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 Angela 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. 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.

Maya Angela 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.

Convinced 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 and 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 Cage 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. Well, we've known each other for so long now. I actually do feel like your daughter. You are my daughter. I am your daughter. Yes, ma'am. Yes. And you are my mother? Yes, I am. You are my sister. Yes, I am. And have been a friend.

And all that.

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