Maya Angelou is so easy in her dispensation of wisdom, she’s like a “Dial-an-Oracle” “Asked about the popularization of her poetry, she has a quick answer to any suggestion of criticism. ‘A friend of mine responded negatively when I told him that I was going to write greeting cards for Hallmark. He said, ‘Oh, I hope not. You are the people’s poet in this country and you don’t want to trivialize that.’ But I thought about that. ‘What am I doing? What am I talking about?’ I asked myself. If I can say something on a card that can reach somebody’s heart and mind, let me try. And I found that that is almost the most difficult writing that I have done. It might take me three pages of prose to write an epigram that is two or three sentences’.”