Words as Wings

How Storytelling Saved Me.

Photo by mk. s on Unsplash

Whenever someone asks me about the origins of my love for reading, I always start with Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The first time I read it, I was in elementary school and far too young for such a book. Most of what I know to be profound now went over my head then, but I remember being struck by the way Maya told her story. I was able to pick up on the sadness of her life’s experiences - her parents’ abandonment, the poverty she was raised in, and the racism of the South that shaped her - but I was more moved by who she became and how she viewed those experiences. The beautiful words she used, and the way they unfolded, revealing some ugly things, fascinated me.

And I fell in love with words.

Later, I returned to her autobiography in high school, and was again floored by this formidable woman with a sad and ugly past, admired by every Black woman I admired. The way she twisted and turned words to speak of herself with such honesty I’d never encountered before, made me want more. Before Maya, I didn’t know any Black writers. Always an avid reader, the books in my school did not reflect me or anyone like me. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was my first introduction to Black authors and stories that reflected my experiences, and I couldn’t get enough. Since then, I have made it my duty to explore as many Black authors and their written works as possible.

I credit Ms. Angelou with so much. We know her today as a woman of great strength, honesty, and grace. She was an advocate for the Black community, having worked alongside Dr. King in the Civil Rights Movement, and other prolific writers such as James Baldwin. If you haven’t read her autobiographical works, you wouldn’t know she was a teenage mother, a sex worker, and a pimp all in one lifetime. She was a victim, a survivor, a teacher, a mother to all, a singer, a dancer, and endlessly funny.

What never ceases to amaze me when I read her work is the love and grace she holds for herself at every stage of her life - the little girl who was s*xually assaulted by a family friend, the unpopular student, the teenage mother, the diner cook, the naive lover, the poor singer, and so on. Never does she write, “I should have done this or that” or “I should have known better”. Her words never reek of shame or disgust. And that has taught me so much.

To me, storytelling is the way we get free. It is how we free ourselves of our own burdens and shames, and holds a mirror up for others to see themselves and know that they are not alone. When I read that Maya had stopped speaking for several years after the assault she experienced, I saw myself. I hadn’t stopped speaking altogether as she did, but I did lose my voice. She inspires me because once she rediscovered hers, she used it to uplift generations everywhere. Storytelling is liberation for the self and community. Storytelling showed me that the pen, the typewriter, the keyboard can set free what has been caged.

"Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!