Blog 14 - Reflecting Circle 6

I’m responding to Morgan’s response question for Reflecting Circle 6: “Literature Since 1975.” She said to pick one poem from this time period and put a particular stanza in your own words. Does it change the meaning of the poem?

I decided to write about “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou. I was very intrigued by this author especially when she said, “You may encounter many defeats but you must not be defeated.” This courage and strength is shown in every stanza of her poem. One stanza intrigued me. “…You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.” If I had to rewrite this portion of Angelou’s poem, it would go something like,

“You may try at every angle to change my sense of self, you may try to belittle and cripple my growth and progression, but try is all you will accomplish because, like air, I’ll rise.”

I think that this does not change the meaning of the poem even though it is not as eloquently written as Angelou’s stanza. She writes about the multiple attempts from “you” (which can be assumed as the white race) to defeat her. This woman’s ancestors had to endure oppression and slavery for decades and decades. Finally she is “the dream and the hope of the slave.” This poem portrays such an extreme amount of strength, one that many of us will never have to possess. Growing up in Arkansas, Angelou had to deal with racism even from her dentist. He refused her service because she was a black girl. She was later raped at the age of eight by her mother’s boyfriend. After a very laborious trial, her uncles murdered her rapist. These tribulations in her young life make her poetry extremely powerful.