Still I Rise - Maya Angelou

 STILL I RISE - MAYA ANGELOU

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        “Still I Rise” is a poem by the American poet Maya Angelou (1928–2014). This poem is a protest song that is both defiant and happy. It is about the power of the human spirit to overcome discrimination and hardship, and it shows how Angelou has felt as a black American woman.

Angelou begins with a pointed and direct reference to ‘you’. She starts each of the stanzas with a question, pointing the finger at everyone who has hurt Black people. She starts her poem with a clever play on words:

"You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies”

 Maya Angelou says that though people may try to put her down, she will rise and not be beaten. In the second stanza, Angelou asks a direct question. Is it upsetting that she is sexual, that she is sure of herself, and that she thinks she is attractive? She walks with confidence, as if she were as rich as an oil baron. In the third stanza she says that she will keep rising, just like the sun and moon do every day and night, and just like our hopes for a better future keep going even when things are hard.

 Mays says that many people want to see her spirit broken. But in the fifth stanza, she shows her "haughtiness" by keeping her head up instead of lowering it in loss or submission. She laughs with the confidence and self-assurance of someone with gold mines in their backyard who is rich beyond their wildest dreams.

 Angelou shows her boldness in the sixth stanza. She says that cruel words, hatefulness, can be thrown at her but she will rise like air, naturally and lightly. In the seventh stanza, she continues to question the society. She knows the answer to these questions, but she asks only to convict the offender. She reveals her incredible self-confidence despite the oppression.

 In the eighth stanza, Maya refers to the past. She calls slavery as “history’s shame. She proclaims that she will not be held down by the past. In the last stanza, the speaker reveals that she intends to leave all the effects of oppression behind and rise above it. She will leave behind everything and rise. Maya Angelou boldly declares at the end:

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.