Still I Rise By Maya Angelou English Literature Essay

The site offers video, audio, readings, lifes of poets, essays to call a few. Poets.org besides offers a nexus, for pedagogues which give them thoughts on how to learn poesy. It besides contains a nexus which leads you to poetry events in your country.

This peculiar page of the site focuses on Black History Month and its Afro-american poets. It has links to have pictures, poets, poesy ( both written and audio signifiers ) and essays. There is besides a nexus for the poesy shop which features books, recordings and other points related to poesy. There were several links which caught my attending. I like Black History every bit good as poesy. One of the points was Poetic signifier which defined blues verse form and the Bop. The blues poem normally describes certain subjects such as battle, desperation and sex. The Bop consists of three stanzas of argumentative poesy.

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Another nexus which caught my attending was schools and motions such as Slam, black Arts Movement and Dark Room Collective. Slam is fundamentally a competition wherein poets perform before an audience who acts as Judgess. The poets work is judged based on the mode and enthusiasm the poet presents his work. These types of verse forms are non meant to be read in silence but to be performed.

Black Arts Movement emerged in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement. The plants were done in an attempt to make politically occupied work that explored the African American cultural and historical experience. It was criticized by many as being “ homophobic, anti-semitic and racially sole ” . The motion motivated new poets, authors and creative persons.

The Dark Room Collective is group focused on keeping a pattern of composing as a community of authors of colour. Kevin Young, a poet we discussed last hebdomad, is a member of this group. I chose these three because I enjoy the art of the statement and the activism behind their work.

I proceeded to associate the featured poets and take Jericho Brown. The nexus leads to his brief life and links to his plants, his official web site and readings. He is a really education adult male who graduated magna semen laude from Dillard University in 1998. He besides won the 2009 American Book Award for her first aggregation of poesy. He presently teaches originative authorship and is Assistant Professor of English at the University of San Diego.

The featured verse form that caught my attending was Maya Angelou ‘s “ Still I Rise ” . I enjoy Ms. Angelou ‘s work and was pleased to see her work being featured. The poem reads as follows:

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou

You may compose me down in history

With your bitter, distorted prevarications,

You may step me in the really soil

But still, like dust, I ‘ll lift.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with somberness?

‘Cause I walk like I ‘ve got oil Wellss

Pumping in my life room.

Merely like Moons and like Suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Merely like hopes jumping high,

Still I ‘ll lift.

Did you want to see me interrupt?

Bowed caput and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful calls?

Does my arrogance offend you?

Do n’t you take it atrocious difficult

‘Cause I laugh like I ‘ve got gilded mines

Diggin ‘ in my ain backyard.

You may hit me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your obnoxiousness,

But still, like air, I ‘ll lift.

Does my amorousness 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 hurting

I rise

I ‘m a black ocean, jumping and broad

Welling and swelling I hear in the tide.

Leaving behind darks of panic and fright

I rise

Into a dawn that ‘s wonderfully clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ascendants gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Ms. Angelou ‘s originative passion for his work is demonstrated in her strong endowment of weaving similes and exaggerations into her work. She uses similes to show the adult female ‘s haughtiness against those who hater her. For illustration, the usage of similes in the first three stanzas, the adult female compares herself to dust and air and how she rises.

“ Still I Rise ” is an Afro-american adult female ‘s response to those who wish her difficult and detest her. She starts off stating her attackers that they can tread her into the soil but merely like soil rises she excessively will lift. She portrays haughtiness and tells her attacker in the 2nd stanza why they surround themselves with somberness because she walks about as if she were rich. In the 3rd stanza which uses similes, the adult female continues to stand her land by stating her attacker that she will lift merely like the Sun and Moon.

In the 4th and 5th stanzas, the adult female straight confronts the attacker utilizing accusative duologue. She accuses them of desiring her to be in desperation. However, she refuses to let them to convey her down. She goes on with inquiring if her haughtiness fusss them. The adult female reiterates her place in the 6th stanza:

You may hit me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your obnoxiousness,

But still, like air, I ‘ll lift.

The adult female goes on in the 8th and 9th stanzas that she finishes off by saying that she was born signifier her ascendants ‘ shame and a yesteryear of hurting. She leaves behind the darks of fright and professes that she is the dream and hope of her people. No affair what anyone says or does, she will ever lift above it.

Ms. Angelou uses imagination in the 8th stanza wherein she describes herself as

“ a black ocean, jumping and broad

Welling and swelling I hear in the tide ”

My reading would be that she absorbs and does non reflect any ill will towards other and can prolong her pride and place and will non give.

Afterwards, I listened to one of the verse forms featured in sound. I chose “ I ‘m a Fool to Love You ” by Cornelius Eady. While listening, he speaks of his female parent and how she ended up married with his male parent. The verse form when read is sad. However, when you hear him reading it, the emotion is more graphic and I ‘m able to visualize what his female parent and male parent may hold been like.

I have visited this site in the past when I used to compose my poesy and read some of the poesy for inspiration. It is an first-class beginning for poets, pupils, instructors, or even readers who want to go immersed in the beauty and creativity of poesy.

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www.poets.org

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