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Still I Rise Poem
ABOUT THE POET
Maya Angelou (4 April 1928 – 28 May 2014) was an American author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, poet, and civil rights activist best known for her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Angelou had a difficult childhood. Her parents split up when she was three. Then her father sent her and her older brother to live with their paternal grandmother. At the age of eight, while living with her mother, Angelou was raped by her mother's boyfriend. As vengeance for the sexual assault, Angelou's uncles killed her boyfriend. Because of the traumatic sequence of events, she remained almost completely mute for five years. During World War II, she moved to San Francisco, California. There, she won a scholarship to study dance and attended the California Labour School. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Her autobiographies focus on her childhood and early adult experiences.
ABOUT THE POEM
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
The poem "Still I Rise" was composed by the American poet Maya Angelou. This poem is an empowering poem about the struggle to overcome prejudice, abuse, oppression, discrimination, and injustice. It draws on a range of influences, including her personal background and the African American experience in the United States, with the message of liberation and survival. This poem can be taken as a powerful poem specifically against anti-black racism in America. There are altogether nine different stanzas here in this poem where the speaker keeps on asking direct questions to her oppressors regarding their feelings towards her.
STANZA-WISE ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
YOU may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
In the very first stanza, Maya Angelou, or the main speaker, is addressing all her oppressors, especially the whites, saying that nothing and no one can oppress her or keep her down. According to her, the oppressors may write about her as well as her black community and dominate them in the history books using their bitter as well as twisted false lines. She knows very well about their powers and bad acts. She doesn’t care what the history books reveal about her and her black community. She knows that the books are full of “twisted lies.” She doesn't let these falsities bother her. She accepts the fact that her oppressors may tread her in the dirt. But she declares that if she is trodden in the dirt by the oppressors, she will rise like dust.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
In the second stanza, we find the speaker asking a question to all her oppressors. This is quite an interesting question. She refers to her own tone as “sassiness” and asks the listeners (whites) if her sassy tone is upsetting for them. The speaker finds the people (whites) around her with gloomy faces. She asks them the question, Why are they beset with gloom? simply by seeing her talk and walk. According to her, the oppressors feel upset to find her manners of sophisticated talk and walking and her progress in different sectors. They feel as if the speaker has found valuable oil wells, which she pumps in her living room. The speaker shows the jealous attitude of the oppressors towards the progress of black people. Here, the “oil wells pumping in [her] living room” symbolise the speaker's success.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Here in the third stanza, the speaker compares herself to the moon and the sun. She even talks about the certainty of tides (oppressors) against her. She wants to rise like the moon and the sun, no matter how the oppressors try their best to stop her. She is full of hopes and wants to rise out of her condition. Here, we get the idea that the speaker has no other choice but to rise out of her sufferings. Society might try to keep her oppressed, but it is in her nature to rise and stand against oppression, just as it is in the nature of the tides to respond to the moon.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
In the fourth stanza, the speaker questions her oppressors regarding their choices to see her. She asks them if they want to see her broken, helpless, with a bowed head and lowered eyes, shoulders down like teardrops, weakened by her soulful cries. She wants to know the oppressors' real choices and their real intentions. Here, she tries her best to know the oppressors' real intentions through her questions, one after another.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.
In the fifth stanza, she asks them questions regarding herself again. She puts her questions ahead to know the reasons behind their aggression towards her. She asks them whether her “haughtiness” is offensive or whether her haughtiness offends them. She wants to know from them whether they feel anger to find her attitude. The speaker asks, “Don’t you take it awfully hard?" She knows very well that society hates seeing a black woman full of pride. She also asks them not to bother to find her laughing. According to her, she as well as her community laugh in such a manner as if they have got gold mines that they dig in their backyard. Their laughter represents their free way of life, no matter how oppressed they are. Their laugh is taken as awfulness by the oppressors.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
In the sixth stanza, the speaker assumes some of the possibilities that her oppressors may have for her. Due to their oppressors' power in society, she seems powerless. Here she has used three words as words: eyes and hatefulness of the oppressors, through which they may shoot her, cut her, and even kill her. But the speaker regards herself as "air" and claims that she will rise against all the violence of the oppressors. She believes in rising, no matter how her oppressors try to finish her.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
In the seventh stanza, the speaker asks her oppressors about her fascinating sexiness. She asks them whether they feel upset to find her fashionable style of life. She asks them about their surprise at her dance, too. She says that she dances in such a way that she has diamonds between her thighs. This particular dance of the speaker is a matter of surprise for all her haters in society.
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
In the eighth stanza, the speaker talks about different harsh conditions where she wants to rise. She calls the slavery system of the past the shame of human history. She intends to rise out of this shameful history, a past that is rooted in pain. She refers to herself as a black ocean that is jumping and wide. Bearing all kinds of oppressions welling and swelling in the tide of racism, she wants to rise. She intends to rise at any cost.
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.
In the ninth or final stanza, the speaker reveals that she intends to leave behind all the effects of slavery and the history of oppression with the intent to rise above them. She claims that she will leave behind the “terror and fear” and that she will rise above the pain and the oppression “to a daybreak that’s wondrously clear”.
The speaker reveals her inner intentions. She says that she intends to leave all the effects of slavery and the history of oppression behind and rise above all of them. She declares that she will leave behind the "nights of terror and fear" and rise above the pains and oppressions into an astonishingly clear daybreak. She further adds that she wants to rise along with the gifts that she received from her ancestors. Her intention is not to let the hatred of society or the pains of the past prevent her from becoming what she has ever dreamed of being. She refers to herself as the dream and the hope of the slave. For this particular reason, she repeats "I rise" three times at last.
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