She’s Pure Poetry in Motion

NEW YORK —  Don’t call her “doctor,” but do please call her “Miss Calypso”! The poet Maya Angelou revealed at the premiere of her stunning movie, “Down in the Delta,” which she directed, that she doesn’t like to be referred to as “doctor,” though she is one officially--more than 30 times over, in fact, thanks to honorary doctorates. “I don’t do any house calls,” she said with a laugh.

But Angelou also confessed that back in her salad days, she used to perform folk and jazz on the Sunset Strip with a bass player, pianist and a conga man: “I sang the blues, calypso and folk. I even had an album called ‘Miss Calypso,’ which was reissued recently. I love music!” Before anybody could recover from the mental image of the dignified Maya Angelou bopping down L.A.’s seedy Strip, she gazed across the Laura Belle nightclub and announced, “I love to see young girls and young boys dancing. It’s very exciting!”

And with that she sailed into the middle of the crowd and boogied like you wouldn’t believe.

The response to “Down in the Delta” has been more than encouraging. Now Angelou has the moviemaking bug and might even direct James Baldwin’s “Amen’s Corner” for Showtime and Miramax. She says she is a great believer in not fixing what isn’t broke, so she’d want to work again with Alfre Woodard and Wesley Snipes. Angelou mourned the death of another of her stars, Esther Rolle, whose performance she calls “gorgeous . . . one scene of hers is worth the price of the whole ticket.”