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Maya Angelou
Still i rise. You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me down 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 backyard.
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. 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.
The tone is angry or hurt, I think this tone was used to give meaning to her words. From what I've read I think the poem is about how blacks and whites were segregated and it shows what the person in the poem thinks of it.
Facts;; 1.) Maya Angelou's real name is Marguerite, her brother gave her the nickname and it stuck. 2.) She was three years old when her parents marriage failed and they sent her and her brothers to live with their grandmother. 3.) When she was little, she went to a Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. 4.) One of her life long favorite poems is William Shakespears 'When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes.' 5.) In the 1950's and 1960's She became a singer and dancer. 6.) Since 1981 she has lived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.