Introduction
Poetry is, by all means, one of the few intricate forms of writing with deep meaning, often developed by poets to convey profound communication to people. Comprehending a poem’s message starts by appreciating its format and applying the unique poetry elements to unify the various stanzas and lines. The matter makes poems notably harder to apprehend relative to many fluent writings. The following work uses Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” to depict the exceptional features that make the genre (poetry) conspicuous compared to other forms of writing.
Brief Analysis and Meaning
Maya is a renowned African American civil rights activist and author who uses her writing skills to impact societies and convey powerful messages to those in power. “Still I Rise” is a 1978 creation and narrates the defiant and persevering nature of people of color in the U.S., whose resilience and dignity stand out despite the oppressions. Generally, the poem can be understood as a critique of the racism faced by people of color in the U.S., particularly women who dare to stand out.
Maya begins the poem by outlining some of the unjust deeds committed by the oppressors, who wield power. The first line of the first stanza reiterates the autocrat’s capability to determine how history reminisces the persona through the use of upsetting, distorted deceits. The poet goes on to compare the self to the dust that the oppressor has the power to walk over and crush, but maintains that it will rise from the ground the same way dust leaves the earth.
Moreover, the persona wonders why her boldness and attitude, which compare to those of elite persons owning the dollar-oil industry, offend the oppressor, making him miserable. She then declares to the oppressor that she is like the sun, moon, and ocean tides that rise inevitably, regardless of the situation. The speaker in the poem further wonders whether the despot purposely exposes her to oppression to see her become weary and weak from sobbing. She conveys this message in stanza 4, where she asks, “Were you eager to see me broken, forcing me into submissiveness, bending my head and my eyes not able to look directly at you?” (Hopkins 4).
The speaker outlines several other aspects that make the persecutor, addressed as “you,” bitter, including her sexiness, which pushes him to use his might to see the persona broken. The matter shows the many tactics the oppressor can use to finish the weak speaker, including shooting, cutting, and killing, but she maintains that she will survive. Accordingly, Maya uses this poem to promote her civil activist works, purposely cheering the oppressed people’s dignity and courage in the face of cruelty.
Poetry Features
Structure with Stanzas
“Still I Rise” contains several features that distinguish it as a poem. To begin with, the presence of stanzas with a specific number of lines or quatrains differentiates the work from many other types of writing. According to Hopkins, poets use stanzas or cantos to organize their messages, often dedicating each to a specific aspect (41).
The lines often exist in an integrating form that forces one to read through a whole verse to deduce its meaning (Hopkins 41). The facet differs notably from the other forms of writing, where sentences must have a stand-alone meaning, such as in books and news development. Thus, “Still I Rise” has nine stanzas with uneven line sets. Stanzas 1 to 7 have four quatrains each, while the eighth verse has six. The last stanza has nine lines, making it the largest, possibly to portray the speaker’s final assuring voice that the oppressed are rising.
Rhyme Scheme
Poems and songs have a unique resemblance courtesy of the so-called rhyme scheme. The aspect comes from the lines’ ending voices, which frequently jingle to give a special recitation effect. Rhyme schemes take on different forms, often illustrated using letters, based on the specific line’s ending and the similarities between the voices. Just like the similarities in the number of quatrains in the poem “Still I Rise,” the work’s rhyme scheme relates.
The first seven cantons follow the ABCB format, which changes in the last two verses. The writer uses ABABCC as the scheme in the eighth stanza and ABABCCBBB for the last stanza. Consequently, the repeated voices that end the lines in the various verses of the poet bring about the poetic element during recitations. The unique feature makes it hard for the reader to confuse the work with a book’s excerpt or a news article. Moreover, the chosen rhyme scheme makes Maya’s work easy to mesmerize and chant during the civil rights movement campaigns. Therefore, the writer employs simple language with repeated phrases at the end of different lines throughout the work to create a poem.
Unique Mood and Tone
Poets write poems to entertain, inform, teach, motivate, warn, and many other reasons. The texts are mostly brief and concise, yet have extremely complex implications. Moreover, different readers often derive dissimilar significance from the same poem due to variations in their perspectives and the ability to decipher the complex emotions expressed in words. Accordingly, mood and tone are unique elements of every poem. Besides the many meanings a poet intends to convey to readers, the attitude remains clear, though many poems elicit multiple temperaments.
For example, “Still I Rise” targets at least two types of audiences: the oppressed and the oppressors. The mood thus remains divergent among these two groups, with determination, reassurance, strength, and courage being some of the dispositions directed to the former category of readers. Maya is a renowned civil rights activist and definitely wants her work to strengthen the many people of color facing atrocities while fighting for their rights. The writer equally wants all females to determine their gifts and compete fairly with men in the patriarchal societies of the world.
Figurative Language and Other Poetic Techniques
Maya employs several poetic skills and diverse figurative language elements in “Still I Rise” to make it a poetic work. Examples of the unique poetic skills employed by the writer include alliteration, anaphora, similes, and enjambment. Anaphora involves the recurrence or repetition of phrases of similar words at the start of several quatrains in a series. The repeated words purposely reiterate a theme or mood, making the work repetitive and easy to memorize.
Stanza 6 provides an excellent example of anaphora, where Maya repeats the phrase “You may” from lines 1 to 3. Alliteration involves the use of similar letters to begin words in succession, as shown in line 1 of stanza 8, “huts of history” (Maya 1). Moreover, enjambment is a distinctive feature unique to poetry. The method involves cutting lines before their complete meaning is revealed, only to have the writer conclude it in the following quatrain, forcing the reader to read further down quickly. The feature is present between lines 2 and 3 of stanzas 1 and 2 in “Still I Rise.”
Conclusion
In conclusion, Maya’s piece “Still I Rise” can only be a poem, not another form of text. The work features spectacular elements unique to poetry, including the use of a distinctive structure that incorporates stanzas and quatrains. The presence of a specific rhyme scheme in the work further reveals its poetic nature. Other features, including alliteration, enjambment, use of similes, and anaphora, further determine the work as a poem.
Works Cited
Hopkins, John A. F. The Universal Deep Structure of Modern Poetry. United Kingdom, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.
Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise” from And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems, 1978.