BIS3403 POETRY IN ENGLISH

SEMESTER 1 2021/2022

ASSIGNMENT 1: POEM ANALYSIS (STILL I RISE BY MAYA ANGELOU)

GROUP 11

NAME MATRIC NUMBER

ADILAH BINTI ZAINOL RASHID D20201095266

NUR SYARAFINA BINTI MOHAMMAD ROSLAN D20201095262

NUR HANI SYAFFIAH BINTI AHMAD RUSHIDI D20201095268

NUR AINA SYAHIRAH BINTI MOHD KAMILI D20201095232

 TABLE OF CONTENT

1.0 POET BACKGROUND............................................................................................................1

2.0 OCCASION AND SETTING....................................................................................................2
3.0 THEME....................................................................................................................................3
4.0 STRUCTURE OF THE POEM.................................................................................................4
5.0 DICTION OF THE POEM.......................................................................................................5
6.0 LITERARY ELEMENTS/DEVICES USED..............................................................................6
7.0 CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE POEM............................................................................8
8.0 CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................8
 THE POEM ANALYSIS

1.0 POET BACKGROUND

Maya Angelou was an American author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, poet and civil
rights activist. Angelou was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou had a
difficult childhood. Her parents split up when she was very young, and she and her older brother,
Bailey, were sent to live with their father's mother, Anne Henderson, in Stamps, Arkansas. As an
African American, Angelou experienced firsthand racial prejudices and discrimination in
Arkansas. She also suffered at the hands of a family associate around the age of 7. During a visit
with her mother, Angelou was raped by her mother's boyfriend. As vengeance for the sexual
assault, Angelou's uncles killed the boyfriend. So traumatized by the experience, Angelou
stopped talking. She returned to Arkansas and spent years as a virtual mute.

From this quiet beginning emerged a young woman who sang, danced, and recorded
poetry. After moving to San Francisco with her mother and brother in 1940, Angelou began
taking dance lessons, eventually auditioning for professional theater. However, her plans were
put on hold when she had a son at age 16. She moved to San Diego, worked as a nightclub
waitress, tangled with drugs and prostitution and danced in a strip club. Ironically, the strip club
saved her career: She was discovered there by a theater group. She auditioned for an
international tour of Porgy and Bess and won a role. From 1954 to ’55, she toured 22 countries.
In 1959, she moved to New York, became friends with prominent Harlem writers, and got
involved with the civil rights movement. In 1961, she moved to Egypt with a boyfriend and
edited for the Arab Observer. After leaving her boyfriend, she headed to Ghana, where a car
accident severely injured her son. While caring for him in Ghana, she took a job at the African
Review, where she stayed for several years. Her writing and personal development flourished
under the African cultural renaissance that was taking place. When she returned to the U.S., she
began publishing her multivolume autobiography, starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings. Four more volumes appeared during the next two decades, as well as several books of
poetry. In 1981, Angelou was appointed Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest
University in Winston-Salem. She was nominated for several important awards and read a poem
written for the occasion at President Clinton’s inauguration.

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 After experiencing health issues for a number of years, Angelou died on May 28, 2014, at
her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was 86 years old. The news of her passing
spread quickly with many people taking to social media to mourn and remember Angelou.
President Barack Obama also issued a statement about Angelou, calling her "a brilliant writer, a
fierce friend, and a truly phenomenal woman." Angelou "had the ability to remind us that we are
all God's children; that we all have something to offer," he wrote.

2.0 OCCASION AND SETTING

Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise" is a powerful poem that draws on a range of influences,
including her personal background and the African American experience in the United States. Its
message of liberation and survival was a consistent theme in Angelou's work. Years after it was
published in 1978, the poem continues to reach readers and audiences, cutting across racial lines
and national boundaries. Angelou herself commented on its appeal in a 2008 interview: "You
know, if you're lonely you feel you've been done down, it's nice to have 'And Still I Rise'.

"Still I Rise" begins with, "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." Throughout the poem, the
types of harrowing and unjust treatment that Black people in America are addressed alongside
declarations of "I rise." Angelou drew upon blues, gospel and spiritual songs as inspiration for
the balladic patterns of the poem. She uses a "call and response" technique, references her
sexuality and perhaps because she appreciated African American oral traditions, the power of the
poem becomes even more evident when recited. The ability to cope with adversity is a strong
theme throughout "Still I Rise." "All my work, my life, everything is about survival," she once
stated. "All my work is meant to say, 'You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be
defeated.' In fact, the encounter may be the very experience which creates the vitality and the
power to endure." For Angelou, Black people in America had remained "intact enough to
survive, and to do better than that, to thrive. And to do better than that, to thrive with some
passion, some compassion, some humor and some style." In a 2009 interview, Angelou, whose
great-grandmother was born into slavery, expressed her feeling that enslaved African Americans
"couldn't have survived slavery without having hope that it would get better." This sentiment can

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be seen in the final lines of "Still I Rise": "I am the dream and the hope of the slave. / I rise / I
rise / I rise."
Decades after it was published, people continue to reference "Still I Rise." In 1994, the
United Negro College Fund, aiming for a more hopeful tone in its appeals, created a spot that
featured Angelou reading part of "Still I Rise." Also, that year, Nelson Mandela, having read
Angelou's work while in prison during apartheid, recited "Still I Rise" when he was inaugurated
as South Africa's president. A posthumous 1999 release from Tupac Shakur who had cried in
Angelou's arms when they were filming Poetic Justice together was called Still I Rise, and
among the tracks was a song with the same title. In 2017, Serena Williams issued a response that
quoted some of Angelou's verses after a fellow tennis player made racist remarks about the child
Williams was then expecting. That same year, a documentary about Angelou was called And
Still I Rise. The film ends with Angelou's voice reciting the powerful poem that’s forever
cementing its legacy.

3.0 THEME

The theme of the poem is pride and justice. The poet speaks about the biting criticism of
dark skin in society. Also, she details how people want to kill them with hatefulness. But the
speaker is really proud of her identity, which she expresses in various ways in the text. She
openly challenges those who want to hold her down. Instead of wallowing in stress and fear, she
aims to live a happy and confident life.

The speaker, who has no power to strike back, is constantly humiliated and demonized
by society. The speaker admits that society could perpetuate violence on her. It is also capable of
writing "lies" about the speaker and presenting them as facts. None of this is within the speaker's
power to prevent, and the attempts to damage the speaker only increase as the poem progresses.
This "you" may suffocate the speaker; it could "shoot," "cut," and finally "kill" the speaker with
"hatefulness." The poem is implying that a repressive society poses a clear and present risk to the
speaker's health and psyche

Next, the poem indicates that in a racist world, civilization continues to deny black
people their entire humanity. The speaker should be "broken," "cut," or perhaps "killed,"

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according to society. Rather than recognizing black people's lives and humanity, society
deliberately seeks to damage and destroy them. The shameful history of slavery in our society
was, of course, the ultimate dehumanization enslaved black people suffered incredible "pain" and
"nights of horror and despair" as all control over their own lives and bodies was stripped away
from them. The speaker uses this history to demonstrate how little society has valued black life
in the past.

As a result, the speaker does not proclaim her power despites of her race but rather asserts
that her strength stems from her race. Angelou confronts the supposed white gaze of her
audience by confounding readers' assumptions of an ode and who or what it should laud.
Angelou asserts that blackness and black femininity are overflowing in humanity, strength, and
beauty.

4.0 STRUCTURE OF THE POEM

This poem includes 43 lines in total and is made up of seven quatrains and two end
stanzas which help reinforce the theme of individual hope, with the phrase "I rise" being repeated
like a mantra. The first seven stanzas contain four lines, known as quatrains. Stanzas eight has
six lines and the ninth stanza has nine. The first seven stanzas follow a rhyme scheme of ABCB.
The eighth stanza follows a rhyme scheme of ABABCC. The ninth stanza follows a rhyme
scheme of ABAB CCBBB.

The poem opens with seven rhymed quatrains (four-line stanzas) that establish the
speaker's hostile connection with the figure "you." The speaker is oppressed by the "you" in
these quatrains. The speaker, on the other hand, stays rebellious by living in joy and rising above
prejudice and hatred.

The poem's form changes from quatrains to a sestet, or six-line stanza, as it goes. As a
result, just as the speaker defies her oppressor's expectations by rising above his tyranny and
hatred, the poem defies the expectations of its readers. A tonal shift is also indicated by the
change in form. In a tongue-in-cheek discourse, the speaker no longer addresses her oppressor.

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Instead, the set is made up of statements about her strength that stand on their own. These
assertions are filled with solemnity and confidence.

The last stanza changes from a set to a nine-line stanza once more. In terms of structure
and rhyme scheme, the first six lines of this last stanza constitute a structural echo of the
preceding stanza. This last stanza, however, adds three more lines, all of which contain the
phrase "I rise." In these last three lines, the use of repetition and epizeuxis emphasizes the
significance of the sentence and establishes it as the poem's refrain. The speaker's statement of
her ascension is resoundingly triumphant.

The poem's obvious evolution of form and tone contributes to readers' happiness with their
reading experience. The poem's final triumphant tone, which the poem's shape builds toward, is a
message of hope.

5.0 DICTION OF THE POEM

Diction refers to the language choices made by a writer in order to effectively convey an
idea, a point of view, or a narrative. In writing, an author's words can assist in building a distinct
voice and style. There are eight common types of diction in writing such as formal diction,
informal diction, pedantic diction, abstract diction and more. In the poem Still I Rise by Maya
Angelou, she makes use of informal diction as a method of connecting to her ancestor’s past and
demonstrating the intrinsic power via the connection. Informal diction which is also known as
colloquial language is more of a conversational or language of everyday speech. One of the
examples that can be seen near the end of the poem (stanza 8, line 1) where the writer firmly
asserts that she has risen “out of history’s shame”. This connected to her ancestors’ enslavement
in America, and moreover, she is also referring to the way her ancestors were mistreated and
oppressed. Slaves were invariably kept illiterate on purpose, with most slave owners frightened
of slave literacy's influence. However, Angelou’s writing left an impactful message, especially
towards black people. Despite difficulties and prejudice, Angelou emphasizes her hope that she,
the speaker, and all black people would succeed despite their adversities.

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 Moving on to the next example that showed the usage of informal diction is in stanza 2,
line 3 and 4, in which she used the words ‘cause and diggin’. Angelou used informal, casual
speech and phrasing in order to connect with the concept of oppression. Her powerful metaphors
utilize common comparisons that would have been understandable to any slave: dust, air, and
backyard. In addition, the diction in the next stanza also ties to her ancestors' collective worries
and horrors: “You may shoot me with your words,/ You may cut me with your eyes,/ You may kill
me with your hatefulness” (stanza 6, line 1,2 and 3). The phrase here is meant to mirror her
ancestors' experiences. Nonetheless, she demonstrates that they endured so that she may survive.
She has been given equal strength as a result of their strength. The choices of words are easily
interpreted and understandable. Furthermore, we can see from the stanza 7, the speaker is
noticeably strong, but she also portrays the attitude of a fiercely confident woman: “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 language of the poem constantly directs the reader to the speaker's
past, one that offers her power to conquer any barrier, just as her ancestors did before her. As
such, the speaker is convinced that she is "the dream and the hope of the slave" and that she
would "rise" above all obstacles.

When we analyze the speaker's language, we can see her attitude more clearly. The term
"sassiness," paired with the "gloom" of the poem's "you," accentuates her taunting and confident
attitude in the second verse. The speaker goes even further than the second stanza's "sassiness"
in the seventh stanza: "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?". While challenging and provoking "you,"
the speaker reminds us that blackness is also "sexiness". Maya Angelou's use of several styles of
diction in this poem contributes to the effect of the poem, in which the reader is both pushed and
cheered on by the speaker.

"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou was written in 1978. The speaker's choice of diction and
tone in it creates a work that challenges readers to address the country's current and historical
racism. The speaker's boldness is a daring insult to those who have mistreated her and those like
her. The colloquial diction used is what made this poem more reader-friendly as it did not need
much analysis to understand what the speaker is trying to convey through this poem.

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6.0 LITERARY ELEMENTS/DEVICES USED

Literary devices refer to the techniques used by writers to produce a unique and focused
impact in their writing, convey information, or assist readers comprehend their work on a deeper
level. Authors will also utilize literary elements to encourage readers to engage more strongly
with a tale as a whole or with certain characters or themes. In the poem “Still I Rise” by Maya
Angelou, myriads of different literary elements are used to make this poem more special and
enjoyable to every reader.

One of the most obvious literary devices used in the poem is repetition. The phrase “I
rise” is repeated 7 times in the poem. The repetition is used to emphasize how strong the speaker
is although she went through great challenges in life, and that she will confidently stand up again
after the challenges. Furthermore, Angelou also used assonance in her poem. Assonance is the
repetition of vowel sounds in the same line, for instance the sound of /i/ in “With you bitter,
twisted lies” in stanza 1, line 2. In poetry, the primary function of assonance is to produce
rhythm. It directs which syllables should be stressed. This rhythm-making has a flow-on effect. It
aids in the retention of a set of words in the minds of those who hear them. Next, imagery is also
found in the poem. Imagery is used to make readers perceive things via their five senses. In “Still
I Rise”, imagery can be found in stanza 8, line 5, “I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide”.

Moreover, another literary device used is rhetorical questions. A rhetorical question is

one that is not intended to be answered; it is just posed to make a point. This can be seen in
stanza 2, 5 and 7. For example, “Does my sassiness upset you?”, “Does my haughtiness offend
you?” and “Does my sexiness upset you?”. In addition, Angelou also made use of a simile in the
poem. A simile's function is to help explain one thing by comparing it to another thing that is
perhaps seemingly unrelated and to make the meanings clearer to the readers. There are
numerous similes used in the poem and one of the examples is from stanza 1, line 4 which is
“But still, like dust, I’ll rise” and from stanza 3, line 1 which is “Just like moons and like sun”.
Next is the anaphora. Anaphora is the repetition of a word or expression in the first part of some
verses. The poet has repeated the words “You may” in the opening lines of the poem to express
her ideas. For instance, “You may write me down in history” and “You may trod me in the very
dirt”.

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 Other than that, the poet also used metaphors in the poem. Metaphors provide implicit
comparisons without directly using "like" or "as". Metaphor is a way of claiming that two things
are identical in comparison rather than just similar. This is useful in writing for expressing
abstract truths through specific imagery or notions. From the poem we can found metaphor in
stanza 9, line 6 which is “I am the dream and the hope of the slave”. The speaker represents her
slave ancestors' ambitions and goals. She aspires to accomplish everything that they were unable
to do. Last but not least, consonance also can be found in the poem. Consonance is the repetition
of consonant sounds in the same line. For example, the repetition of sound /l/ in “Welling and
swelling I bear in the tide” in stanza 8, line 6, and the repetition of sound /t/ in “Out of the huts
of history’s shame” in stanza 8, line 1.

7.0 CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE POEM

“Still I Rise” is primarily about self-respect, confidence, and self-esteem. In the poem,
Angelou disclosed how she will overcome anything through her confidence level that is rising.
She shows how nothing can get her down. Moreover, she will rise to any occasion, and nothing
that not even her skin color will be able to hold her back. Thus, this poem presents the reader
with a series of views expressed by the speaker about herself. She praises her strength, her body,
her personality, and her ability to rise up. In the last two stanzas, we can see that the persona is
really determined to rise up away from her personal and historical past. Not only that, she also
declares that there is nothing that can hold her back as she is going to rise above and beyond
anything that seeks to control her.

Next, the poem's title, 'Still I Rise,' is a protest against society's attempt to silence the
speaker's voice, meaning that it is a proclamation against the society that tries to dominate her
identity and voice. The poet's voice is represented through the poetic persona as she is a
representative of the entire black community. So, she attempts to break free from the shackles of
dominance in this poetry by raising her voice to declare that she and her people are no longer
silent because they now are brave enough and have the ability to speak out for their rights.
Hence, she will show them the capabilities of black people no matter how hard they have to try.
This proves that the term "I rise" in this poem does not refer to a single revolt. However, it is a

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collective revolutionary voice made up of the roaring outcry of a long-oppressed and betrayed
class.

8.0 CONCLUSION

The poem “Still I Rise” written by Maya Angelou discussed the reality that women have
to face since the beginning of the era. Unfortunately, this problem is still happening in today’s
society especially in Asian countries where people set up the beauty standard that people with
fair skin are considered beautiful and everyone is trying hard to meet up the standard. However,
this poem has proved that the only thing that we need to raise is our self-esteem. Hence, people
who feel like they are being judged and oppressed for not fulfilling the beauty standards now
should rise just like what Maya Angelou keeps on saying in her poem with the hope that more
people will realize how precious they are.

In a nutshell, Maya Angelou's purpose with this poem is to voice out to those who
oppress, and to those who are oppressed. The words "I rise" or "I'll rise" are repeated more than
ten times in this poem. This shows that she was trying to highlight to the reader that "rising" is
the central theme of this great poem. These words convey a message of hope, victory over
oppression, and certainty of prevailing over one's problems. Hence, this poem is very powerful
as it is an empowering poem about the struggle to overcome prejudice and injustice in society.
The message of “Still I Rise” is very crucial in a social environment where racial inequalities
relentlessly poison the status quo, and where prejudice towards women remains pervasive.