Piece Description

The mother is a poet, the son is a poet. She raised him in San Francisco, New York, later, in Egypt, Africa, Paris. She earned her way cooking creole food in a San Francisco restaurant. She found her way raising her son to learn courage, poetry, and manners. She learned how to prepare "my black boy to be raised in a white society." The mother is the renowned poet and memoirist, Dr. Maya Angelou. The son is Guy Johnson, poet and novelist. She travels to the Bay Area from time to time to visit her son and grandchildren. In this program, we hear Guy talk about his writing, his motivation, the energy of his poetry, and the deep emotion of being a parent. Then, his mother comes on stage and she talks about the conditions of raising him as a mother of 17, her own relationships with her mother and her mother's slave antecedents. You can't learn poetry unless you have courage; you must love yourself to find your way, to be somebody; her son Guy made her who she is. It's a joyful, funny, moving and inspiring story of parental and filial love, a memoir of America in a certain time; the influence of a mother on a child; and the importance of knowing how to cook red rice.