This is a great book for kids to read! It has a lot of information about the great poet Maya Angelou. You learn a lot about all the great things she has done in her life and all her tradegies.

This is a lavishly illustrated collection of poetry aimed at African American young adults. The Amazon age range seems to be a bit low (4-8)- I would suggest 10 and up. As Tom Feelings states: "too many teenagers are growing up in an environment where indifference and hostility are bullets aimed straight at the core of their spirits. One way to project our positive hopes for the future is for young people to see their own beauty reflected in our eyes, through our work. And so this book is for our precious young African sisters and brothers, who are our today and our tomorrow." All of the artwork is by Tom Feelings, and the poets featured are: Maya Angelou, Lucille Clifton, Alexis De Veaux, Mari Evans, Darryl Holmes, Langston Hughes, Rashidah Ismaili, Haki R. Madhubuti, Walter Dean Myers, Mwatabu Okantah, Eugene B. Redmond, Askia M. Toure and Margaret Walker. There are also brief biographies of each of the poets. This is a beautifully illustrated poetry book. The poetry stresses the beauty and power of African Americans, and it is well reflected in the illustrations. This book would be excellent to use in a poetry study, or as part of a study of black history. The short length of this book, along with the excellent illustrations, make it a great choice to use as an introduction to poetry.

This is my favorite of the books I've read in which Maya Angelou sits around contemplating life, though it's perhaps not the most representative of her work. For the moment she sets aside her intellectual self, her history, her issues -- anything by which you might identify her as anything but a fellow member of the human race. In this book you're left with the essential Maya -- the wise woman with the great heart and the steady mind who speaks out from timeless space. It's an easy read, and life feels better when you're done. And if you're at the end left in doubt whether she's also a world-wise and savvy intellect, then anything else she has written will put your doubts to rest.
I love Maya Angelou.

More than wit, Angelou writes with warm good humor about events of the years it took her to get where she is. One doesn't have to adopt for oneself all her life conclusions to appreciate how she came to them. While all human beings are equal, some are more equal than others, as Orwell would say, and Maya Angelou's talent is definitely in the class of more equal. Major complaint: There just wasn't enough of it.

This is a very well written and thought provoking collection of life lessons. The book has no plot because there is no one story that can explain all of the things that Angelou learned about and formed opinios on. Angelou's writing is very poetic and flowing, yet at the same time meaningful and thought provoking. Each short chapter tells the reader about one message to think about or lesson to learn. Some are told as events in Maya's life and others are little stories that tell of important issues such as sexism, charity, or choices. In this book racism was not noticibly a factor in the majority of the writing, however, there are some chapters about racism in Angelou's life. The book mainly focuses on her life as a strong, bold, woman coming across difficult situations that challenge her morals. Angelou was able to fit all of the lessons she learned about in one lifetime into a short book to share with the world.

This is the second in Maya Angelou's series of books about her life. It is as beautifully written as the first volume, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and covers her life from the ages of sixteen to nineteen. For many of us, these years would not make for fascinating reading, but for Ms. Angelou these were years of searching and experimenting in a time when opportunities were plentiful, but usually contained hidden costs. Much of the book is about how Ms. Angelou belatedly discovered the hidden agendas of those she came to love. Indeed, hardly anything turned out the way she planned. Ms. Angelou is completely honest about her life, her naivety, her ambitions, and especially her feelings. She successfully evokes all the feelings and dreams of a young woman who is trying to make it as an adult. This is a powerful book in which the author invites you into her innermost world, and lets you share her excitement, disappointment, fear, elation, hardship, mistakes, and desires. Ms. Angelou experienced much more during these years than most of us would dream of: She worked as a cook, waitress, dancer, prostitute, clothing seller, restaurant manager and Madam. In between jobs she retreated to life with family. All of her experiences are described in vivid detail yet so straightforwardly that the book is actually quite short (181 pages). I highly recommend this book, as well as the first volume of Ms. Angelou's autobiography

This beautifully descriptive story takes place some time before the 1940's. It talks about the stuggles that blacks were facing, before the time that civil rights groups were starting to develop. As an Afican American, the story she depicts makes me proud of my race and the world as the HUMAN race. Maya Angelou is an exceptional author and to write about her own life experiences enriches the story and enlightens the reader of our past. I stongly urge anyone, no matter what race you are, to read this book.

Too often when I have read someone's memoirs or an autobiography I have had the suspicion that the author is painting a very self-serving portrait of the events in their lives. Reading Maya's memoirs is the exception. She didn't have to tell the world that she worked for awhile as a 'pimp', as a prostitute, or as an exotic dancer. Many people wouldn't have for fear of personal embarrasment. Maya is beyond that. She owns her life and shows us her successes, her mistakes, and never tries to make excuses or blame others. Maya knows that everyone has their dark moments and when we take ourselves too seriously and only show the world our successes we rob everyone of valuable lessons. I found this book to be one of the best I have ever read. Congratulations Maya on a job well done.

Maya Angelou is by far one of the most gifted women of the world. She brings all the elements of being human to the surface. As the founder of the Phenomenal Women Of The Web®, it was Maya Angelou - the words and feelings she invoked in me - that lead me to create the organization. I have sold hundreds of copies of this book on my site - along with the audio tapes. To hear Maya speak the words of the poem "Phenomenal Woman," is to truly feel your spirit come alive. I highly recommend this book to any person with a heart.

Working in a library gives me a chance to read some of my favorite authors. Maya Angelou is one of my favorites and
she truly is PHENOMENAL!! I like this particular book because
it contains all of her poems including "Phenomenal Women." I live and work in a suburb of Chicago Illinois so I have had a
chance to hear her read this particular poem on Oprah Winfrey's
program. I would urge anyone to buy a copy of this book and enjoy the writing of a very wonderful and phenomenal woman,Dr.Maya Angelou.If you like honest down to earth poetry then The Complete
Collected Poems of Maya Angelou is just the book you're looking
for.

Review of Maya Angelou's : The Complete Collection of Poems by Maya Angelou.

This is a "got-to-have" for anyone interested in the poetic genius of the famous Poet. The book gives you a chance to look back in her early writings and see how she moves you as she advanced in her skills. I rather enjoyed the book because it inspires me to write my own poetry. I have given very nice books of poetry as Christmas gifts to people I know she could awaken their desires to succeed. This particular reference has all the best of Maya and you can feel the poems affect you daily. I have given this book a 5 star rating because it's so enjoyable.

It's been 15+ years since I've read anything by Maya Angelou and that was "I know why the caged bird sings." "Singin' and "Swingin'" let's you meet the young adult(21+)Maya. What a fascinating read! Maya has helped me understand better her, my mother's and aunt's generation. Thank you.

In "Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas" I found myself completely rooting for Maya and again was drawn into her memoirs completely. I've read all 5 volumes. I still cannot say that I have a favorite but I must say that this certainly important reading. If you've never read anything by Maya Angelou this is as good a place to start as any.

A very pleasant read. There's nothing like traveling Europe and Africa by way of Angelou's memory and experience (if you can't get there personally). This autobiography covers the time Maya spent with the Porgy and Bess opera. I'm always amazed at the elegant, graceful and poetic way the author tells her life story. I'm even more amazed at how those same characteristics are exhibited in her speech, her stature, and her aura. This is a quick read that is sure to inspire. Angelou has a way of sharing wisdom and experience in a manner that connects with most any reader. Add this one to your list and be sure to check out some of her audiotapes as well. The only thing better than reading Maya's work, is listening to Maya read her work.

The deep and compelling thoughts of life and how to endear every emotion, experience, and disappointment that comes with growing older day by day, were wonderfully displayed in Maya Angelou's Even the Stars Look Lonesome. This book was an intelligent continuation of her best selling book Wouldn't Take Anything from my Journey Now. Taking life one day at a time, and learning from each experience is what this book is all about. The recreating of each memorable happening from love and intimacy to rage and violence, not discounting her remarkable outlook on age, fame, and perhaps the most impotent, the comfort and security you find in a home and a family. The experiences would relate more to elder women looking for advice and insight on common life issues.
In this novel, Maya Angelou has combined a wonderful collection of life experiences that have formed and made her the person she is today. Each chapter reflects an important stepping-stone of her life. The book consists of twenty chapters that are mumbled together and yet stayed in order of the way they took place.
The plot is always changing each chapter is like a different book. Towards the beginning of the novel, love and divorce where the experience of choice and she soon moves in to her times in Africa, and how challenging it is to be an African American Women earning her well deserved respect. Maya Angelou's novel also voices her opinion on age, denial, and anger to an older age group of African American women, using emotionally over powering stories. The chapters are short and moderately easy to get through, if you're good at combing facts and clues to complete the final picture.
Coming to a conclusion of the eye opening novel Even the Star Look Lonesome we feel as though the experiences displayed in this book would better relate to women between the ages of 20 and 80. The reason for that relation is due to the fact not many people have experienced the things talked about until theses ages have been reached. Also the group felt the book was directed towards African Americans and the troubles that race encounters.

maya angelou's even the stars look lonesome is an outburst to the african american society. it gives so much hope. her words express a lyrical emotion. her usage of intelligent voice structure titilates the mind.

When Maya Angelou was a young woman -- "in the crisp days of my youth," she says -- she carried with her a secret conviction that she wouldn't live past the age of 28. Raped by her mother's boyfriend at 8 and a mother herself since she graduated from high school, she supported herself and her son, Guy, through a series of careers and buoyed by an implacable ambition to escape what might have been a half-lived, ground-down life of poverty and despair. "For it is hateful to be young, bright, ambitious and poor," Angelou observes. "The added insult is to be aware of one's poverty." In "Even the Stars Look Lonesome," a collection of reflective autobiographical essays, Angelou gives no further explanation for her "profound belief" that she would die young.

"I was thirty-six before I realized that I had lived years beyond my deadline and needed to revise my thinking about an early death," she recalls. "With that realization life waxed sweeter. Old acquaintances became friendships, and new clever acquaintances showed themselves more interesting. Old loves burdened with memories of disappointments and betrayals packed up and left town, leaving no forwarding address, and new loves came calling."

Angelou, looking at tailights of her 20's, is the nearest thing America has to a sacred institution, a high priestess of culture and love in the tradition of such distaff luminaries (all of them, hitherto, white) as Isadora Duncan and Pearl S. Buck, with a bit of Eleanor Roosevelt and Aimée Semple MacPherson thrown into the mix.

"She was born poor and powerless in a land where/power is money and money is adored," the poet Angelou writes in tribute to another astonishing black woman of our time, Oprah Winfrey. "Born black in a land where might is white/and white is adored./Born female in a land where decisions are masculine/and masculinity controls." Angelou's lifelong effort to escape and expose the "national, racial and historical hallucinations" that have burdened black women in America and replace them with a shining exemplar of power, achievement and generosity of spirit is as miraculous as she says it is, even if one suspects that in "real life" Angelou must be a little hard to take.

"I would have my ears filled with the world's music," she writes, "the grunts of hewers of wood, the cackle of old folks sitting in the last sunlight and the whir of busy bees in the early morning ... All sounds of life and living, death and dying are welcome to my ears." At times Angelou seems more like a blast from Olympus than a woman of flesh and blood.

Reading these essays, I found myself longing somewhat guiltily for evidence of smallness on her part, of pettiness, even -- some sign that even an icon as monumental as she is might occasionally allow herself an irritated moment, a lapse into cynicism, or humor that wasn't so resolutely seasoned and wise.

On the other hand, smallness isn't what Maya Angelou stands for. Ordinary is not what she does. Only a cynic, a smaller mind than Angelou's, could fail to welcome the gifts she offers.

"All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes" is an effective continuation of Maya Angelou's monumental, multi-volume autobiographical narrative. This installment begins in the early 1960s, with Maya and her son living in Africa. As a whole, this book is a fascinating meditation on the ties and disjunctions that exist between African-Americans and black Africans.

Maya reminisces about working for the University of Ghana, seeking employment as a journalist at the "Ghanaian Times," and beginning to pick up the Fanti language of Ghana. Particularly fascinating are her memories of the death of W.E.B. DuBois, the visit of Malcolm X to Africa, and her visit to Germany to perform in a production of Jean Genet's play "The Blacks." Angelou's book is both the vibrant record of an extraordinary woman, and an important portrait of Africa at a key era in its modern history.

With great detail, Maya Angelou describes the journeys of her life with her son. She shares her emotions with such strong words you feel like you are right there with her as she is telling her tale. From sorrow, to pity, to happiness, and all the way back through again, Maya Angelou tells a story of hope and dignity...how she survived life with a little faith in god and in family.
I recommend this to book to anyone who is in need of a little hope or needs to get in touch with their inner self. This book is touching and uplifting. Give it a try, I know you'll love it as much as me, if not more!

Thank you, Maya, for being there! I remember when I first saw Maya Angelou on some TV show - probably Oprah. I thought she was just too uppity for her own good - so full of herself. Then I read her books and found out why she acted that way: because she's FABULOUS and she KNOWS IT! This book in particular is so enlightening, so amusing, so full of surprising "takes" on the African scene. I whipped through it. Then I was hungry for every other book, including Ms. Angelou's poetry, and I just took it all in. As a writer she has inspired me to tell my own stories, freely, without inhibition, all the way. As a woman she has given me that extra little "oomph" of self esteem I didn't get from my own mother and the "feminine mystique" women who were my role models growing up. Ms. Angelou has worked at every kind of job, and she has valued herself in each and every one of them. She has never been "less" of a woman or a creative genius because she was doing this thing or that. They say that Georgia O'Keefe was the "mother of all contemporary women artists" I say that Maya Angelou is the "mother of all contemporary women poets and writers." Phenomenal woman.

I thought this book was excellent. It's a great poem for inspiration, as it is a reminder that we all have courage. Maya repeats the line, "Life doesn't frighten me at all", getting her message across. This is a wonderful story for children, as well as adults.

This is a wonderful book, both beautifully written and powerfully illustrated. I am a 3rd grade teacher, but I love this book mainly as a unique graduation gift for previous students of mine who are graduating from high school and remember me with graduation announcements. I love the combination of a gift that is both a primary book from their teacher, coupled with the larger message of the poem for the recipient who is soon embarking upon confronting life on his or her own! A very special and meaningful gift!

As an avid reader of Maya Angelou's works, I purchased this book as a gift for my 7 year old daughter, hoping to impart to her a fondness for my favorite author as well.

I must say, that beyond my expectations, I have helped to create a Maya fan. My daughter immediately took to the book, on Christmas Day, no less, amid hundreds of dollars worth of toys. We read the book about a dozen times in the first two days. She still reads it daily, and even took it to school to share with her class.

Maya's poem picks up on the fear and anxiety causing incidents of youth, and allows the child to tromp his/her fear into the ground. After reading it, my daughter felt fearless, realizing that she was the master of her emotion and was not at the mercy of 'scary things'.

I highly recommend this book, either for a child, or as a lover of art and poetry. Additionally, a tremendous collectible title for the future.

Maya Angelou has set an example to all women. Reading this book is like listening to the richness of Maya's voice. It is full of wonder and yet struggle and survival of a woman so strong and yet volunerable but full of strength. Maya leads us by the hand through her world with a grace and style that only she can do. I loved this book and is one that I will share with it with all my women friends and family. It should be a "must" for reading by all women

"The Heart of a Woman" tells of a courageous woman, Maya Angelou, who maintains a career as a dancer while raising a rebellious teenage son. She also identifies with the struggle and hardships of dealing with relationships. Her encounters with famous people such as Billie Holiday, Malcom X, and Dr. Martin Luther King, reflects strength in her writing and her passion for life. This book will inspire everyone to be successful in their everyday living. This great book will also bring out "The Heart of a Woman" in everyone.

This book was so wonderful that I ran out and bought all of Maya Angelou's novels. And the heart of a woman is still my favorite one. I am a young white female who hasn't experienced near what the author has, but she made me feel like I had. I could totally relate and it was hard to put the book down.