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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.
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 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.
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
Reference
Angelou, M. (1978). Still I rise. In And still I rise: A book of poems. Random House.
About the Poet
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) was an American poet, memoirist, performer, and civil rights activist whose work articulates the Black experience with rare emotional clarity and moral authority.
She was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. After her parents divorced, Maya and her older brother were sent to live with their paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, a racially segregated Southern town that would profoundly shape her worldview.
At age seven, Maya was sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend, during a brief return to her mother’s care. She testified against her abuser, who was killed shortly after. She believed her voice had killed him. As a result of this belief, she became mute for nearly five years. During these years of mutism, she “listened” to the world. She developed an intense sensitivity to language, sound, and rhythm.
Following her recovery from mutism, Angelou moved to San Francisco, where she attended George Washington High School and studied dance and drama at the California Labor School. At just sixteen, she made history as San Francisco’s first African American female streetcar conductor. In the 1950s, she toured Europe and Africa as a professional dancer and singer, adopting the name Maya Angelou.
Angelou was deeply involved in the American Civil Rights Movement. She worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. She served as the Northern Coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and she contributed both her voice and organisational skills to the struggle for racial justice.
Her autobiographical work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), brought her international recognition. It remains one of the most influential memoirs in American literature. Through poetry and prose, Angelou explored themes such as resilience, identity, womanhood, racism, oppression, and survival. Poems like “Still I Rise,” “Phenomenal Woman,” and “Caged Bird” celebrate Black identity and assert dignity in the face of historical and personal injustice.
Maya Angelou died on May 28, 2014, at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, at the age of 86. She is remembered as one of the most significant voices in modern American literature and a global symbol of courage, grace, and self-affirmation. Her writing is noted for its accessible diction, musical cadence, and affirmation of human dignity.
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Summary of “Still I Rise”
Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” is a poem voiced by a confident Black woman who speaks directly to forces that have historically attempted to silence, demean, and subdue her. These forces include racist historians, oppressive social systems, and individuals who take offence at her dignity, confidence, and success.
The speaker begins by acknowledging the ways she has been misrepresented and mistreated. She has been written down in history with lies, trampled into the dirt, wounded by words, looks, and hatred.
Not minding these repeated attempts to destroy her spirit, she insists that she will continue to “rise.” She likens her resilience to natural elements (dust, air, the moon, the sun, and ocean tides) that are inevitable and unstoppable.
The speaker exposes the expectations placed on Black people, especially Black women, to appear broken, submissive, and ashamed. She rejects these expectations openly.
She embraces her confidence, pride, sexuality, and joy, even when they provoke discomfort and resentment in others. She employs the use of images of oil wells, gold mines, and diamonds to symbolise her inner worth, self-belief, and unacknowledged richness that cannot be taken away.
As the poem progresses, the speaker broadens her personal voice into a collective one. She asserts that she rises not only for herself but for her ancestors. She claims to have emerged from the historical pain of slavery and racial terror. Consequently, she carries forward the dreams and hopes of those who suffered before her.
In the closing lines, the speaker repetitively declares “I rise” as a personal mantra and a communal anthem to affirm survival, progress, and empowerment. “Still I Rise” thus celebrates resilience in the face of systemic injustice; it transforms historical suffering into a source of strength.
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Themes in “Still I Rise”
Some of the noticeable themes in “Still I Rise” are resilience, freedom, female empowerment, and racial pride. These themes are examined in this section.
Theme of Resilience
Resilience is a unifying theme of “Still I Rise.” It is presented as the capacity to withstand humiliation, hostility, and historical oppression. From the opening lines to the emphatic closing refrain, the speaker consistently affirms her refusal to be broken, silenced, and erased by forces that seek to diminish her.
She openly acknowledges the various forms of oppression directed at her. She speaks of historical distortion and degradation in “You may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies” (ll. 1–2), and of physical and emotional humiliation in “You may trod me in the very dirt” (l. 3). Yet every attempt to suppress her is immediately countered by an assertion of survival and resistance: “But still, like dust, I’ll rise” (l. 4).
This theme is reinforced through the repeated refrain “I rise.” This expression appears throughout the poem as a declaration of continuity and perseverance. The progression from “I’ll rise” in the earlier stanzas (ll. 4, 12, 24) to “I rise” in the later sections (ll. 30, 32, 36, 38, 41–43) marks an important shift from future resolve to present reality. The speaker goes from merely promising to survive to actually doing the rising. She rises “leaving behind nights of terror and fear” (l. 35) and moves “into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear” (l. 37).
Theme of Freedom
Freedom is a recurring theme in “Still I Rise.” It is conveyed largely through natural imagery that cannot be permanently restrained. There is the image of dust, for example, in the opening stanza: “But still, like dust, I’ll rise” (l. 4). Dust, though easily pressed down, inevitably rises again. There are references to “moons and… suns” and “the certainty of tides” (ll. 9–10), indicative of how the speaker’s freedom follows the same unstoppable and predictable patterns as the natural world.
The imagery of air is invoked too: “But still, like air, I’ll rise” (l. 24). Air is invisible, essential to life, and impossible to imprison. With this comparison, freedom is presented as boundless and indestructible, beyond the reach of hatred, violence, and oppression. Add to this the image of “a black ocean” (l. 33). Its symbolic vastness and movement reinforce the idea of a people that cannot be confined or controlled.
The poem thus portrays freedom as an innate human condition. It is not something bestowed by oppressors; not the kind colonialists give the colonised or slave owners give to their slaves.
Theme of Female Empowerment
One of the most striking themes in Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” is female empowerment. The speaker boldly challenges social and cultural expectations that demand female modesty, silence, and submissiveness. She refuses to conform to these restrictive norms.
Angelou presents a woman who is unapologetically self-assured and visibly confident. She recognises that this confidence unsettles others who expect women to appear restrained and ashamed. This challenge is expressed through rhetorical questions such as “Does my sassiness upset you?” (l. 5) and “Does my haughtiness offend you?” (l. 17). These questions expose how female confidence is treated as a threat.
In the same vein, the speaker confronts the policing of female bodies and sexuality: “Does my sexiness upset you?” (l. 25). The female body is presented as valuable, dignified, and self-owned: “That I dance like I’ve got diamonds / At the meeting of my thighs?” (ll. 27–28). She challenges patriarchal norms that equate female confidence with impropriety.
Angelou redefines empowerment as self-acceptance, bodily autonomy, and agency. The empowered woman in the poem does not seek validation from anybody. She rises by affirming her inherent worth.
Theme of Racial Pride
Racial pride is a prominent theme in “Still I Rise,” where the poet openly celebrates Black identity and rejects the shame historically imposed on Black people. The speaker confronts a history that has deliberately misrepresented and diminished Black lives. This is evident in the opening lines, “You may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies” (ll. 1–2), where Angelou exposes how historical narratives have been shaped to demean Black people. The speaker reclaims her identity from falsehood and oppression. She asserts that she will rise despite these distortions.
She recollects a painful collective past. In “Out of the huts of history’s shame” (l. 29) and “Up from a past that’s rooted in pain” (l. 31), Angelou refers to slavery and systemic racial degradation. However, these references are the foundation from which the speaker rises. She presents herself as the fulfilment of generations of Black struggle and aspiration: “Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, / I am the dream and the hope of the slave” (ll. 39–40). This means her pride is communal, rooted in shared history.
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