, I think it's important enough to keep because it says a lot about Angelou at this stage in her long life, and it says a lot about new media and how it's affected even her. Let's discuss, please. --Christine (talk) 12:32, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the guideline links. I support your removal edits. I also support taking out anything that refers to events, rumours, ideas about Angelou that people thought were true but were disproved - such as the TMZ rumour. The net is alive with such imaginary reporting. My feeling is that the article's tone has clarity and concision: to me it's clear why most pieces of information are mentioned. The article is also quite long (a 'watch out' box appears when editing, flagging up the length). So I'd say let's keep the info relevant, scholarly and respectful.

To this end I suggest taking out these paras from Later career

• In 1993, she made approximately 80 speaking appearances.[33] When speaking, she tended to sit on a stool and would entertain the audience for approximately one hour, reciting poems by memory and following a flexible outline.[34] Her most common speaking engagements would occur on college campuses; the events tended to be sold out far in advance.[35] In 1997, over 2,000 tickets were sold when she spoke at the Woman's Foundation in San Francisco. By the early 2000s, Angelou traveled to her speaking engagements and book tour stops by tour bus. She "gave up flying, unless it is really vital ... not because she was afraid, but because she was fed up with the hassle of celebrity".[21] In 2008, she charged approximately US$43,000 per engagement.[36] In 2002, Angelou lent her name and writings to a line of products from the Hallmark Greeting Card Company.[37] Also in 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Maya Angelou on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.[38]

• Also in 2006, singer Nancy Wilson set Angelou's poem "My Life Has Turned to Blue" to music in the title track of her CD, "Turned to Blue".[41]

• In 1998, Angelou went on her first cruise, a gift of her friend Winfrey, in celebration of her 70th birthday. Over 150 people were in attendance.[28] In April 2008, Angelou had three parties to celebrate her 80th birthday. A "pricey soiree" that included a red carpet and "a guest list of celebrities" was held in Atlanta, Georgia to benefit a YMCA youth center named after her. There was also a city-wide event celebrated by Winston-Salem, North Carolina,[43] and Winfrey hosted "an extravagant 80th birthday celebration" at Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. She was serenaded by Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole, Jessye Norman, and Ashford & Simpson.[34] While attending a Unity Church service in Miami, Florida in 2005, Angelou decided to "go into a kind of religious school and study" during her 80th year.[44]

• In early October 2009, the gossip website TMZ and the social networking site Twitter reported that Angelou was taken to a hospital in Los Angeles. The report turned out to be false; Angelou was due to attend a event there, but instead had remained at her home in St. Louis.[53]

The references to 1993, 1997, 2002 etc only hold for those years and doesn't seem generalisable beyond that. Angelou may have charged $43 000 for one engagement in 2008 but she is also speaks for free - and everything in between - so again this piece of information does not seem specific, useful or relevant. These pieces seem like a trivia list of celebrity gossip and so not well placed in an encyclopaedic entry about an important contemporary writer and poet. So I vote for a cut. Spanglej (talk) 00:31, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I think you've made some really good points. Tell ya what, I'll go ahead and delete as you suggest. I did some research, for models of bio articles of important contemporary authors/poets that have been promoted to FA, and to my surprise, I found that there are none. In other words, there are no, zilch, zero FAs of important contemporary writers. The FAs of authors/poets are all of dead people (not all of them are white and male, though). Isn't that terribly interesting? It just goes to show how important getting this bio to FA is, and when it passes (after a heck of a lot of work), it will be the only FA bio of a living poet/author.

There are, however, plenty of bio of living persons in other artistic fields, like acting or music, so I did a cursory review of them, and it's true that they avoid the kind of trivia that's in this one. Each of the above examples, however, point to another pattern in Angelou's life. Each point is important for that reason. For example, the birthday parties are important because it's the same kind of notoriety and acclaim she's enjoyed ever since the publication of Caged Bird. It also speaks to the fact that she didn't celebrate her birthday for decades after the assassination of MLK, Jr., which occurred on her birthday. We could probably summarize that idea, or place it in a note. By the same token, the poetry information also fits into the "informality" of her poetry, and according to the Hagen book (my newest source), how many of her poetry are song lyrics. That was something I was unaware of before reading Hagen; I'm not as familiar with MA's poetry, and it shows. BTW, another editor suggested that we do research about MA's poetry to flesh out that part of this article. (You may notice that I've been slowly adding content from Hagen to this and other MA articles.) --Christine (talk) 23:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. That is fascinating indeed. Not a single live a poet! The closest I could find is J K Rowling (who is, arguably, a very influential, if not a very great writer) and Yeats (what a love child they would have, eh?) Both have FAs - One is a poet and one is alive, which is a start. For Rowling, there is a whack of celebrity gossip, rumours and, what I would call trivia, in there - so it might be a good starting point. I have to say, I'm not dead set on striving for FA status - more, to lift the article to a good representation of an important writer, but hey.

I don't at all suggest that the patterns in her parties, song lyrics, friendship with Oprah etc is trivial - but that mentioning them should be pointing to something substantive and of a piece. Absolutely - as you say - summarise the ideas or place in notes etc (though being careful with "original research" presentations). I think that even taking out the trivia, as we have for now, and copy editing, lifts the article. I'm surrounded by biographies of Keats at the mo as his article is in a terrible state. Poets -alive or dead - are not doing well on Wikip. As I'm in London, UK, not sure how easy it would be to find biogs or poetry analyses of MA. But will try Spanglej (talk) 23:38, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't think of Rowling; it also makes me think that it may be a good idea to change the structure of this article. I will consider it. FAship, for me, is important, since it's a valuable (but difficult and sometimes heart-wrenching, I realize) process and will definitely improve this article. That's way in the future, though, but there's nothing stopping us from improving it in the meantime. Let me know how I can help with Keats, even though I know very little about him. Poets (and most writers) may not do well on WP, but there are those are trying to improve the situation. I'm kinda on the outskirts of those folks (a cabal, oh no!), but they've been really helpful with the MA articles. Folks like User:Awadewit, User:Scartol, and User:Moni3. I live in a small town in Idaho (although it's a university town), but most of the resources I've used (all listed in the References section) I've purchased. Most books about MA you can get real cheap through Amazon, anyway. Most of us who have edited lit articles have seemed to do that. I've spent a small fortune, but it's worth it. Anyway, I'm gonna go ahead and archive this talk page now; that will give us a nice start to further improve this bio. --Christine (talk) 12:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)