MAYA ANGELOU is a poet, writer, performer, teacher, and director. In addition to her bestselling autobiographies, beginning with "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," she has also written five poetry collections, including "I Shall Not Be Moved" and "Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?," as well as the celebrated poem "On the Pulse of Morning," which she read at the inauguration of President William Jefferson Clinton, and "A Brave and Startling Truth," written at the request of the United Nations and read at its fiftieth anniversary. She lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.