PoetryPreviews

Maya Angelou (1928- ) was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis. She was reared in segregated rural Arkansas. Angelou wears many hats: poet, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, and director. Her lectures carry her throughout the U.S. and abroad. She has been a Reynolds professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina since 1981, and has published ten best selling books and numerous articles for which she has been awarded Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominations. Read more »

Archie Randolph Ammons (A.R. Ammons) was born outside Whiteville, North Carolina, in 1926, and began writing poetry while serving aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer escort in the South Pacific. Read more »