I began writing poetry in elementary school when my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Mesa, invited a white male poet to talk to our class. He insisted we learn to use a thesaurus, which aided me in writing my first poem, “Ants.” It won a first-place blue ribbon at the Miami-Dade County Youth Fair and Exhibition.
Four years later, as an eighth grader still writing poetry, my mother took me to my first lecture by a renowned poet. Maya Angelou was speaking at a library in Pompano Beach that was being named after her.
I had become acquainted with Angelou a year before, watching on television as she delivered her “On the Pulse of Morning” poem at Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration. I was enamored by her large stature. Her command of language. Her intellectual dexterity. Her “good morning” at her poem’s end seemed to awaken me, and I wanted to be like her.