Hello, it's Lauren Laverne and this is Desert Island Discs Postcard,
a selection of some of our most memorable moments from some of the thousands of people we've cast away to our imaginary Desert Island.
Today's cast away is the great American writer Maya Angelou.
Back in 1987,
Michael Parkinson was the presenter of Desert Island Discs and he had the honor of hearing Maya Angelou's choice of records.
She told him about the disturbing, shocking reason she became temporarily mute during her childhood,
which in turn led on to her love of poetry.
Some listeners, though, may find this very upsetting.
When I was seven and a half, I was raped by my mother's boyfriend.
And the rapist was killed.
The policeman told my grandmother my mother's mother with whom I was staying that The man had been kicked to death they thought and I heard that and Somehow with my seven and a half year old logic I decided that my voice had killed him that
because I told who did it,
that my voice was the culprit.
And so I decided that I'd better not talk
because anybody whose name I called or who heard me might die.
So I stopped.
And how long did that last?
About five years.
And what rescued you from that silence?
Poetry.