Imagine this: it’s the early 1990’s, the day of Bill Clinton’s inauguration speech. A poet was invited to write and read the first inaugural poem. It went like this: “Here, on the pulse of this new day, / You may have the grace to look up and out / And into your sister 's eyes, and into / Your brother 's face, your country /And say simply / Very simply / With hope—Good morning.” This is Maya Angelou’s poem titled “On the Pulse of Morning”, just one of many of her works that were influenced by her life. In this moment it was influenced by the loss of one of her great friends, Martin Luther King Jr. Throughout her life, she faced many things, ranging from her early life to her adult years with her travels and friendships. Maya Angelou’s works were deeply inspired by what happened to her throughout her life, ranging from her early life to when she was in Africa and even when she returned back to America. A work of Maya Angelou was deeply influenced by her early life due to what happened at this time of her life. When she was seven she went to Chicago, Illinois to visit her mother since she lived with her brother at her paternal grandmother’s house. While visiting her mother in this time, her mother’s boyfriend raped her. Too afraid to tell anyone, Maya Angelou told her brother and in result her brother told their uncles. Their uncles killed her mother’s boyfriend out of rage, and this made Maya Angelou mute for five years until she met someone very important; Mrs. Flowers.