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."
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