Still I Rise

• The persona identifies herself as rising from the ‘huts of history’s shame’. Perhaps
Out of the huts of history’s shame
she feels that ‘history’ should be ashamed due to its repression of African
I rise Americans during the period in which slavery was legal. She may also feel that
Up from the past that’s rooted in pain ‘history’ should be ashamed due to its repression of women. Either way, she rises
I rise ‘from the past that’s rooted in pain’. She uses a metaphor to describe herself as a
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, ‘black ocean, leaping and wide, / Welling and swelling’, bearing in the tide. This
implies that she is now powerful.
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear • Her actions continue to be positive as she leaves ‘behind nights of terror and fear’,
I rise rising ‘into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear’. She is leaving behind the
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear repression suffered by her ancestors, but her identity is still rooted in her cultural
past. This is made evident by the lines: ‘Being the gifts that my ancestors gave, / I
I rise
am the dream and the hope of the slave’. The final three lines of the poem repeat
Being the gifts that my ancestors gave, the phrase ‘I rise’ – there is nothing impeding her now – she is ‘rising’.
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise Form and Structure
I rise
• The poem is written in free verse.

Comparative Ideas

• This is a poem about the past shaping identity as so could usefully be compared to
Digging.

• It is about freedom and so could be compared to Once Upon a Time.

• It is a female experience and so could be compared to Warning, I Shall Paint my

Nails Red, Mirror…

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou, born in 1928, is a female African American writer. Following her parents
separation, Angelou, and her brothers, were sent from their parental home in California back to
the segregated south, to live with their grandmother in rural Arkansas. At the age of eight,
Angelou went to stay with her mother in St. Louis where she was molested and raped by her
mother’s partner. With her brother she later returned to stay with her grandmother before she
returned again to live with her mother and her mother’s husband in California.