Saturday, September 29, 2007 | by nathan

Of Bees and Poet Laureates

Springtime in Winston-Salem is really glorious; I fell in love with the Piedmont Triad in April. The smell of tobacco is thick in the spring; you wade through it as you walk. The magnolias would bloom on campus and the flowering trees around the Quad would shake in every gentle breeze, showering you with petals. Also, there were gigantic bees, killer bees the size of dinner rolls, with stingers like machetes, and they were mean-spirited; they’d chase you.

One of the reasons my life has gone the direction it has is that, when I was 12 years old, my cousin Robert gave me a book of poetry; "Here," he said, presenting it to me like I was an adult just like him, "I think you’ll like this woman." It was Maya Angelou. My decision to attend college where I did was influenced in no small part by the fact that she was a professor at Wake Forest. In the spring of my junior year I was lucky enough to get to take her class, titled World Poetry in Dramatic Performance.

It was kind of everything you’d think; she’s intimidating, but she puts you at ease quickly. She has a way of being in a room - in the world - that makes you want to be polite, and well-spoken, to think before you speak, and think well. The class was only 3 and a half weeks long, but in a lot of ways it changed my outlook. It made me see the importance of good manners and of laughing at oneself. I’ll always be deeply grateful for the experience.

One day, my friend Brianna and I were walking to Dr. Angelou’s class, and as we approached the Fine Arts Center where the class was held, Dr. Angelou’s car pulled up. Her personal assistant, who we’d met and come to like, got out and opened the door for the professor, and the two of them began schlepping these big bags toward the building. Brianna and I walked up and said, "Professor, may we help you carry your things?" Trying to be all nice, you know.

Dr. Angelou and her assistant handed us the bags with a thanks, and the four of us began walking toward the building. As we approached the door, a large bee flew directly into the professor’s face, and she swatted it away a few times before it finally left her alone. We all kind of stood there, frozen, for a moment, and then Maya Angelou said, in that unforgettable voice, very softly:

"That bee came to me and said, ‘I want to become one with you.’"