Phenomenal Woman

Phenomenal Woman is a phenomenal poem that speaks to us of where we are as women at the dawn of a new century. In a clear voice, Maya Angelou vividly reminds us of our towering strength and beauty. Here is a poem that radiates wisdom and conviction, renewing our belief in the glory and tender mercies of our gender.

Married to the extraordinary paintings Paul Gauguin, this book becomes a visionary commemoration of all that is wondrous in women. Gauguin painted women with exuberance and joy, reveling in their strength and beauty. His portraits are of women of color, women of power, women who gaze out at the viewer with the same quiet resolve and inner mystery that Angelou celebrates in her poem.

Though Gauguin died twenty-five years before Angelou was born and these two artists lived very different lives in very different cultures, their work coalesces perfectly in this one glorious volume.

Here is the ultimate gift for the phenomenal woman in your life--wife, lover, relative, teacher, friend. There's hardly a woman alive today who will not relate to the words of the poet Maya Angelou and the images of painter Paul Gauguin.

Maya Angelou (b. 1928), poet, writer, performer, teacher, and director, is the author of the bestselling autobiographies I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (nominated for a National Book Award), Gather Together in My Name, and The Heart of a Woman, as well as five collections of poetry.

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), the French Post-impressionist painter, abandoned his family and his career as a stockbroker to paint in Tahiti and other exotic locations. According to some art scholars, modern art began with Paul Gauguin. Today his work is in the permanent collections of museums all over the world.