On November 1, people from the city of Pittsburgh ushered themselves into the aisles of the Carnegie Music Hall to see the internationally renowned poet Dr. Maya Angelou. Angelou, best known for her book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, delivered a lecture sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh's Program Council. 

Beyond writing best-selling books of both poetry and prose, Angelou has been nominated for many awards such as the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for her book Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie and a National Book Award for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In 1977, she was nominated for an Emmy for her role in the T.V. mini-series Roots and in 1993 won her first Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album. Various presidents have also honored her, including Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and in particular Bill Clinton, who chose her as his inaugural poet, the second in history. Angelou has also written several children's books such as Life Doesn't Frighten Me, My Friendly Chicken and Me, and Kofi and His Magic, which is the first in a series.

The sold out crowd leapt to its feet upon sight of Angelou. She came onto the stage singing an old African-American spiritual.

"When it looked like the sun wouldn't shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the clouds," she sang, using that verse as the theme of her lecture. Through personal stories, jokes, and poetry, Angelou spoke of finding the positive side of situations where all hope seems lost, the rainbow in the clouds. 

With a smile and a joyous tone, Angelou began with several amusing stories. She explained that she hasn't set foot in an airport in seven years in an attempt to avoid recognition."I've become… somewhat famous," Angelou joked. Ever since then, she has been traveling by bus from her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. While the trip provides some privacy, she stated, it is still a very long time to be on a bus.

"So when I say I'm glad to be here, I mean it," she said.

Another story dealt with the fact that Angelou does not trust people who don't laugh. "[People say] 'I'm serious.' I think, 'Boring yes, but I don't know about serious,'" she said. She told the tale of a waitress at a health food restaurant that yelled at her for smoking; the waitress seemed to think smoking was a crime in a vegetarian restaurant. Angelou attempted to diffuse the situation with humor, but, try as she might, she could not make her laugh about the situation.  Instead of filing a complaint against the vegetarian establishment, she wrote a poem about the joys of meat. This poem became an anthem for the United States Meat Industry for years after.

Angelou advised the audience to ask their librarians to help them find good African-American poetry, explaining that it has "romance." She read some of her own poetry, included the famous "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," as well as some of her favorite poetry. Angelou is a fan of William Shakespeare and Paul Laurence Dunbar. To show an example of the "romance" in African-American poetry, she read Dunbar's "Little Brown Baby," which features a black man kidding around with his son.

After the anecdotes, Angelou returned to her original theme of finding the positive side of things. She told a brief story of her childhood and how it affected her. At the age of three, her parents divorced and she and her brother moved in with her grandmother and crippled Uncle Willie in Stamps, Arkansas. At the age of seven, she moved to St. Louis with her mother, where she was raped by her mother's boyfriend. Days later, after confessing this to the authorities, the boyfriend was found dead; young Angelou refused to speak, feeling her words were fatal. She returned to Arkansas, where her grandmother and uncle took care of her until she chose to start talking again.

Out of all her stories, the one that projected the "rainbow in the cloud" theme the most was about her Uncle Willie's funeral. When Angelou returned to take care of affairs after her uncle passed away, she was given a police escort by the mayor, a man who cited Willie as an inspiration. "He made me love to learn," the mayor had said to Angelou, showing that this crippled man was his rainbow in the clouds.

Angelou ended her lecture with a reading of "A Brave and Startling Truth," the poem that she wrote for the 50 anniversary of the United Nations. Captivated until the end, the audience listened as Angelou read words about the immense power that humanity can have if it so chooses to use it. In the end, this poem and her lecture delivered her message loud and clear.

"I want you to see me," she said, "see yourselves, as rainbows in the clouds."

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