 brilliant audio presents the unabridged recording of Maya Angelou a glorious celebration by Marsha and Gillespie Rosa Johnson Butler and Richard A long with forward by Oprah Winfrey performed by Dionne Graham from Marsha and Gillespie for my late parents Ethel and Charles Gillespie who loved me up and urged me on from Rosa Johnson Butler to God I'm thankful for my life to mother I'm thankful to God for you and your love for me to my loving Auntie Maya thank you for always being in my corner and for telling me years ago God loves you and wants the best for you from Richard Long for MJ Hewitt it is good to have an end to journey towards but it is the journey that matters in the end Ursula Kay Le Guin forward in all the days of my life I never met a woman who was more completely herself than Maya Angelou she fully inhabits and owns every space of herself with no pretense and no false modesty she has a certain way of being in this world when you walk into a room and she's there you know it she is fully aware of what it means to be human and share that humanity with others being around her makes you want to do the same be more fully your own self she's been teaching me about being myself since I was a young girl and first read I know why the caged bird sings at the time 1969 I couldn't believe a young woman's story with so many similarities to my own had merited a book being raised in the South by a grandmother learning to love poetry raped at seven growing up speaking in the church all mirrored my own tenuous and tumultuous upbringing reading about her life gave value to my own the fact that she had not merely survived but triumphed allowed me to see the possibility of my own victory over adversity and so the lessons began for me long before I met her I see now the absolute divine order that brought us together I was a young reporter in Baltimore having admired her from afar memorizing and then reciting her poetry to anyone who would listen when she came to town I convinced my station manager that I had to be the one to interviewer this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet the woman I most admired who'd been a mentor to me without even sample complete ready to continue