Still I Rise
BY  MA YA A NGE LO U
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,
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 backyard.
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.
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.
Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise" from And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems. 
Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou.  Used by
permission of Random House, an imprint and division
of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
 ANALISYS OF POEM “STILL I RISE (Maya Angelou)”
1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURE CONTEXT
Influences on the author (in Her life)
1). Being black and a women during the time period that she was/when this poem was
written.
2). Angelou was sexually abusedby her mother ‘s boyfriend in 1937
Influences on the author (in society)
1). For women right in that time
2). Responding to the growing African American civil rights movement in the United
State, from 1950’s to the early 1970’s
2. THEME
1). The theme of “Still I rise” is really about self respect and confident. In the poem, she reveals
how she will overcome anything with her self-esteem. She show how nothing can get her down.
She will rise to any occasion and nothing, not even her skin color will hold her back.
2). This theme helps convey her massage because at some point when she is reading it, she
laugs, this emphasizes her self-confidence even more. In the poem , she also ask rhetorical
question to showcase her pride

3. STUCTURE
1). Number of line is Fourty Three
2). Number of stanzas Eight
3). Patterns Repetitive – “I RISE”
4). Beat per line 9,6,9,6 then 8,7,8,7 the 6,7,6,3
5). Rhytms Irreguler , free verse
6) Significanse to the deliberate choise it’s all for emphasis

4. POETIC DEVICES
1). Simile = “Like Dust,I will Rise”
2). Methapor = “I’m Black Ocean.Leaping and Wide”
3). Personification
“you may shoot me with your kind, you may cut me with your eyes, you may
kill me with your hatefullness”
4) Tone = assertive, confident,pride and sarcasm (when read aloud for emphasis)
5) Point of View = Maya Angelou (She is telling the poem)
6) Imagenary = Oil wells pumping in my living room,etc
7) Alliteration = Repeat “I RISE” and “YOU MAY”
5. MEANING OF POEM
1). Subject = ultimately representing black people, women.
2). Talking About = Many people can talk down on and degrade black and women
but it wan’t make them stop from rising above it
 3). Why the poem was written = to be the voice unheard/degraded/putdown/un-noted.
4). Time period = during the civil right time period – 1950’s/1960’s
5) where = in the “JIM CROW” South
6). Poem’s Attitude = Determined, Strong
7). Shift = No major shit expept in stucture after 8 stanza

6. PUT IN YOUR OWND WORD

1). Angelou uses different example and scenarios the people might do to her such as,
“ You may write me down in historywith your bitter twisted lies....” but she will
always rise above it
2). Maya Angelou potrays confidence and will to allways get up when put down.
7. MEANING OF THE TITLE
No Matter what happens or what is thrown at Maya Angelou, She will allways rise.