The 500-plus images in this book were culled from thousands produced over four decades. “Eighty” of these, which enter the eye via a near-38-year “brothering-sistering” relationship between Maya Angelou and Eugene B. Redmond, debuted in April, 2008, as an exhibit at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach (FL) during Maya’s 80th Birthday Celebration.

Arranged “see”-matically rather than chronologically, these images—“moods”—include Maya’s 48th birthday in Sonoma (CA), 1976, and Thanksgiving in Winston-Salem (NC), 2007. The panorama of “moods” covers various habitations in the “Soular System” from galas (sponsored by Oprah) to special dinners, ad hoc soirees, on-the-road performances, awards ceremonies, and a [Toni Morrison] “Nobel Party” with “Noble Friends.”

Settings range from the West Coast to the East Coast. The remaining 400-plus images compliment Maya’s “eighty moods” through single-page collages of a memorial for Reginald Lockett; Alexandria, Louisiana’s Arna Bontemps Museum and Kwanzaa celebration; “Nigeria in Words & Images”; “Paris 1992”; and “Gallery(s) of Writers . . . Bluesicians . . . Filmmakers & Photographers.”

And, finally, the East Coast (“jazz n pizza, beans n salsa”) for “writers rites,” funeral rites (Max Roach’s, St. Clair Bourne’s, Sekou Sundiata’s) and Book Fair-based “Miami’s Asili Nights.” A sampling of images in the "panorama" includes: Chinua Achebe, Carol Adams, Opal Palmer Adisa, Margaret Walker Alexander, Debbie Allen, Molefi Asante, Nick Ashford, Toni Cade/Bambara, Fontella Bass, Phoebe Beasley, Ruth Beckford, Julie Belafonte, Lerone Bennett Jr., Georgene Bess, Odessa Bethea, Hamieet Bluiet, The Bosman Twins, Avery Brooks, Gwendolyn Brooks, Cecil Brown, James Brown, Ed Bullins, Charles Burnett, Khephra Burns, Margaret Burroughs, Stokley Carmichael, Michael Castro, Marie A. Celestin, John Henrik Clarke, William Lacy Clay, Pearl Cleage, Jerry Costello, Jayne Cortez, David Covin, Roscoe Crenshaw, Julie Dash . . .

Michael Datcher, Nia Damali, Kamau Daaood, Angela Davis, Justin Desmangles, Grace Douglas, Rita Dove, Loretta Dumas, Mari Evans, George Faison, Eddie Fisher, Roberta Flack, Joanne Gabbin, William Gass, Haile Gerima, Nikki Giovanni, Danny Glover, Brenda Greene, Russell Gunn, Herbie Hancock, Joy Harjo, Isaac Hayes, Eugene Haynes Jr., Roy Haynes, Dorothy Height, David Henderson, Nona Hendryx, Gil Scott-Heron, The Hudlin Brothers, Angela Jackson, Clyde C. Jordan, Pam Kay, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, John Oliver Killens, B.B. King, Coretta Scott King, Walter Knicks, Yusef Komunyakaa, Patti Labelle, Oliver Lake, Aseneth Lakes, Eddie Levert, Richard A. Long, Charlois Lumpkin, K.Curtis Lyle, Haki R. Madhubuti, devorah major, Joseph McNair, Tony Medina, Jose Montoya, Toni Morrison, Harryette Mullen, Dahveed Nelson, Elizabeth Nunez, Barbara O, Odetta, Tess Onwueme, Brenda Marie Osbey, Ike Paggett, Gordon Parks, Raymond Patterson, Reginald & Edna Patterson, Kevin Powell, Robert Earl Price . . .

Remi Raji, Ishmael Reed, Sam Rios, Cleo Parker Robinson, Danny Romero, Darlene Roy, Kalamu ya Salaam, Sonia Sanchez, Otis Scott, Wayne Shorter, Hortense Simmons, Valerie Simpson, Amritjit Singh, Wole Soyinka, Donald Suggs, Clyde Taylor, Susan Taylor, Barbara Ann Teer, Clark Terry, Leticia Del Toro, Eleanor Traylor, Quincy Troupe, Vaughn Vandegrift, Derek Walcott, Jerry Ward, Olga Wayne, Lena Weathers, Richard Wesley, Treasure Williams, Bebe Winans, Oprah Winfrey,  Ellen Wright,  JuliaWright, Al Young and others.

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