In the dining room of her elegantly restored Harlem town house, beneath painted clouds on a light blue ceiling, Maya Angelou is asked how it feels to be turning 80. "Exciting!" she says with a broad smile, then adds: "The body knows. The bones don't let you forget." The woman who defies a simple label -Angelou has been a memoirist, poet, civil rights activist, actress, director, professor, singer and dancer - is getting an early birthday gift.

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Now, she adds, "I'm not a writer who teaches. I'm a teacher who writes. But I had to work at Wake Forest to know that." She describes the joy she finds in a classroom: "I see all those little faces and big eyes. Black and white. They look like sparrows in the nest. They look up, with their mouths wide open, and I try to drop in everything I know." She has no plans to retire. She teaches one course each semester at Wake Forest. (Currently it's World Poetry and Drama Performance.) She composed a poem for the Summer Olympics, is working on a collection of essays, and hosts a weekly satellite radio show on the Oprah & Friends channel.

She writes on yellow legal pads and says that even after all these years, a clean sheet of paper scares and thrills her: "I see a yellow pad, and my knees get weak, and I salivate. I know that sounds like coyness, but I have less coyness than modesty, and I have none of that." She laughs.