Read her poem “On the Pulse of the Morning: The Inaugural Poem” (1992) at President Bill Clinton's inauguration. I Would Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993) chronicles his journey from obscurity to fame as an artist and civil rights activist. . . Additionally, she has directed films and plays, composed music, and worked as a writer-in-residence and lecturer at several universities. She worked in a variety of occupations in what she describes as “a rollercoaster life.” In his early twenties he toured Europe and Africa in the musical Porgy and Bess. In New York she joined the Harlem Writers Guild and continued to earn a living singing in nightclubs (as Maya Angelou - Maya from a childhood nickname, and Angelou from her husband's Greek surname) and performing in Jean Genet's The Blacks. His multi-volume autobiography, in 1993 he published a collection of personal reflections, I Would Take Nothing for My Trip Now, and in the same year he read his poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Clinton's inauguration. He continued to write short stories A Song Flung up to Heaven (2002). She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2000 and the Lincoln Medal in 2008. Her Letter to My Daughter, which is part memoir and part guide to life, was published in 2008. (Marguerite