I was introduced to this poem many years ago by my English Teacher at South London College. I was doing a part time A Level in English Lit at night school. It was as recent as 1987, when I was in my early thirties (before I went to the University of Sussex) and the whole experience changed my view of poetry and indeed the world. The teacher, Jane, showed us a video of Maya Angelou reading it and wow... indeed she performed it and although the clip below is less demonstrative as she was in her one woman show (which I never saw) the poem is a loud and proud production:
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,You may tread 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 the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it 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 a 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.
It changed my entire life. R.I.P., Maya Angelou, there will be few like you.
You may write me down in history
