Oprah: "What's Wrong with You, Bird? Stop Singing, Dammit!"

Oprah Winfrey is an ardent admirer of Maya Angelou's work so she, of course, hosted some celebrations for the author's 80th birthday over the weekend.

Page Six reports that she had a caged parrot as decor in reference to Angelou's classic book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Uh...

I'm just surprised that Oprah could be that devout toward Angelou and somehow manage to, like, miss the whole effing point of one of her most famous books.

Also, Page Six referred to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as a poem and, uh, does anyone know what the hell they're talking about at all?

Comments

[DianaCLT]

Umm, does Oprah know that parrots don't sing?

[Suzy Q]

Both Oprah and Maya Angelou make me nauseous.

[b]

I'll take Maya, but you can have Oprah.

[BaltimoreGal]

WOW. Not so swift sometimes, huh?
Sadly, every time I see or think of Maya Angelou, I think of the killer impression David Allan Grier did of her when he hosted SNL.
Reading them is almost is funny!
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/96/96kangelou1.phtml
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/96/96kangelou2.phtml
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/96/96kangelou3.phtml

[emily]

let me go all english teacher on your asses for a second... (finally... something to make me feel smart, since my high school students don't) "i know why the caged bird sings" is maya angelou's first autobiography and the title was based on a poem called "sympathy" by paul lawrence dunbar, in which the first line is "i know why the caged bird sings, alas." i'm teaching the book right now and we started off with the poem.

she did write a poem called "i know why the caged bird sings" but it's not as well known as a lot of her other work and i believe the book was written first but i'm not sure...

[kdiddy]

emily: was aware of the dunbar poem and it being the inspiration for the title, but was not aware that angelou wrote "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" as a poem, so big ups to you. unfortunately, I don't think Page Six is that astute.