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To great fanfare, the U.S. Postal Service unveiled a new limited edition “Forever” stamp to honor the late poet, author, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou on Tuesday. Luminaries such as First Lady Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and others attended the unveiling ceremony.

Problem is, the stamp apparently features a quote from another author and poet.

Joan Walsh Anglund, 89, a children’s book author, says the quote featured on the stamp, “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song,” actually belongs to her, according to the The Washington Post.

Via the The Washington Post:

“Yes, that’s my quote,” Anglund said Monday night from her Connecticut home. It appears on page 15 of her book of poems “A Cup of Sun,” published in 1967. Only the pronouns and punctuation are changed, from “he” in Anglund’s original to “it” on the stamp.

Mark Saunders, a Postal Service spokesman, said he had never heard of the Anglund quote until the Post informed him of it, releasing a statement saying “numerous references” have attributed the quote to Angelou.

“The Postal Service used her widely recognized quote to help build an immediate connection between her image and her 1969 nationally recognized autobiography, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,’” the statement said.

But Saunders changed his tune late-Monday. “Had we known about this issue beforehand, we would have used one of [Angelou’s] many other works. . . . The sentence held great meaning for her and she is publicly identified with its popularity,” he wrote in an email to the Post.

Looks like somebody is in trouble.

SOURCE: The Washington Post | VIDEO: NDN

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So This Happened: Maya Angelou “Forever” Stamp Features Quote From Another Author  was originally published on newsone.com