I am looking for a poem by Maya Angelou called "Masks".  Can you find it for me?

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Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 17 Jul 2002 19:36 PDT

Hi irig,

I think that I have the answer, but I haven’t confirmed it.  Also,
pinkfreud may have a prior claim to the answer.

In any event, perhaps you can confirm whether the answer is correct. 
If it is, I would be happy to allow pinkfreud to post the answer,
since pinkfreud found the poem first.

My proposed answer is based on deduction.  Maya Angelou derived the
title of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" from the poem "Sympathy" by
Paul Laurence Dunbar.  Maya Angelou also has done public performances
of Dunbar 's poems.  And Dunbar's most famous poem is "We Wear The
Mask," which in its original text (almost identical to the version
posted by pinkfreud) is reprinted at
http://www.libraries.wright.edu/dunbar/majors1.html#majors67 .

What do you think?

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Clarification of Question by irig-ga on 19 Jul 2002 06:46 PDT

Years ago on a Bill Moyers PBS interview with Maya Angelou she recited
a poem which had to do with the "masks we all wear".  I assumed it was
one she had written.  I have referenced the PBS Bill Moyers site and
could not find that interview with my limited skills.  And the two
poems you have found do not ring a bell with my memory.  Hope you can
keep looking.  Thanks.

I cannot find a poem named "Masks" by Maya Angelou.

However, there is a poem by that name written by the African American
poet Sonia Sanchez. Here is an excerpt:

...Entering the temple 
On this day of Sundays 
I hear the word spoken 
By the unhurried speaker 
Who speaks of unveiled eyes
O bring the chalk mask
... 
O bring the mask 
Full of drying blood. 
Fee, fie, fo, fum, I smell the blood 
Of an Englishman 
O my people 
Wear the white masks 
For they speak without speaking 
And hear words of forgetfulness 
O my people... 

The full text of Sanchez's "Masks" (which is still under copyright,
and cannot legally be reproduced here) appears in a textbook,
"Anthology of American Literature, Volume II: Realism to the Present."

http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/1,4096,0130838152.html,00.html#toc

Another possibility is this famous poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar:

We Wear the Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes -
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

Since the poem does not appear in my copy of "Complete Collected Poems
of Maya Angelou," I doubt that more searching will do any good, in the
absence of further information.

However, on the upside, I may have located the video in which Bill
Moyers interviews Dr. Angelou:

http://socialstudies.com/c/@UJdH4_HoWyLaI/Pages/product.html?record@TF17283+af@ep

This was an episode of a PBS series called "Creativity with Bill
Moyers." Many libraries have the entire series, so it should not be
difficult to find.

I believe it is indeed the poem by Paul Dunbar that you are looking
for (as listed earlier by pinkfreud-ga). Dunbar had an influence on
Angelou, who used the first line from one of his lesser-known poems,
Sympathy, as the title of her autobiography (He's written another poem
by the same name too...)

References used from more respectable sources:
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1978/2/78.02.01.x.html
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1985/3/85.03.03.x.html
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw219.html
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw202.html

Again, this is the poem (if you've missed the one pinkfreud sent...):

We Wear the Mask


    WE wear the mask that grins and lies, 
    It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— 
    This debt we pay to human guile; 
    With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, 
    And mouth with myriad subtleties. 

    Why should the world be over-wise, 
    In counting all our tears and sighs? 
    Nay, let them only see us, while 
            We wear the mask. 

    We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries 
    To thee from tortured souls arise. 
    We sing, but oh the clay is vile 
    Beneath our feet, and long the mile; 
    But let the world dream otherwise, 
            We wear the mask


http://www.potw.org/archive/potw202.html