In Short
- Maya Angelou’s landmark poem “Still I Rise” is an expression of grit and resolution of the black community in the face of oppression in the late 20th century America.
- The poet-speaker expresses her pains and sufferings in a white-dominated society.
- But with an underlying tone of assertion, the speaker declares that however hard the society tries to humiliate her, she will rise above all odds.
Still I Rise – Explanation
Stanza 1
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.
The poem starts with the word “you” as if the speaker directly addresses someone who is trying to “write her down in history”. So, the speaker alleges that this history is full of lies. Someone is trying to alter the history with “bitter, twisted lies” to show her lesser and in the wrong dimension. The speaker here shows a “don’t care” attitude though. She is firm in her courage.
She states very loudly that if she is put down to the level of dirt, she will rise from it. Just as the dust leaves the land and rises up in the air, she will rise again and prove herself. She has got the confidence.
In reality, the poet Maya Angelou is a representative of the Afro-American community and a civil rights activist. The poet here claims that the African-Americans were shown as less important by the White Americans who governed the country by large. So, these lines can be seen as a challenge thrown by the poet to the Whites who always try to demean the black people.
Stanza 2
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.
The second stanza of the poem “Still I Rise” opens with a question. The poet-speaker refers her voice as “Sassy” (spirited or lively) and asks to the listeners whether her sassy tone is upsetting them. She also notices that the people in her society are looking gloomy or sad. She asks the reason behind it. Maybe they are jealous of her achievements.
The poet-speaker is proud that she is successful in her life now. She has the attitude as if she has got the oil wells. In the then America, the businessmen of oil Industry were among the richest. So, the idea of “oil wells pumping in my living room” symbolizes her success. She conveys her happiness, confidence and her powerful positive attitude that are behind her success.
Stanza 3
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
In this stanza, the speaker compares herself with the moon and the sun. The movements of the moons and the suns (the stars and the satellites) are eternal facts of the universe which never change. Just like every new day the sun shines, and when the sun sets, the moon rises, the speaker is damn sure of her rise.
The speaker reiterates the certainty of her success. That is as inevitable as the certainty of tides in rivers and seas. She compares her rise to rising hopes. Even though the White Americans try to humiliate her, she will rise with the certainty of the sun, the moon and the tides. “Still I’ll rise” is the promise she makes and the challenge she poses.
Stanza 4
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
The speaker asks if others wanted to see her in a state of mental breakdown – unhappy, broken and shattered. She knows that some people are unhappy with her rising success and they would rather want to see her in a disaster.
They wished that she were a broken lady with bowed head and lowered eyes, and with fallen shoulders like the teardrops from her “soulful cries”. It means they wanted to see her not only devastated just from outside, but also deserted from deep within her soul.
Stanza 5
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.
Now the speaker asks if her haughtiness (proud nature) offends others. She guesses that everyone is annoyed at she being bold. She advises people not to take it so seriously.
She tells them not to get offended by her attributes. She uses here the reference of “gold mines”. She flaunts her “success” before the society in such a way that people feel as if she has found a gold mine in her own backyard. Apparently, the speaker is enjoying the success she has found.
Stanza 6
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.
Angelou now mentions the gestures of the people which are not so good. They are using abusive words against her which is like shooting her. They give her nasty looks. It feels like they’re cutting her by those sights. She is not being loved by others. Her enemies use “hate” as weapon to kill her.
She feels very sad and upset at these gestures. But still she is a strong lady. Despite such hindrances, like the air, she will rise. These looks, abusing words and hatred can’t do any harm to her. She can’t be stopped by anyone.
Stanza 7
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?
The speaker continues her questioning of society. According to others, she has no physical charm and is inferior. So, people get upset when they see her desirability and the graceful way she presents herself. They also get surprised seeing her dance and the way she enjoys herself. She dances as if she got diamonds at the joint place of her thighs. The image of “diamond” is used to describe her womanliness.
The truth is that she is simple like anyone else and has no extraordinary beauty. But her confidence and the way she presents herself makes the difference and makes people surprised and jealous.
Stanza 8
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.
Now the speaker’s tone turns serious in this stanza. She is determined to rise from the shameful events that happened to her in the past. Here “history’s shame” is an illusion to the practice of slavery. She recalls her painful days. The past was brutal and unfair to the black community and it’s hard to bear such painful memories. But she wants to move forward and rise above it.
She compares herself to a black ocean. So, here the speaker gives a direct hint that she is from the black community. As we know it, the whites have always tried to suppress the blacks. Angelou declares that she can leap across anything. Her personality is like the water that wells (rises) and swells. She bears through everything in life which is compared to the tide here. Though it is very hard to get over the tide of life, she will rise.
Stanza 9
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.
The final stanza of Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise” gives us a powerful concluding message. In the previous stanza, we get to know about Afro-American people and their sufferings. Their nights of terror and fear are passed. The night has gone, the day is breaking out. The speaker is hopeful and could see a wonderful clear and bright future lying ahead of her.
She is proud of her ancestry, so she celebrates its gifts. Her ancestors were brought into the continent as slaves. They had fought their fight. She got this energy and boldness from her ancestors who had suffered a lot and gave her the lesson of bravery and survival.
Now, as she has got success, she has become the dream and the hope of the slaves, of those trodden-down people. And this responsibility gives her further strength and courage to rise against all the sufferings. She is resolute to rise and she will keep rising.
Still I Rise – Into details
Publication
“Still I Rise” is an inspiring and emotional poem that’s based on Maya Angelou’s experience as a black woman in America. This poem was published in the year 1978 in a poetry collection named “And Still I Rise”. It is the title poem of this collection and it appears in the third part of the book. It was published by Random House.
Background
Angelou wrote the poem “Still I Rise” in the decade following the American Civil Rights Movement. Angelou herself became involved in the civil and human rights movements. The main focus of this movement was to achieve equality for the black people in the United States. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. Angelou wrote this poem in the late 1970s, during the post-Civil Rights Movement Era.
She wrote this poem in the context of the oppression of the black people in the white-led society. Her ancestors were brought to America as a slave. White people tortured them brutally. Angelou closely witnessed the injustice towards the black people. Her experiences with racism and her struggle influenced Angelou to write this poem.
In this poem, Angelou reveals her resolution to overcome the odds through her self-esteem. She is firm in her belief. Nothing can get her down. She will rise to any occasion and nothing, including her skin color, can hold her back. Through this poem, Angelou motives the black community with hope and courage.
Setting
After reading the whole poem, we can assume that the poem is set in America. Angelou is one of the most important literary figures in the 20th century American history. The main agenda of the poem “Still I Rise” has been a sharp message to the white people that they cannot suppress the black community for long and they will eventually rise from the dust with the courage and strength they have got from their ancestors.
In this poem, she mentions the Afro-American people’s sufferings. So, the poem is set in the late 20th century America.
Title
The title “Still I Rise” suggests that the speaker is rising up despite some challenging circumstances. Being a black woman, Angelou witnessed the brutal torture towards black people. American society showed their hatred and oppression to the Afro-American people. This poem can be seen as a response to that oppression. We see throughout the poem, how her confidence rises up in the face of hate, discrimination and oppression. So, in this context, the title is appropriate.
Form and language
“Still I Rise” is a nine-stanza lyric poem that’s separated into uneven sets of lines. The first 7 stanzas are quatrains – made up of 4 lines each. The 8th stanza has 6 lines and the 9th has 9 lines. So, there are total 43 lines. The poem is full of figurative language like similes and metaphors. It is enriched with so many rhetorical questions which are unanswered.
The language is straightforward and the tone is assertive depicting the poet-speaker’s confidence and strong personality. The speaker uses first person pronoun ‘I’ repeatedly to convey her own feelings and emotions to the readers. Also going by its subject-matter, which related to the poet Maya Angelou herself, the poem is highly subjective.
Meter and Rhyme scheme
The first seven stanza of Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise” follow a regular rhyme scheme of ABCB. The rhyme scheme of the eighth stanza is ABABCC and the ninth is ABABCCBBB.
The poet uses irregular metrical pattern here. The prominent meter of this poem is a falling meter or trochee where a stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed one.
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 first stanza of the poem, we see that the first three lines runs on a trochee meter while the last line has an iambic (unstressed-stressed) meter.
However, this falling meter in the first three lines and the contrasting rising meter in the last line of the stanza may well indicate the tone of sufferings (fall) of the speaker and his eventual rise from the fall. Again, the use of a spondee (two stressed syllables) in “I’ll rise” emphasizes the idea of her rise.
Still I Rise – Themes
Defiance in the face of oppression
In the poem “Still I Rise” the poet-speaker Maya Angelou represents the black Afro-American community and presents her defiance in the face of oppression. The white people in the American society dominated the black people. This poem is a bold statement against the brutality of the whites.
The society constantly tries to humiliate her. Her past experience is painful. But she is not defeated. She has the strength and courage to rise above all odds. Her poem “Still I rise” can be seen as a powerful statement specifically against anti-black racism in America. She thinks herself as the dream and hope of the oppressed section of the society and therefore motivates them through this poem. That is why she repeats the words “I rise” so many times in the poem.
Beauty and strength of blackness
Maya Angelou looks to shatter the idea of white supremacy in her landmark poem “Still I Rise”. She reiterates that black lives also matter. They can also be successful. She repeats the words “I rise” and “still I rise” again and again throughout the poem to convey the confidence and power in their blackness.
Though their white counterparts want to show them in bad light, they still rise above all oppression. Black people can be happy and proud too. They too can walk and talk proudly; they too can dance and enjoy themselves; they too have inner beauty within themselves. And it’s time everyone recognizes and appreciates the beauty and power in even in the blackness of those African-American community.
Still I Rise – Symbols
Black ocean
Ocean is a powerful force of nature. In the poem “Still I Rise”, the speaker compares herself with black ocean. This black ocean represents black community. In America in 1970s, Black people were oppressed by the whites. She declares that despite all hurdles, she will move up. She, like the ocean, is strong and forceful. The poem uses the ocean to represent the speaker’s power inherent in her blackness and the inevitability of her rise above oppression.
Oil wells, gold mines and diamonds
Maya Angelou has mentioned oil wells, gold mines and diamonds – all the valuables to indicate her own value, her confidence, success, happiness and achievements. She says she walks like she’s got oil wells pumping in her living room, she laughs like she’s got gold mines in her backyard and she dances like she’s got diamonds at the meeting of her thighs. All these things also symbolize the potential of the black community and the beauty in blackness.
Still I Rise – Literary Devices
End-stopped lines
An end-stopped line in poetry is a line of verse where a sentence or phrase comes to an end with the end of the line, generally with a punctuation mark like a comma, colon, full stop etc.
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.
Enjambment
In poetry, when a sentence continues to the next line of a verse without pause, it is called an enjambment. Here are a couple of examples of enjambments from the poem “Still I Rise” –
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Caesura
A caesura in poetry is a pause (with a comma, semicolon etc.) in the middle of a line. Here’s an example from the poem “Still I Rise” –
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.
Assonance
Assonance is a literary device where similar vowel sounds get repeated in nearby words, often in the same line of verse. There are so many occurrences of assonance in the poem “Still I Rise” –
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.
Consonance
Consonance is like a counterpart of assonance – repetition of consonant sounds in neighbouring words.
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.
See how the ‘m’, ‘t’, ‘r’, ‘s’ and ‘l’ sounds get repeated in the first stanza itself. Consonance is used in abundance throughout the poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou.
Alliteration
Alliteration is a type of consonance. It is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning (or, stressed syllables) of nearby words.
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
(repetition of /m/ and /d/ sounds at the beginning of words)
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
Out of the huts of history’s shame
Sibilance
Sibilance is also a sub-type of consonance where the /s/ sound is repeated several times creating a hissing sound.
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Simile
A simile is a direct comparison between two different things using ‘as’ or ‘like’. Here in the poem “Still I Rise” we can see at least one simile in each of the first seven stanzas, and all of the similes found in the poem are constructed using the word ‘like’. For example –
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
In the above line, the poet-speaker has compared herself to dust using the word ‘like’, as she is determined to rise from the ground like dust itself.
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Here, the speaker again compares her attitude to that of the owner of an oil-well. She walks so proudly as if she has got oil wells pumping in her living room.
Metaphor
In contrast to simile, a metaphor is an indirect comparison between two different things where there is a point of similarity.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
In the above lines, the speaker claims that the white-dominated racist society ‘shoots’ her with words, ‘cuts’ her with their stares and ‘kills’ her with their hatefulness. But words cannot literally ‘shoot’ one or hate cannot ‘kill’ one. But it implies how much it pains and hurts when people use their abusive words, evil glances and hatefulness to demean her. That is like shooting, cutting and killing her. This is a comparison made indirectly between ‘killing’ and ‘hurting’. So, these are all instances of metaphors in the poem.
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
The above line is also an example of metaphor where the speaker compares herself with a black ocean. She is from the black Afro-American community and has got the strength of an ocean to leap and rise above all oppressions. That is why she makes this indirect comparison with a black ocean.
Rhetorical Questions
In literature, a rhetorical question is a question which is not meant for an answer. It is used to create an emphasis or to make a point rather than to get an answer. Angelou has used a number of rhetorical questions in “Still I Rise” to convey her feelings and emotions effectively.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Did you want to see me broken?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Repetition
Repetition is also a literary device where same words or phrases are used again and again in a piece of writing. Here are examples from the present poem –
You may write me down in history (line 1)
You may trod me in the very dirt (line 3)
You may shoot me with your words, (line 21-23)
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
Look at how the words “You may” have been repeated in the above lines.
Similarly, the phrase “I rise” has been repeated 7 times, “I’ll rise” is repeated thrice, “Does my” is repeated thrice, “Just like” is repeated twice and “But still” is repeated twice in the poem.