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Who really said it

Poetry is music written for the human voice

Not Maya Angelou — actually Bertha Flowers Bertha Flowers Educator in Stamps, Arkansas · Maya Angelou’s childhood mentor
Disputed In copyright

Angelou really did say these words — on camera, in the episode “A Portrait of Maya Angelou” of Bill Moyers’ PBS series Creativity, broadcast 8 January 1982 — but she said them as a quotation of Mrs. Bertha Flowers, the Stamps, Arkansas woman who coaxed her out of years of silence. Quote Investigator ↗ concludes the line should be credited to Flowers, with Angelou as the person who popularized it.

Last verified 27 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Poetry is music written for the human voice” Bertha Flowers, quoted by Maya Angelou on Bill Moyers' PBS series "Creativity," broadcast 8 January 1982. Widely credited to Angelou herself; she credited Flowers. Source: quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Maya Angelou. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Bill Moyers and the Creativity series (1982 broadcast and transcript); Chicago Tribune and The Charlotte Observer for their published interview texts). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Bertha Flowers — Maya Angelou's childhood mentor. Theme: "Poetry is music written for the human voice". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Poetry is music written for the human voice". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the line actually comes from

Said by
Bertha Flowers, quoted by Maya Angelou
Program
Creativity: A Portrait of Maya Angelou
Broadcast
PBS, 8 January 1982
Earliest citations
Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, both 8 January 1982 (located by Quote Investigator)

So, she read to me and then she told me that poetry was music written for the human voice. She must have told me that 50 times. PBS transcript · 8 January 1982

Maya Angelou, describing Mrs. Flowers in the Creativity episode transcript published by BillMoyers.com. The transcript renders the saying as reported speech; the same-day Chicago Tribune review of the broadcast, quoted by Quote Investigator ↗, printed it as a direct quotation in the familiar present-tense form.

Broadcast transcript
Read the 1982 Creativity transcript at BillMoyers.com
Quote Investigator: Poetry Is Music Written for the Human Voice

The paper trail

  • 1969 — I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings introduces Mrs. Bertha Flowers and her teaching that it takes the human voice to infuse words with deeper meaning, but not this aphorism, per Quote Investigator’s check against scans of chapter 15 ↗.
  • 8 January 1982 — the Creativity episode “A Portrait of Maya Angelou” airs on PBS; the transcript at BillMoyers.com ↗ has Angelou saying Mrs. Flowers told her poetry was music written for the human voice, fifty times over. Reviews in the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times that same day both reprint the remark, crediting Flowers.
  • 11 December 1983 — Angelou repeats the saying in a Charlotte Observer interview, adding that until you read it aloud you will never love it; the interview was reprinted in Conversations with Maya Angelou ↗ (University Press of Mississippi, 1989), spreading it further.
  • 2001 — Random House Webster’s Quotationary files it correctly, under MRS. FLOWERS, quoted by Maya Angelou — as Quote Investigator ↗ records. The quote sites that followed dropped Flowers entirely.
In copyright

Every documented appearance of this line is 1982 or later: the PBS Creativity broadcast and transcript of 8 January 1982, the newspaper reviews published that same day, and the 11 December 1983 Charlotte Observer interview reprinted in Conversations with Maya Angelou (University Press of Mississippi, 1989). Those works are in copyright, and no pre-1931 printing of the sentence is known, so nothing here is public domain.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

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Fact-check

How Angelou ended up owning it

This is one of the most reliably mis-credited things Maya Angelou ever said out loud — precisely because she really did say it, on national television, just never as her own.

Maya Angelou Wrong attribution

Quote mills print the sentence under Angelou’s name with Bertha Flowers nowhere in sight. AZQuotes ↗ credits Angelou and sources it to a 1989 PBS program, The Power of the Word — not the Creativity broadcast of January 1982 that Quote Investigator ↗ documents.

A looser paraphrase Mis-worded

A longer variant beginning “Poetry is music for the human voice…” — dropping written and continuing into a second sentence about a poem not coming into its own until it is spoken — circulates on Goodreads ↗ under Angelou’s name with no source named, on a page that carries Goodreads’ own warning that community-added quotes are unverified.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Wrong source

It is natural to look for the aphorism in Angelou’s 1969 memoir, where Mrs. Flowers appears at length. It is not there. Quote Investigator ↗, checking chapter 15 against scans, finds a related but different remark from Flowers — that it takes the human voice to infuse words with the shades of deeper meaning — and an instruction to memorize a poem and recite it.

Angelou said the words on camera and in print, and in every documented instance she handed the credit away rather than taking it — “she must have told me that 50 times.” Quote Investigator ↗ credits Bertha Flowers.

Context

Why this one matters

Angelou stopped speaking at seven and a half. She had been raped in St. Louis, the man who did it was killed after she named him, and she concluded that her voice had killed him — so she put it away. The woman who gave it back was Mrs. Flowers, whom Angelou called the lady of Stamps: she invited the silent child to her house, read A Tale of Two Cities aloud to her, told her that poetry was music written for the human voice, and asked her to go home and say a poem out loud. Angelou practised under her grandmother’s high bed. In the Moyers transcript ↗ she puts the result in one line: “Mrs. Flowers gave me back my voice.”

That is why the sentence is a poetics rather than a platitude. It claims a poem is unfinished until somebody speaks it — the principle Angelou then built a career on, writing verse meant to be heard rather than scanned. Wikipedia’s survey of her poetry ↗ records that she wrote poems so that they would be read aloud, and that critics find them most alive in her own delivery.

Mrs. Flowers gave me back my voice.

Two loose ends: her name, and a date that doesn’t match

The name. Angelou’s memoir and every quotation source call her Mrs. Bertha Flowers. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas ↗ entry for the Stamps educator who mentored the young Angelou — who read and discussed classical literature with her, and whom Angelou credited with helping her reclaim her voice and self-confidence — is filed under Beulah Lee Sampson Flowers (1883–1965), an educator, community leader, political activist and businesswoman.

The date. Random House Webster’s Quotationary (2001) files the line under MRS. FLOWERS, quoted by Maya Angelou, and cites a Bill Moyers interview in the Creativity television series dated 24 February 1992 — as transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗. The episode transcript published by BillMoyers.com ↗ is dated 8 January 1982, the same date as the two newspaper reviews Quote Investigator cites.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Creativity

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: Poetry Is Music Written for the Human Voicequoteinvestigator.com

The definitive investigation: Angelou popularized the line but attributed it to Bertha Flowers, with citations from 1969, 1982, 1983, 1989 and 2001.
Creativity: A Portrait of Maya Angelou (transcript)billmoyers.com

Bill Moyers’ own site hosts the 8 January 1982 episode transcript, in which Angelou says Mrs. Flowers told her poetry was music written for the human voice.
Beulah Lee Sampson Flowers (1883–1965)encyclopediaofarkansas.net

Encyclopedia of Arkansas entry on the Stamps educator and community leader who mentored the young Maya Angelou.
Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989)archive.org

The University Press of Mississippi collection that reprints the 11 December 1983 Charlotte Observer interview in which Angelou repeats the saying.
Maya Angelou on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote’s sourced list plus a Misattributed section for Angelou — this line appears in neither.
Poetry of Maya Angelouen.wikipedia.org

Background on Angelou writing poems to be read aloud and on critics who find her verse strongest in performance.

The real source

Who was Mrs. Flowers?

Bertha Flowers

Educator in Stamps, Arkansas · Maya Angelou’s childhood mentor

In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) Angelou introduces her as Mrs. Bertha Flowers, “the aristocrat of Black Stamps” — the well-to-do neighbour who invited a mute eight-year-old to her cool, shaded house, fed her tea cookies, read A Tale of Two Cities aloud to her and sent her home with poems to memorize and recite. Flowers’ teaching was that words are incomplete on the page: it takes the human voice to give them their deeper meaning. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas documents the Stamps educator who mentored the young Angelou — reading and discussing classical literature with her, and credited by Angelou with helping her reclaim her voice — under the name Beulah Lee Sampson Flowers (1883–1965).

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Quote Investigator

Maya Angelou, quoting Bertha Flowers, in “A Portrait of Maya Angelou,” Creativity with Bill Moyers, PBS, broadcast January 8, 1982; transcript published at BillMoyers.com. Earliest citations located by Quote Investigator: Marilynn Preston, “Moyers’ ‘Creativity’ is a rare gift,” Chicago Tribune, January 8, 1982, sec. 3, p. 12; and Howard Rosenberg, “TV Wears a Halo of Angelou,” Los Angeles Times, January 8, 1982, sec. VI, p. 13.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Poetry is music written for the human voice’?” Last verified 27 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/poetry-is-music-written-for-the-human-voice/

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