I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of

the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time to be more fully present.

Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right

now.

My Angelo has been a writer, dancer, singer, artist, professor, director, and activist.

She's traveled the world, speaks seven languages, and is one of the world's greatest poets.

But to me, she's my mother's sister friend, as I call her. The woman I've looked to for

strength and inspiration for more than 35 years now. My Angelo was born in St. Louis in

1928. By the time she was seven, she'd already suffered her life-changing event. She was raped

by her mother's boyfriend. Maya told her family what had happened, and when the man was later

found murdered, she believed in her seven-year-old mind that it was all her fault.

Convents that her words had the power to kill, young Maya didn't speak another word for

several years, retreating into a private world, populated with books in poetry. In fact,

it was poetry that helped her find her voice again, as she learned from one of her teachers

that great poetry must be spoken. And speak she did, Maya grew into a confident and accomplished

force of nature. As an adult, she became a fierce civil rights activist working closely

with both Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Her seminal autobiography, I know why

the Caj bird sings, published to international acclaim, was named by Time magazine to be one

of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time. And she just finished her latest piece of

work and inspiration, sharing some of the deepest personal stories of her life in mom and

me and mom. She's given motherly advice to millions and is certainly, as I've said,

many times, like a mother to me.

...