Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

Table of Contents
Poem ..................................................................................................................................... 4-6
SECTION 1 ........................................................................................................................... 6-7
SECTION 2 ........................................................................................................................... 8
SECTION 3 ........................................................................................................................... 8-10
SECTION 4 ........................................................................................................................... 10
Works Cited .......................................................................................................................... 11

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Outline
I. Poem
II. Section 1
A. Background life
B. Childhood to Music Career
C. Awards and Honors
III. Section 2
IV. Section 3
V. Section 4

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Eunice Kweon
Mr. Sasser
English 8 Period 6
14 December 2013
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.

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.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

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Weakened by my soulful cries.

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 back yard.

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.

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?

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.

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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.

SECTION 1

The poem I nominated for examination is Still I Rise. According to uncp.edu, this

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poem was written and published in 1978. Mayaangelou.com states that Maya Angelou has

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analysis

accomplished and succeeded many life-time goals and tasks. She has been celebrated as a poet,
memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights
activist.
During her teenage years, Angelous love of art and culture let her get a college
scholarship to the San Franciscos Labor School to study drama and arts, but she soon dropped
out (She wanted to be the first African American female cable car conductor). She gave birth to
her son right after graduating high school. She worked hard, as a single mother, to support her

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son, Guy. Maya worked as a waitress and a cook, but later her love for drama and the arts took
her to the spotlight.
In 1954 and 1955, many events occurred. Angelou toured in Europe with a production of
the opera, Porgy and Bess. She studied dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey,
and recorded her first album, Calypso Lady, in 1957. Later in the following year, Maya moved to
New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild. There, she acted in the Broadway-off
production, The Blacks, and wrote and performed in Cabaret and Freedom.
In 1960, Maya moved to Cairo, Egypt and soon to Ghana where she was the editor of

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The Arab Observer and The Ghanaian Times. Angelou also worked as a professor at the

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University of Ghanas School of Music and Drama. During her years abroad, Maya learned
many languages and also met Malcom X. When Angelou came back to the United States, she

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Comment [3]: Whos Malcom X?

helped him build the Organization of African American Unity. Shortly, Malcom X was

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assassinated, and the organization disappeared. After the assassination, Martin Luther King Jr.
asked Maya Angelou to serve as the Northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference. On Mayas birthday, MLK was assassinated, and this left her devastated.

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With some help and guidance from the novelist, James Baldwin, Angelou began working
on her most popular and successful project, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She published
this book in 1970, and it was sold internationally, too. Including all her works, Maya Angelou
has had more than 30 bestselling titles. She has also won many prizes. As being the first African
American female to write a script, she was nominated to have the Pulitzer Prize; she was
awarded two presidential awards: Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000 and the Lincoln Medal in
2008; and she has won three Grammy Awards. Today, Angelou has over 50 honorary degrees
and is Reynolds professor at Wake Forest University.

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SECTION 2
After reading my first Maya Angelou poem in class, I was inspired. She was very self
expressive, and it touched me how honest she could be in her writing, especially in the poem,
Still I Rise. When I read this poem, it just said Eunice. Why? I get in a lot of fights with my
brother, and eventually, he always gets blamed. He always ignores me, glares, pushes, etc.
Whenever he looks at me with his eyes full of hatred, I ask the questions (not to him but to
myself): Did you want to see me broke?, Does my haughtiness offend you?, or Does my
sassiness upset you? Also as I was reading this poem, I felt someone reading Angelous words
to me (in a sense), and while these voices came upon me, memory after memory came back to

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Comment [4]: What do you mean by in a
sense?

me. I could clearly see me standing up for myself even when I was in a hard situation, seeing me
and my brother always fighting and shouting, clearly picturing the arguments my best friends
and I had, etc. This poem was just for me; in a way, I could just feel it.

SECTION 3
Angelous Still I Rise uses voice and rhythm to best deliver her message. By using
seven stanzas of four lines (each) and one with 15 lines, this poem is more likely a traditional
style of writing. The repeating pattern of ABCB end rhyme continuously replicates itself for the
first seven stanzas. This results in a very nice fluent rhythm, when reading the poem. Feminine
rhyme occasionally appears in the end rhyme. For example, in stanza number seven, surprise
and thighs is an example of feminine rhyme. Maya Angelou also uses another type of rhyme:

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internal rhyme. This is used in the last stanza. On the sixth line of the last stanza, welling and
swelling are at the beginning of the line, and they rhyme.
Repetition is also an overused poetic device applied in Still I Rise. Rhetorical questions
at the beginning of some stanzas are repeated such as Does my sassiness upset you?, Did you
want to see me broken?, Does my haughtiness offend you?, and Does my sexiness upset
you? Throughout the poem, the poet also uses the repeating phrase, still I rise (also
sometimes stillI rise). This repetition of the phrase helps emphasize it, which tells the reader
that the narrator or I has hope and confidence no matter what. Again, there is also a repetition
of I rise in the last stanza. This tells the reader the importance of standing up and trying again
and again. In addition, the repetition of you may is also multiplied (first and third line of stanza
one; first three lines of sixth stanza). This phrase was used to show that no matter what Is
enemy does, I doesnt care.
Figurative language is often employed throughout the poem. First, similes are used in
every stanza, except for the last. Some examples of these similes are But still, like dust, Ill
rise(first stanza last line), Cause I walk like Ive got oil wells Pumping in my living
room(second stanza last two lines),Shoulders falling down like teardrops(fourth stanza third
line), and That I dance like I got diamonds At the meetings of my thighs?(last two lines of the
seventh stanza). -There are three more similes in the poem: the whole third stanza, the last two
lines of the fifth stanza, and the last line of the sixth stanza.- Second, instead of similes, the last
stanza uses metaphors to compare I to very free things such as Im a black ocean, leaping and
wide,(fifth line of last stanza) and I am the dream and the hope of the slave(12th line of the
last stanza). Third, there is only one use of personification in the poem, and it is also a metaphor.
This phrase is Im a black ocean, leaping and wide, (fifth line of last stanza). Fourth, the

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literary device, hyperbole, is used twice in Still I Rise, once in the beginning and once at the
end of the poem. They are You may write me down in history(first line of first stanza) and
Ive got diamonds at the meetings of my thighs?(part of third and fourth lines of seventh
stanza). Lastly, alliteration is applied in this poem of confidence. This is used only once in the
poem and is in the last stanza. This example of alliteration is Out of huts of historys shame
(first line of last stanza).

SECTION 4
Using voice and rhythm, Maya Angelou delivers her message to her readers through a
very expressive way. Even though at the end Angelou has some very calm words, she actually
has a more self-determined and sassy attitude when carrying her message.
Maya emphasizes her feelings toward the other person with rhetorical questions. Her use
of rhetorical questions helps us as readers relate to how we feel after we just fought with other
people like our brothers, sisters, friends, etc. Also by using similes and metaphors, Angelou
helps us relate and regain confidence in ourselves. Utilizing similes and metaphors helps Maya
deliver her message: Stand up for yourself and try again and again, no matter how many times it
takes.
This poem is a message from Maya Angelou telling us readers that its important for us to
rise and not give up. We want to be the dream and the hope of the slave. We want to be the
black ocean, leaping and wide. We do not want our shoulders to drop like teardrops. This
poem is more like a message to us, to her, and to everyone. Angelous poem is a letter
encouraging us to hold on and try.

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Works Cited
"Still I Rise - Poem by Maya Angelou." Still I Rise - Poem by Maya Angelou. N.p., n.d. Web. 26
Aug. 2014.

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