( CNN ) -- I never had the chance to meet Maya Angelou . But she has been in my life all along . In some of my darkest moments , her prose was a lit candle . When I felt alone , her words were my company . The times when I saw the glass ceiling hovering over my career , suffocating my joy , turning my hard-fought acceptance of my truth into a self-loathing cage from which I saw no escape , Maya Angelou came to me and said she knew why I sing . As much as she is known as a great defender of women 's rights and lyrical curator of the black experience , I found so many of her words transcended the plight of any one particular group . She was so adept at linking us all through the human condition . I know I 'll never be as good a writer as she was . But it 's because of the effect her gift continues to have on me that I continue to try . I never had the chance to meet Maya Angelou . But her poem `` Phenomenal Woman '' found me . Hiding . Scared . Frozen in my seat decades ago when a well-meaning English teacher asked me to read a few stanzas out loud . A teenage boy is not supposed to say such things . A closeted teenage boy may be found out . Filled with anxiety , I abruptly refused and after a look , the teacher moved on , picking another student . Food , friends and freedom : Nikki Giovanni remembers Maya Angelou . But Maya Angelou stayed right there with me . `` Phenomenal Woman '' stayed right there with me . The images of the words resting in the recesses of my mind , until saying `` I 'm a woman / Phenomenally . / Phenomenal woman , / That 's me '' no longer threatened to define or paralyze me . Instead , when I finally had the courage , I found her words liberated me from the arbitrary rules of gender normality and my own internalized homophobia . I do n't think I 've ever shared that story with anyone before . Even as I was writing that passage , I was acutely aware that some readers will mock me for this disclosure . And it 's because of Dr. Angelou that I smile at this prospect . `` You have no idea who you will inform because all of us are caged birds , have been and will be again , '' she said in 1998 at a fundraiser for the Human Rights Campaign . `` Caged by somebody else 's ignorance . Caged because of someone else 's small-mindedness . Caged because of someone else 's fear , hate and sometimes , caged by our own lack of courage . '' Maya Angelou remembered by those she inspired . An article in USA Today , written about her 80th birthday , touched on her rape at 7 by her mother 's boyfriend . He was later murdered by her uncles . She stopped talking to anyone but her brothers for five years because she felt responsible for his death . She told the newspaper what her grandmother said about her silence : `` 'Sister ' -- she called me sister -- 'Momma do n't care what other people say about you . Momma knows when you and the Lord are ready , you goin ' to be a teacher . ' '' The financial despair of newspapers , the decline of the neighborhood bookstore , the drop in book sales all suggest that the written word has lost its value . While it is true that electronic media have changed the vessel , that should never be mistaken for a decline in the value of the cargo it carries . Whether it be on a page of a magazine , a handwritten note or an e-mail , the power of the written word is still an inescapable force that can wound or heal . Deceive or reveal . Disregard or save . Maya Angelou : Some of her most powerful speeches . Consider the last thing Maya Angelou wrote : `` Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God '' -- a tweet that is every bit as clear as any line found from her 1971 collection , `` Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Die . '' I never had the chance to meet Maya Angelou . But when I needed encouragement , she came to me . In poems and in the songs of her album `` Miss Calypso . '' She came to me through the familiar smell of aged paper that erupts from a book that has n't been opened in quite a long time . She came to me when I met a subtle , homophobic slight at the office with a smile and knowing look that said , `` You may write me down in history / With your bitter , twisted lies , / You may trod me in the very dirt / But still , like dust , I 'll rise . '' I never had the chance to meet Maya Angelou . Not in this life anyway . But her words have always been a constant companion to me and I pray they will remain so until the day our two souls meet . And on that day I will say to her with tears in my eyes , `` Hello , dear friend . '' Opinion : Maya Angelou : The definition of a phenomenal woman .
LZ Granderson found inspiration in his darkest moments from Maya Angelou 's writings . Granderson : " I was a young black man who had been through the worst of it and came out on top. Her last written words : `` Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God ''