Lecture draws rave reviews

Last night at Irvine Auditorium, writer, poet and performer Maya Angelou preached to a crowd of over 1,200 about the necessity of laughter.

"You need to know that you are the best there is," she said. "You need to know that, and you need to laugh. Laugh!"

And so they did.

"I think that's what was most memorable -- her sense of humor," College senior Aaliyah Richmond said, adding that she was impressed with Angelou's ability to connect so well with the young college crowd and to add a touch of humor to all her stories.

Angelou's appeal was striking, considering the generation gap between her and her audience. The writer and poet will celebrate her 74th birthday next Thursday.

Students had nothing but praise for Angelou's humorous and awe-inspiring speech. The soothing tone of her voice had her audience hypnotized from the first standing ovation to the last.

"I've only heard her speak a couple of times on T.V., but the real thing doesn't compare," Wharton junior Ann Chiang said. "There's such music in her voice when she talks. That was what struck me most."

Throughout the course of her speech, Angelou passed many life lessons along to the students and other members of the Penn community in attendance.

"When it looked like the sun wasn't going to shine anymore, you became my rainbow in the clouds," Angelou sang several times.

"Each one of you can become a rainbow in the clouds," she said. "At the worst of times, there's a possibility of seeing hope."

Angelou shared a personal story of her own as proof that there is always the hope of happiness, even in the hardest times of one's life. She recalled being raped when she was seven years old by her mother's boyfriend. She stopped speaking altogether for a significant period of time following the incident. But it was her blossoming love of writing and poetry that gave her the will to begin speaking again.

"Poetry meant the Earth to me," she said. "It meant everything, so I packed my brain with it."

And both Angelou's story and message resonated with students in the audience.

I like "the idea of having no chips on your shoulder no matter what happened to you in the past," fine arts graduate student Carolyn Mulvihill said.

Many said they believed that Angelou's message is particularly relevant in this country in the months following the devastating events of Sept. 11.

"I think that's a good message for the entire University with all the tragedy that this country has come under," Richmond said.

One Penn employee, who wished to remain anonymous, saw Angelou speak for the fifth time last night, and in all the speeches she's heard, she believes that one particular theme has been stressed time after time.

"The message is always the same -- you are bought and paid for," she said. "I think she added something tonight about getting yourself a mentor. It doesn't have to be your own parent, but get somebody, have somebody to be with you, to help you."

Others appreciated Angelou's advice to her audience members to seek out their local librarians and inquire about 19th and 20th century black poetry.

"She did encourage a lot of the University students to read more African-American poetry," Richmond said. "That was her message today. Before you graduate from this university, make sure you've read Dunbar, Baldwin" and the work of other black poets.

"It's not about reading Dunbar because he's a black poet," added the Penn employee. "It's about reading what he talks about."

As a black student, College senior Kristal Hall said that Angelou's speech touched her on a more personal level.

"I think that she represents the strong black woman," Hall said. "I look at her and I'm proud to be a black woman also. She's the epitome of the black woman."

But others saw her as much more than just the model of a strong black woman.

"I don't see her as a strong black woman only -- I see her as a woman of the world," the Penn employee said. "She speaks all these languages, she can go anywhere, she feels comfortable anywhere. I don't like this [assumption] that just because she's black, she's a strong black woman.... She knows who she is, she took time to find herself, knows herself so innately that she can express herself to you, which is what a lot of people don't have time to do."

The only part of the evening that was a disappointment to students was the length of Angelou's speech -- it clocked in at just over one hour.

"I wish it could have gone on longer," College junior Jenny Hwang said. "I heard her talking about having spoken for three hours [at another institution] and I [thought], you're only here for an hour for us?"

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