Maya Angelou's 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings' (1969) broke new ground by blending the structure of a novel with the truth of an autobiography. It was the first of seven autobiographies that chronicled her journey from a traumatic childhood in the segregated South to becoming a world-renowned poet and activist. Angelou was a true polymath; she was a professional dancer, a singer, a journalist in Egypt and Ghana, and a coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under Martin Luther King Jr. In 1993, she became the first female and first Black poet to recite a poem at a presidential inauguration (Bill Clinton’s). Her work is celebrated for its musicality, its unflinching honesty about trauma, and its ultimate message of hope and resilience.