Poem Presentation

Recorded reading and analysis of two stanzas

Stanza I

‘Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?’

Analysis:

-The first line is telling us that harassment occurred towards black people from white people. (Waste, discarded) 

– The second-line is referring to the Jim Crow laws (Not allowed to look at white people, segregated, early 1900’s) (Bowed, lowered). 

– The third line is referring to that white people back then liked to belittle black people and that Maya Angelou was so downcast that her shoulders were falling or slumping down. I believe that she chose teardrops as a comparison to show the sadness that she was displaying at the time of these horrible actions. 

-The fourth line is referring to the fact that her cries of help and pain, even more, weakened her shoulders mentioned in line three. (white people). 

-Three lines of this stanza were direct questions aimed at the readers for their opinion on what is right if what happened to her was lawful and just. 

-The verse as an entirety is telling the reader that the white race has treated black people as waste for over 400 years.

Stanza II

‘Just like moons and suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll Rise.’

Analysis:

The stanza as an entirety is telling the reader that Maya Angelou was so confident that she would rise out of the waste and dirt that she said about moons and suns (day and night). (repetition).

– She is also suggesting that it is human nature to bounce back and recover because she is saying that her hopes are always high, just like they should be in her perspective which is very understandable from what she had seen.

– Another thing that interested me was that Maya Angelou sourced her imagery from nature. I think that this is because she would’ve seen all of the things that she mentioned and never took them for granted. The sun, the moon and the tides are mighty, able to control many things. The sea was mentioned twice in this poem, and the other time Maya Angelou was comparing herself to a ‘black ocean’ which is saying that she is unstoppable which links back to the fact that she will never stop rising.