Still I Rise is a poem by the American civil rights activist and writer Maya Angelou. One of Angelou's most acclaimed works, the poem was published
Still I Rise: Summary - By Maya Angelou
About Still I Rise Still I Rise is a poem by the American civil rights activist and writer Maya Angelou . One of Angelou's most acclaimed works, the poem was published in Angelou’s third poetry collection And Still I Rise in 1978. Broadly speaking, the poem is an assertion of the dignity and resilience of marginalized people in the face of oppression. Because Angelou often wrote about blackness and black womanhood, "Still I Rise" can also be read more specifically as a critique of anti-black racism. Still, I Rise, by Maya Angelou, offers an intriguing mixture of tones: playful and defiant, comical and angry, self-assured and bitter. The poem is addressed to an abstract, unspecified figure who represents the forces of oppression the speaker experiences in her life. The poem consists of a series of questions and expressions of defiance, with the speaker returning again and again to the refrains of “I’ll rise” and “I rise.” The context of Angelou’s life sheds light on the them…
