I Will Still Rise

 

Hi Dragonflies,

Recently I have been reading Maya Angelou's poetry book And Still I Rise. She is truly an inspiring woman. Fierce and Inspirational she was not just a feminist poet but also a civil rights activist and a professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University of North Carolina. She read poetry at Bill Clintons inauguration and was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama. These are just some of her amazing accomplishments. She rose from a background of poverty, violence and racism to become a voice of a generation that still speaks in volumes. I thought it would be good to share one of her poems to help my dragonflies to feel validated and stronger in times of great pain.

STILL I RISE

By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want me to see broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

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.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.