Maya Angelou Reads Her Poem, “The Human Family,” in New iPhone Ad Released for the Olympics’ Opening Ceremony

It’s always demor­al­iz­ing when a favorite song—Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” or the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sug­ar” come to mind—is co-opt­ed to sell soda or Caribbean cruis­es.

Poet­ry, how­ev­er? I’m not ungrate­ful to have some smug­gled into my day by a com­mer­cial car­ri­er whose agen­da is some­how less sus­pect. Would that we lived in a world where the poet­ry of Ted Hugh­es or Emi­ly Dick­in­son might be seen as hav­ing the pow­er to sell view­ers on a par­tic­u­lar brand of piz­za or auto­mo­bile.

It almost seems we do, giv­en the response to “The Human Fam­i­ly,” a new Apple spot show­cas­ing the iPhone’s cam­era capa­bil­i­ties with a slideshow of por­traits sub­mit­ted by users the world round. The images—already captivating—are made more so by the unmis­take­able voice of the late Maya Angelou, whose poem, “The Human Fam­i­ly,” sup­plies both title and inspi­ra­tion.

It’s very stir­ring, as befits an ad debut­ing dur­ing the Olympics’ open­ing cer­e­mo­ny. (I weep that the Super Bowl failed to make the Dr. Angelou com­mer­cial par­o­dies of yore a real­i­ty.)

The one-minute spot shaves a bit off the poem, but per­haps it is okay to leave a bit behind as a reward for view­ers moved to look it up on their own.

The com­plete text is here. Below, find a non-Apple-spon­sored video that match­es the same nar­ra­tion to a slideshow fea­tur­ing the author at var­i­ous stages of life. The read­ing will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

via Adweek

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch a Music Video & Hear Tracks From Maya Angelou’s Posthu­mous Hip-Hop Album, Caged Bird Songs

Maya Angelou Reads “Still I Rise” and “On the Pulse of the Morn­ing”

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her lat­est script, Fawn­book, is avail­able in a dig­i­tal edi­tion from Indie The­ater Now.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.