Maya Angelou- Still I Rise

In memory of Dr Maya Angelou, who passed away today aged 86 I was going to post my favourite poem of her's, 'Still I Rise' without comment, convinced that nothing I could say would ever live up to the power and brilliance of her own words. But although I still believe that what I have to say about her could never match what she had to say about herself and her work, one of the most abiding sentiments that Dr Angelou has left for me is that to hide oneself for fear of failure and recrimination is not living life to its full potential- that emotions and the essence of living should be celebrated. So although I have cried three times already over her passing (which when you're in an office is surprisingly difficult to conceal) and am writing this on a laptop that is substantially older than Justin Bieber's career (and may in fact be older than Justin Bieber himself) here I write my own interpretation of her words.

The poem can be found here http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/still-i-rise and it might be better to open it in a second tab. I'm also putting a link to Angelou reading a slightly edited version of the poem. She has a truly wonderful voice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOqo50LSZ0

'Still I Rise' is a poem that does just that, and the oxymoron of the title is the gateway by which Angelou uses supreme control of language to make the rhetoric, the hyperbole of the lines more powerful. The first verse is confrontational with the power immediately held by the voice of the poem (Angelou herself): 'You may write me down in history' she begins and then subverts immediately 'with your bitter, twisted lies'- the tone of the stanza is hard (it's easy to get some real venom behind the harsh consonants in both 'bitter' and 'twisted') but the end of it is lifted, held and controlled by her use of commas 'But still, like dust, I rise'.

The second verse works in opposition: sassiness is a fabulous word to say, although with a southern English accent you really do need to put a lot of sass into it for it to sound right! Its bright sibilance fizzes in contrast to the darker images and longer vowel sounds, the 'gloom' and 'oil' in the second and third lines (oil being oxymoronic too being physically dark but prized). The rhetorical questions that become part of the fabric of the poem are both challenging and  humorous- later on she will ask 'Does my haughtiness offend you?' 'Does my sexiness upset you?'- the symmetry in the rhythms of these lines becoming taunts to her opponents. And for all that the nature of this poem is a serious and angry confrontation, what does she do when goaded? She dances and laughs in celebration of her own worth, here manifested as gold mines and diamonds, natural resources taken by man. It is an interesting opposition to the images with which Angelou herself identifies: the ocean, the moons and suns: all things that are greater than mankind itself, world-shifting and profound.

The images associated with those unknown (although very much known) foes in the poem are brutal: 'You may kill me with your hatefulness' Angelou writes, mirroring her opening line. Indeed, the notion of her broken body 'bowed head', 'shoulders falling' in the face of this hatefulness only serves to emphasise this possibility of total destruction, both physically and psychologically. However, the refrain and the overriding sound at the end of the poem with the lengthened 'i' sound in 'rise' an unstoppable exhalation, the breath that drives the poem, the voice, keeps going. Indeed, the increased frequency of the phrase 'I rise' and the change in meter in the final two stanzas mean that the reader speaking the poem aloud takes in more and more breath, becomes, in a sense, more alive as the poem reaches its powerful crescendo. This crescendo is also emphasised by the powerful iambic lines: 'Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave/I am the dream and the hope of the slave'. Angelou's message here becomes clear: taking the hurt and the suffering of her own life, of her history and the history of her ancestors has galvanised a response which will see her going far beyond above the people who would crush her. The end, depending on how you read it, is a meditative sigh or a chanting cry: 'I rise/I rise/I rise'.

It's a poem that never fails to give me goosebumps and it is Angelou's skill as a poet as well as the sentiment of the words themselves that inspire such a powerful reaction in me, and in many people who read or hear her work. I was wondering this evening why her death so upset me and I think the reason is this: that such a woman with such tremendous capability to live to the fullest potential of her being has now left us, makes her death seem somehow more profound. But the truth is, the very fact that such a person has existed, and that we can share in her thoughts and her life is a joy that can never be extinguished. And so, in that spirit, Angelou can have the final word here:

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." 

Americanah- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I had to leave this post unfinished and was going to leave it unpublished as well but on re-reading I realised that I'd got further with it than I thought. I'm posting it here because this is a great book, I'm just sorry that my thoughts on it are a little under-developed.

I'm a big fan of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and I was gutted to have missed the premiere of Half of a Yellow Sun in Streatham a few of weeks ago. There are lots of things to say about this book- mostly compliments- but there are also a couple of things  about the novel that just lacked a bit of the magic of her previous two novels, and in particular Half of a Yellow Sun which is one of the most astonishing books I have ever read.

Americanah is a departure from the subject matter of Adichie's previous two books. In Americanah, the political situation in Nigeria is the catalyst for the action rather than the subject of the novel as two school mates Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love and go to university in nineties Lagos, amidst the chaos of teacher strikes and military disquiet. Half way through their undergraduate degrees Ifemelu departs for America to complete her studies while Obinze remains in Nigeria before trying his luck in the UK. The themes of love, separation and reconciliation run through the novel but this, frankly, is no where near as interesting as the development of Obinze and, particularly, Ifemelu and the identity politics of being a Black African in America and Europe.

In fact, where Adichie is strongest in the novel is where she is engaging with race through Ifemelu's blogs. It is polemical stuff in its directness, and ensures that readers are fully confronted with the underlying racism (and sexism) at work in so many aspects of Euro-American society. The blogs, emails and texts that permeate this novel  are fascinating in themselves as literary devices as they are undoubtedly the 21st century epistolary reality in literature. We encounter all three every day yet why does it feel so much more modern when they are used in literature? Is it because we are used to the diarist, to the correspondence by letter? How many books can you name using a technological epistolary device that you would deem 'classic'? This gets us in to the realm of 'what makes a classic?' 'what makes a novel a work of literature?': important questions but not the original intention of this post.

But it is interesting nonetheless that, through Ifemelu, Adichie presents her readers with two courses of food for thought: racial prejudice and literary snobbishness. Confronting her reader with both of these simultaneously can almost feel overwhelming and there were a couple of moments, when I was reading this on my commute, that I had to close the book for a few moments and just think about my own attitudes, as a reader of fiction, as a white privileged woman. I loathe this phrase but I've never felt so compelled to check my own privilege as I have reading this book.

That said, I was a little unsatisfied by the conclusion to the book and it felt that, as important as Ifemelu's return to Nigeria was in the trajectory of the novel, the return to her relationship (the word here used in the most general, non-loaded way to avoid any spoilers) with Obinze did not ring true with their characters. This is a shame because it is the last impression I had of the book. But there is much here to enjoy, to be interested and challenged by, and Adichie remains one of the most interesting and compelling authors out there.