

The “you”-who stands in for an oppressive majority-will not succeed in diminishing or belittling the speaker, despite all efforts. Against this social and historical backdrop, the poem’s defiance reads clearly. Maya Angelou was involved in the civil rights movement and wrote often about the experience of being a Black American woman during a time of significant discrimination and prejudice in American society.


The context of Angelou’s life sheds light on the themes of the poem.
#STILL I RISE POEM MEANING SERIES#
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 poem is addressed to an abstract, unspecified figure who represents the forces of oppression the speaker experiences in her life. Still, I Rise, by Maya Angelou, offers an intriguing mixture of tones: playful and defiant, comical and angry, self-assured and bitter. 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. Broadly speaking, the poem is an assertion of the dignity and resilience of marginalized people in the face of oppression. One of Angelou's most acclaimed works, the poem was published in Angelou’s third poetry collection And Still I Rise in 1978. Still I Rise is a poem by the American civil rights activist and writer Maya Angelou. Summary of The Poem Still I Rise By Maya Angelou
