On Tuesday, the USPS unveiled a limited-edition stamp intended to honor the late poet Maya Angelou, featuring her beaming smile and a choice quotation to fill the frame. \u201cA bird doesn\u2019t sing because it has an answer,\u201d reads the stamp, \u201cit sings because it has a song.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The only problem? That\u2019s not a Maya Angelou quote. That particular birdie quote was by someone named\u00a0Joan Walsh Anglund. It was the 70\u2019s. We were all<\/em> talking about birds, pretty much all the time. That, and our hair.<\/p>\nHere\u2019s the response from the USPS:<\/p>\n
\u201cHad we known about this issue beforehand, we would have used one of [Angelou\u2019s] many other works. \u2026 The sentence held great meaning for her and she is publicly identified with its popularity.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In other words: Meh. Sounds pretty Maya Angelou-ish to me. \u00a0I guess it\u2019s a problem, but . . . meh.<\/p>\n
And that there is pretty much all you need to know about the poetry of Maya Angelou, the most meh-worthy poet ever to say miscellaneous things about birds and whatnot.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
photo of May Angelou or somebody By Adria Richards [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maya Angelou \u00a0has been dead long enough. As someone who still owes money on my student loan for my BA in literature with a concentration in lyrical poetry, I declare it fine to make fun of her now. Here we go: On Tuesday, the USPS unveiled a limited-edition stamp intended to honor the late poet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1533,"featured_media":16054,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1071,1072,130],"class_list":["post-16053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-maya-angelou","tag-meh","tag-poetry"],"yoast_head":"\n
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