Maya Angelou, an American author and poet who documented her life in seven autobiographies and recited her poem "On the Pulse of the Morning" at President Bill Clinton's first inauguration, has died at the age of 86.

Angelou's publicist told CNN that the famously renowed poet died at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C. Mayor Allen Jones told WGHP-TV that Angelou was found by her caretaker on Wednesday morning.

The news comes day after Angelou had to canceled a planned appearance at the MLB Beacon Awards Luncheon in Houston, where she was set to be honored on May 30. The MLB cited "health reasons" for her absence, and in April Angelou canceled an event in Arkansas because she was recovering from an "unexpected ailment."

Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St Louis and was raised in Stamps, Ark., and San Francisco, moving back and forth between her parents and her grandmother. She was smart and fresh to the point of danger, packed off by her family to California after sassing a white store clerk in Arkansas. At the age of 7, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend and didn't speak for years. She learned by reading, and listening.

Becoming one of the first black women to enjoy success as an author. The young single mother who performed at strip clubs to earn a living later wrote and recited the most popular presidential inaugural poem in history. The childhood victim of rap wrote a million-selling memoir, befriended Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and performed on stages around the world.

An actress, singer and dancer in the 1950s an 1960s, she broke through as an author in 1970 with "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," which become standard reading, and was the first of a multipart autobiography that continued through the decades. In 1993, she was a sensation reading her cautiously hopeful "On the Pulse of the Morning" at former President Bill Clinton's first inauguration. Her confident performance openly delighted Clinton and made her poem a best-seller. For former President George W. Bush, she read another poem, "Amazing Peace," at the 2005 Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the White House.

She remained close enough to the Clintons' that in 2008, she supported Hilary Clinton's candidacy over the ultimately successful run of the country's first black president, Barack Obama.

At the age of 9, she was writing poetry and by the age of 17, she was a single mother. In her early 20s, she danced at a strip club, run a brothel, and was married and then divorced. By her mid-20s, she was performing at the Purple Onion in San Francisco, where she shared billing with another future star, Phyllis Diller.

After renaming herself Maya Angelou for the stage, she toured in "Porgy and Bess" and Jean Genet's "The Blacks" and danced with Alvin Ailey. She worked as a coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Council, and lived for years in Egypt and Ghana, where she met Malcolm X and remained close to him until his assassination in 1965. Three years later, she was helping King organize the Poor People's March in Memphis, Tenn., where civil rights leader was slain on Angelou's 40th birthday.

"Every year, on that day, Coretta and I would send each other flowers," Angelou said King's window, Coretta Scott King, who died in 2006.

President Obama presented Angelou with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. She also won three Grammy Awards for 'Best Spoken Word' album. Her first came in 1993 for "On the Pulse of the Morning."  She won again two years later of her poem "Phenomenal Woman." In 2002 the Recording Academy honored her with a third Grammy, for the audio book of "A Song Flung Up to Heaven."

In recent years, Angelou become on Twitter. Her final tweet to her followers was published on Sunday, May 23. And it says this.

Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.

Maya Angelou (@DrMayaAngelou) May 23, 2014