Maya Angelou's 'Still I Rise': Remaking, Recycling, and the Language of Erasure

Maiya: 0:00

Welcome to Beyond the Verse with me, Maya, and my co host, Jo. This is a podcast on poetry brought to you by Poemanalysis. com and Poetry Plus, the home of poetry for readers, students, and teachers alike. Welcome to today's episode, where we'll be talking about Maya Angelou and the poem, Still I Rise, which opens, 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. Now, Jo, would you like to tell us what we'll be talking about today?

Joe: 0:32

Well, thank you, Maya, and thank you to our listeners. That was beautifully read, as always. The poem Still I Rise engages with some of the most profound themes of any poem that I can remember reading in recent times, examples of which include the recycling and remaking of Black history and channeling that through Maya Angelou's personal experience to make broader points about the Black experience in America and beyond, themes of colonial erasure, And we're going to be talking about the way in which violence is manifest throughout the poem, and the relationship between personal suffering and then collective suffering as well.

Maiya: 1:06

Absolutely. And now it's been ten years since Maya Angelou passed, and I think today would be a great to commemorate her incredible legacy, not only as a poet, but as a cultural figurehead well. So please tell us more about her.

Joe: 1:21

Thanks for that, Maya. I think to better understand the poem as we perceive it today, we need to go back to the moment when the poem came out, which was 1978. It's Maya Angelou's third poetry collection, titled And Still I Rise, and perhaps we'll talk about that word and later on, which features in the title of the collection, but not the title of the poem. It's important, I think, to note where Maya Angelou was in her career and where she stood within the fabric of American culture at this moment. So, By this point she'd already published three autobiographies, and if any of our listeners think that sounds like a lot, she actually went on to publish seven, um, in her entire career. So we'll talk again about that process of remaking and redefining one's individual legacy a little bit later on. She was a massive cultural figure at this moment in time. She had been on two presidential equality committees. She had several honorary degrees by this moment in time. She was an important member of the American sort of cultural family. This collection is really interesting because this collection, I think, and I'd love to hear if you agree, is the moment in which Maya Angelou went from being an important cultural figure to being a really important poet. Her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which came out in 1969, had established her reputation as a hugely important figure. I don't think she had, at that stage, written any truly defining poems, but I think this collection Still I Rise, going to be talking about today, but also the poem Phenomenal Woman. I think these are the poems that really take her from an important cultural figure to being an important poet.

Maiya: 2:51

I mean, Maya Angelou's name is one that I think comes up in every conversation about the world's great poets. She has an absolutely incredible legacy that has carried all the way through to influencing pop culture. poets that have come after her and I would completely agree with you on this collection being a cultural touch point. I think Phenomenal Woman and I think Still I Rise. If you were to ask anyone on the street about Maya Angelou's name these are the two poems that would come up most frequently. I think it speaks to not only her personal success and continuing effort to revise herself and her legacy and her story, this poem also stands as a real icon of American poetry, full stop.

Joe: 3:47

And I think we're going to be talking about a lot of themes about continuation One of the things that this poem is doing is it's seeking to establish Angelou's relationship to the poets who came before her, particularly some poets that we'll talk about a little bit later on, like Langston Hughes and Sterling Brown. But I'm going to throw back to you, Maya, that's where Maya Angelou was in 1978. She was emerging as a poetic force from her wider cultural background. But where is she now, 10 years after her death?

Maiya: 4:14

I think as much as this poem obviously stands as a real turning point for her as a poet, we do have to look towards the future as well because by the time it got to 93, she read at Clinton's inauguration. That, in itself, is such a huge achievement, not solely for a woman at the time, or a black woman at the time, but as a poet, to stand on that stage and make that announcement, I think absolutely blows any prior achievement out of the water. That is a point where she is being viewed by millions of people.

Joe: 4:50

Well, I think, I think the 93 Inauguration that you've mentioned is a really important moment. I think, if my memory serves me correctly, there had only been one American poet who had ever read a Presidential Inauguration, and that was Robert Frost, who, for, you know, a lot of poetry lovers and those of you who aren't aware, Robert Frost is kind of Mr. America when it comes to 20th century poetry. There is, you know, there are a few more defining figures, but of course there's also a member of the Um, of a particular social class, is a white man, to have the next poet standing up to read at the inauguration, be a black woman, I think was an unbelievably important moment. Because what we have to remember is, that's one of those moments where the world is watching. I think it's impossible to imagine Amanda Gorman's performance at the most recent presidential inauguration in which she read her poem, The Hill We Climb, without taking in the context of Maya Angelou's performance in 1993. This is one of those moments in which the world stands still to look at America and to look at the way in which America projects itself towards the world. And the selection of Maya Angelou to read her poem in 93 shows us how important a figure she was 15 years after this collection was released. And I think this collection is an inflection point in the career of Maya Angelou. I think this is the moment she goes into the stratosphere. She was already important, she was already influential. Um, a very, very prominent figure. This is the moment she becomes a legendary figure and that legend persists to this day.

Maiya: 6:15

I think it's significant to note as well that for a vast majority of Angelou's poems, there is that tension between the singular I and the collective I, and I think having a platform that's as great as hers was, while speaking to that collective I, speaking on behalf of a community, transgresses a lot of boundaries in terms of her position as a political figure. So to you Jo, what do you read through the poem in the relationships that are evident, whether that's between the speaker and the reader, whether that's between the poet and the speaker?

Joe: 6:54

Well it's a great question, I think that one of the things that really strikes me about the poem is the kind of slightly adversarial voice that we get throughout it. This is a poem that is not taking prisoners. This is a poem that is speaking directly to an audience that is not necessarily receptive to the ideas that are being given. This is a poem that is bristly around the edges. And I think you get that right from the opening lines that you read so so beautifully earlier on. That repeated use of the direct address of speaking to individuals that have wronged Maya Angelou. And Maya Angelou had a, you know, a very troubled upbringing and if listeners want to know more about that there's plenty of information about her online. And of course if they want the best available resources they can go to poemanalysis. com and Poetry Plus subscribers can get all the information they need about Maya Angelou's Poetry Plus. But the relationship that you talk about between the poetic voice and the intended recipients is a really interesting one because it's adversarial like I said but to my mind, it's a continuation of a voice that belongs to other black poets in the 20th century before Maya Angelou. I'm going to talk later on about the poem Strong Men by Sterling Brown, which adopts a similar voice but is far less direct in its approach. And I think this is Maya Angelou taking the baton of some prominent black poets and carrying that message forward in a far more direct and adversarial way. And you get that all the way through, through the juxtaposition of the direct address, the accusatory you, and the use of the first person pronouns, I and me, all the way through the poem. Do you have any thoughts you'd like to add on that?

Maiya: 8:27

I completely agree. I think there is that continued thread of placing you and I in complete opposition throughout the poem, I think as any person who reads this poem on the page, becoming implicated in that opposition, becoming the you of the poem, becoming the person accused, makes that message so much more powerful. Obviously, throughout the poem, Angelou speaks to years of colonial oppression. She speaks to a language of violence that is absolutely critical to the reception of this poem. I think there is a perpetuated erasure of the Black community throughout. Obviously, throughout history, this is a thread we've seen time and time again. And there is still a conversation we're having today about how, history has continually erased Black narratives. This poem is Maya Angelou reclaiming her story and the story of her community. Those opening lines, You may trod me in the dirt, but still like dust I'll rise. Is an absolute reclamation, I think. What stands out to me particularly, is the sixth stanza of this poem. 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. That language, shoot, cut, kill, is so powerful You're having very violent physical effect of those initial words, to then pair it with words, eyes, hatefulness you're having a doubled effect. There's a sense that this is a story that is being endured in both a very physical and mental way. I think Angelou does a fantastic job of tackling that juxtaposition as well. I mean, I, I don't know how you feel about that stanza in particular, but that language of, being broken and breakage is something that always stands out to me every time I read this poem.

Joe: 10:32

I completely agree, and actually, the thing I would like to do is draw a connection between the final line of that stanza and going back to the opening stanza that you mentioned, because I find this description of the ways in which she rises, so she uses a series of similes throughout the poem. To explain the way in which she is going to and later that she is rising And I think these are absolutely fascinating if you go back to that opening stanza, but still like dust I'll rise There's something to me That is just so fascinating about that choice of word dust Obviously, it goes without saying that dust is, in most people's lives, something they would rather not be present. It's something we sweep away, it's something we regard as waste. That idea that Angelou is using that as a conduit to express a manner of growth, a manner of pride, something that she is building on, I think is the example of the reclamation you were talking about. Black history in America to this day, but obviously in 1978, was something that was You know, ignored. Something that had been, swept away, literally or metaphorically. Something that was not a platform on which to tell a great story or to write a great poem. And she is reclaiming that. She is taking something that has been belittled, has been, as I've said already, swept away. And she is using that as the building blocks to define her own legacy and her own experience. And I find that to be Just really moving and completely, um, disarming. I find it, it never ceases to surprise me, as a line. And I think the other thing about it is, of course, dust is residual. Dust is the remnants of that which came before. There's a bit of me in there, there's a bit of you in there. It has no identity. It's no longer tied to the person from which it was shed, it's just a collective past. And Maya Angelou's decision to embrace that past I find really, really powerful. And I think to compare that to the stanza that you've just mentioned, in which, you know, what's the only thing sort of less tangible than dust, which is, you know, barely physical at all? She goes for air. And air is the thing she returns to in the sixth stanza that you were just talking about, Maya. And I would love to get your thoughts if you have anything to add about my ramblings on dust, that'd be lovely. But also, what is that relationship between dust and air and how does it change Maya Angelou's message?

Maiya: 12:53

I mean, look, ultimately, this poem, as you read through each stanza, is about transformation. And I think going from that motif of dust to a motif of air is very, very important. As you said, dust is residual. It Sits on top, it can be swept away. Air in itself is uplifting as a motif throughout a lot of poetry that you'll read, but I think what's particularly poignant is that Angelou doesn't start there. She doesn't start at the uplifting moment. She starts on the ground. She starts in that dust. And I think that sense of grit that this poem tracks throughout is something that is incredibly significant to Angelou's story that she's telling within this poem. I think moving from something that has been for so long ignored or demonised speaks to the experience of black people in America, black people in Britain. It's a story we're telling every single day. This isn't a problem that has been solved. And Angelou's poem is just as relevant today as it was when it was written, as it was 10 years ago when she passed. This transformation from dust to air, something so elemental, so core to our being, is something that she has taken that now completely belongs to her and I think that is so beautiful.

Joe: 14:18

No, I think that's beautifully put as well, and I think we've spoken already about transformation and I want to just return to the broad strokes of Angelou's career that we mentioned a bit earlier on. To write seven autobiographies feels strange, right? Most people think of an autobiography as being something definitive. Now, the thing I find so enduringly powerful about this poem is it completely shatters that notion. It shatters the notion of a person as something fully formed as something that has a beginning and an ending. We are continually being remade as individuals, as we experience new things, as we move through life, but also that story continues even after we're dead. Maya Angelou's story is still evolving. And the way we look back at the past changes and I think that sense of remaking and recycling what came before and to make it into something new is something really present within the poem but is also in many ways a story of Maya Angelou's career and it's, it's always lovely when you find those moments where a poet is able to articulate something that you feel as though they've been trying to say all their lives and I find this poem to be one of those moments where Maya Angelou is shouting out loud and clear to her audience, this is who I am now, and I am in a state of flux, I am changing just as I will continue to change, and just as I wasn't the same person I was a year ago, two years ago. And I find that to be something absolutely mesmerizing as a reader.

Maiya: 15:44

she says it in her poem as well. Do you want to see me broken, bowed head and lowered eyes? She is telling you outright. She does not want to be seen as someone who is defined by any trauma they experienced or defined by some specific moment in her life. I think what absolutely adds to that sense of, remaking as well is The choice of Angelou to use elemental terms in this, very much in conversation with the more mechanical, more man made elements of the poem. She presents her speaker as something that is integral to the natural world. So, Jo, I'd love to know a little bit more from you on that sense of mechanization and the man made elements in the poem, given that she has this kind of juxtaposition between the natural and the colonial language that plays in with, you know, the sense of oil and gold and the things that we ascribe financial value to within that sphere. So, so what are your thoughts on that?

Joe: 16:45

Well I think it's one of the elements of the poem that I didn't pick up on on first reading. I think it's one of those things that as I've come back to the poem, we talked about this before the recording. That one of the things that marks a great perm from a good one is how many times you can reread it and find something new. And I think this is definitely an example of that. So talking about the oil in the garden, I'm just gonna read a couple of lines. The one line in, the second stanza,'cause I walk, like I've got oil wells pumping in my living room. And then later on in the per she describes how,'cause I laugh, like I've got gold mines digging in my own backyard. Now the thing I find absolutely brilliant about that is the way in which he is, again, reclaiming things that we associate with a particular colonial attitude. People go across the world, or went across the world historically, because they felt like they were entitled to claim something if they could. Now, I just want to slow this down a little bit. Starting with gold. This is obviously a clear link to the Americas, you know, the new world as it was perceived to be by European colonizers, you go back to gold as this initial driver of European colonialism to the new world, and then you talk about oil, which obviously, in the 21st century has, you know, been one of the big drivers of inflation over the past few years, has been one of the big drivers of global conflict over the past 50 years. So that's the backdrop from which Maya Angelou is including these references. But the thing I love about them is the way that she subverts them. Because these gold mines, as she mentions, are in her own backyard. The oil wells are in her living room. She is displacing these sought after elements. And putting them in her own life, her own domestic spaces. And what that does is it completely challenges the reader's expectation of what valuable means. These are stories, these are domestic spaces, these are individual stories of black identity that she is saying they have as much value within them as any gold or any oil well. And of course, as a black woman, because these places have the possessive pronoun my, these are spaces in which black people live, and black families grow up. And she is saying that these places are the ones that have real value. And she is trying to emphasize the fact that these families have an important place in the fabric of American life. Every bit as valuable as any shred of gold.

Maiya: 19:11

Absolutely. And I know we mentioned Phenomenal Woman earlier. I think it's also significant to note that the line, I dance like I've got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs, doesn't just speak to the history as a black woman, but it really points out her sense of femininity. And that is a thread that I have always personally enjoyed throughout Angelou's poems, is that she has a full sense of being a woman and writing about the experience of being a woman. Using the line, diamonds at the meeting of my thighs, again displaces that colonial sense of wealth, the diamonds, something that is incredibly sought after into something that is imbued within her own body. She immediately places value on herself as a woman, and I think that is an incredible thing to do. from a community that has been undervalued for so long.

Joe: 20:05

I think that's absolutely beautifully expressed. And on that note, we're going to go to a short break. See you again soon. Insert music here. We are delighted to announce that Poetry Plus subscribers now have access to a brand new feature on our site Which is printable poem PDFs And they are available for every single poem out of copyright currently on our site, and that is many thousands of poems. Now this is a brilliant resource, whether you're a student, a teacher, or you just want to better understand an individual poem. You can print off the poem. As is, beautifully, cleanly expressed. You can print it off with meter syllables attached. That will highlight the syllables in bold and help you to understand poetic meters like iambic pentameter and many others. You can print off the poem with the rhyme scheme included and beautifully color coded, or you can do as many of those features on or off as you like. It is a brilliant resource, whether you're a teacher or a student. You can print it off. They look great. We're very proud of them. And they are available for PoetryPlus subscribers. So if anyone who's not a subscriber is interested in testing out that resource or any of the other features that come with being a PoetryPlus subscriber, They can sign up now at Poemanalysis. com Okay, back to the podcast.

Maiya: 21:17

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Joe: 21:18

Okay, welcome back to Beyond the Verse and just before the break we were talking about the reasons that drove European colonizers to the Americas and other parts of the world and I think whenever we're talking about colonial history it's important to mention the many many thousands of people that were forcibly taken across the Atlantic. as slaves and that journey across the ocean is a really important influence upon Maya Angelou's poetry, in particular this poem. I know Maya, you want to pick that up and run with it for a little bit, so over to you.

Maiya: 21:49

Absolutely. I think you can't do justice to this poem without discussing the vast amount of water imagery that is in this poem. For listeners or readers who don't really know the history,, the Middle Passage was the forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to America. The passage would take anywhere between six and eleven weeks, during which time the enslaved were kept in the most atrocious conditions. lot of them passed away. A lot of them were actually thrown overboard in barbaric acts of violence. This poem absolutely speaks to that troubled history of the Middle Passage, and I would actually quite like to refer to a critic that I read, Christina Sharpe, who has written In the Wake on Blackness and Being, a critical text that addresses the importance of the Middle Passage in Black literature. Now, Christina Sharp argues that the ocean itself, the ocean as a motif, the ocean as a physical place. is a carrier of violence for black people. Across the Middle Passage, the enslaved that were thrown overboard, Christina Sharpe argues their chemicals are constantly recycled by the ocean and in doing so the chemicals that make up their very being have never truly disappeared. This speaks evidently across the board to how black stories are constantly being remade and recycled. for Sharp, the, the trauma of the middle passage is something that is continually brought up by any motif use of the ocean. Now what's particularly poignant here for me, Maya Angelou uses this term, I'm a black ocean leaping and wide, welling and swelling, I bear in the tide. Now what's very important to note is that in earlier parts of the poem, the rhyme scheme is a little bit convoluted. There's not necessarily a very clear resonance there. In this line, the rhyme of wide and tied, the mimicry of welling and swelling provides a lyrical quality that really saturates this stanza with fullness. Now, what I believe Angelou is doing here And Jo, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this after, but what I believe she's doing is really reclaiming that space, that ocean space. She is both becoming that as an individual, she's becoming the black ocean, leaping and wide. But she's also speaking on behalf of everybody that's been littered into the ocean. It really makes me think of Derek Wolcott's The Sea is History, in which he proposes that the sea retains a tribal memory. There's this sense in Angelou's poem that her power, her rising cannot be contained. That this is something that will occur over and over and over again. And given that we have this sense of erasure for thousands of years, you're looking at a narrative of reclamation. that has taken every single thing that's ever been stolen, ever been taken ownership of, every single moment that people have lost their lives to colonial erasure and, and colonial finance you're looking at a story that time and time again has benefited the colonizer here. Angelou absolutely takes ownership of her story, the ocean that is littered with the bodies of the enslaved. She is almost, to me, picking up that whole space and, and almost pushing it off of the page in such a, a stunningly lyrical way. I, I mean, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Joe: 25:38

Well I think first of all that was, that was absolutely beautifully expressed, thank you so much, and thank you very much to Christina Sharp, friend of the podcast. I think that I agree with the things you've said about the ocean. The thing that really sticks out to me is, we've spoken about this already, the relationship between the collective and the individual. Thousands of individual people whose names we do not know were thrown overboard. The fact that Maya Angelou identifies with a singular ocean is really important here. Because when those people went overboard in acts of unspeakable cruelty, they became part of the collective, they became part of the story, and Maya Angelou's ability to reclaim that as a singular force, I think, is one of the most powerful ways of paying tribute to the lives of those people that I can remember. I think the other thing about it that's fascinating is the history of African Americans is often tied back to those crossings, those slave crossings. The ocean is the one thing that unites Africa. and America. You can, by identifying with the ocean as a whole, you are spanning that gap, that geographical space. And the ability, therefore, for Mare Angelou to sort of reach back into history and almost reach back across that ocean, by identifying with it, I think is a really powerful thing. And the final thing I'd like to talk about with regard to the ocean is the prominence that she's placing on its visibility. She chooses to identify it with a particular colour. She chooses to describe it in detail. Leaping, wide, welling, swelling. She is conjuring an image of the ocean. The reason I think that's important is because when those people were thrown overboard that is a form of erasing them. You throw something in the ocean, it's lost, it's gone. So by identifying with the ocean, what she's doing is, she is dragging those stories back and placing them front and centre in the poem. By re framing that ocean as something that is lost, almost alive as something that spans the gap between America and Africa geographically, and that's something that spans the gap between Maya Angelou writing the poem in the 1970s right back to the days of the transatlantic slave trade, is just one of the examples of the poem at its very best, and it's most powerful in my opinion.

Maiya: 28:03

And, you know, Sharp echoes this sentiment. She has this really beautiful quote that always sticks in my mind. The past reappears always to rupture the present. I think that is what this poem is doing. You know, we're reading this in the 21st century, we're reading it in 2024. This poem is still just as relevant. That conversation about the ocean and how it's constantly keeping those bodies alive in a way, to me, is what black poetics across the Americas do even to this day. And I, I think it stands for a lot of black British literature as well, but there is this. sense that there's no forgetting, there's no recourse. These bodies, these lives, these stories will be constantly retold, constantly revisioned. They will create a future in which the atrocities that occurred can never be forgotten. And by never forgetting them, you're creating an alternate history. You're creating an alternate future as well. Angelou, like you say, Angelou at her best, She's aware of her past, she's aware of the collective past, she's not letting that define her, and she's moving forward With the strength and with the power that comes from that history, as opposed to carrying this trauma that should hold her back.

Joe: 29:23

No, I think that's, I think that's brilliant, and on that same line, the welling and swelling I bear in the tide, I think one of the things that we talk about in this poem, this is a poem of defiance, this is a poem of overcoming obstacles, but that verb to bear is a reminder that oftentimes she is having to rise against the odds, she is having to carry the burden of this past even as she, Finds it inspiring and even as she reclaims it that this process of recycling is not seamless This is something that requires active You know sweat and tears to do and that all comes through in that word to bear and I just want to talk now that we finally got to This I rise. I want to talk a little bit about The the verb tense there. So this is not something that Maya Angelou is doing. This is not I am rising You I am bearing in the tide. By not using the continuous present, she makes the act of rising part of who she is, not something she does. And that notion of resilience and defiance as something woven into the fabric of her as an individual and as a writer is something that I think is extraordinarily impactful in this poem.

Maiya: 30:37

I mean, I completely agree. I think that sense that rising and continuing and revising herself is so innate to the person she is. so much. is a very, very powerful message to take away from the poem. I would like to talk about the difference between the poem being called Still I Rise and the collection being called And Still I Rise, because I think it's a very interesting dichotomy between the two. Still I Rise, as the poem, I think absolutely stands on its own and, and speaks almost more in an act of defiance. And still I rise has a very different meaning and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Joe: 31:20

Well, I think it's a really interesting juxtaposition. The thing I always find is I'm always surprised it's not the other way around. Obviously, you know, if we think about literature as a physical object, when you open a book, the title of the book is something you see before the title of any individual poems within it, or chapters if it's prose. So it would make more sense in theory for the collection to be titled Still I Rise, and then for the poem within it to be titled And Still I Rise. So that's subversion, I find. I find really interesting. I think that what both the title of the collection and the title of the poem do is remind us about that sense of continuity that we've already spoken about a lot in this episode. That notion that the action is never completed. Normally, if we're thinking about rising in a physical sense, rising from a chair or rising from a bed, it's something you do, it doesn't take very long, and then you have done it. I have risen. Okay, still I am rising implies it's carrying on, but still I rise, as I said earlier, implies it's something that is divorced from physical circumstance. She is continually a person in the act of rising. And in terms of the and, for my mind, that's a callback to the other people that have begun this process of rising, and that for me is where we go from the individual to the collective. Maya Angelou is rising as an individual, as a poet. But also other African American writers, other writers of color have begun this process of establishing their own voices in the canon long before she was writing. And I think the and is a sort of nod of respect to those who came before her. And I've mentioned a couple of them already, but there are, you know, countless examples going back, you know, a hundred years before this poem, maybe even longer of African American writers who were. writing their stories and those stories were becoming part of the canon. So I think the and is Maya Angelou showing respect to those who came before her. But I'd love to hear if you have any different takes on it.

Maiya: 33:17

I think you've hit the nail on the head with it. Actually to pick up on what you said about that sense of continuity and how it's paying respect to the past whilst also looking forward into the future. What strikes stanza is that she uses the term, you know, into a day break that's wondrously clear. Daybreak, the moment at which the sun has just risen. There is a sense that, you know, I think you look through a lot of older romantic poetry that spans the course of a day. you have a very clear start, middle and end with that. With Angelou's poem, we end at the start of the day. That, to me, is so incredibly significant. With the context of the writing, with content of what she's been discussing, to actually use the very visual metaphor of there still being hours of the day left, I think to me speaks even more so to that sense of continuity. She's standing, I mean, within the poem, she's standing on the bow of the ship. watching the sun break into the sky and knowing that there is still so much more to come.

Joe: 34:36

No, I think that's, I think that's completely correct. And I think the other thing about it, and you know, sometimes analysis can be really, really basic in the dark. You can't see right. And just as the light is coming up, that means everything that came before took place in darkness. And I think that for me is an allusion to writers that came before Maya Angelou, whose achievements never saw the light of day, who were denied recognition in the way that other white writers, were lauded, you know. So obviously, people can go and research more about, important milestones,, in the journey towards racial equality in America and beyond, but obviously for a long time, black people couldn't attend university, couldn't hold certain professorships. So I think that notion of beginning the poem at daybreak. is, as you say, a nod to what's about to come, but it's also paying homage to the things that have happened prior to Maya Angelou writing this poem, that we might not know about, might have gone unseen because they didn't see the light of day in a, in a metaphorical sense.

Maiya: 35:35

For sure. And I know we did touch briefly on poems like Strongman by Sterling Brown. I know you also wanted to discuss Dreams by Langston Hughes. How do you think those tie in to Maya Angelou's kind of collective history that she's creating with this poem?

Joe: 35:52

Yeah, so I definitely like to talk about dreams, as you say, and, I'm sure we'll talk about Langston Hughes in a later episode because he's an absolutely fascinating figure. But I'm just going to read the opening stanza of Dreams, and I'm sure listeners will be able to draw their own links to this poem, and Maharaj's career as a whole, before I explain a little bit more about it. So, his poem begins, Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, Life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. Now, there are a series of links between that stanza and Maya Angelou's career and this poem. Of course, the allusion to the broken winged bird, I think, is a strong link to Maya Angelou's the Caged Bird Sings. In Alangston Hughes's poem, the bird cannot fly because it has a broken wing. In her autobiography, the bird cannot fly because it is caged. But this same notion of something that is being denied its right, denied its identity, Flight is an innate part of the way we perceive birds. So that notion, I think, of a bird that cannot fly is obviously symbolic in many cases of a person that cannot express themselves the way they ought to be, whether that's because of individual factors in their lives or societal factors that prevented African Americans from expressing themselves. So I think that's the first allusion. The stanza has the same rhyme scheme, an A, B, C, B rhyme scheme, as many of the stanzas in this poem, which again I think is a callback to Langston Hughes's poem. But of course It's also talking about dreams. It's the title of Langston Hughes poem, Dreams, and he mentions dreams in that stanza I've just read. I think Maya Angelou's final stanza, which, before the three anaphoric lines at the end, I rise, I rise, I rise, the final line before that is, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. Now in Dreams by Langston Hughes, the dream is something ephemeral. The dream is something he cannot quite reach. Whereas in Maya Angelou's poem she embodies the dream, she becomes the dream. We've spoken a lot about continuity, about paying homage to the past but also evolving in the present. And that journey, that transition from dreams being something out of reach to dreams being something that we have within us, I think is a really powerful way for her to end this poem before those final three lines I rise, I rise, I rise. But again I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Maiya: 38:06

Well, I think the conversation between the two poems is evidently can't be ignored. Angelou clearly took so much inspiration from Hughes and I, I have to agree, I think that sense of embodiment is something that really drives this poem forward with a lot of power that potentially in, in prior poetic work hadn't quite managed tangibility yet. This poem it's saturated with power. It's saturated with history. It's saturated with her sense of personal history as well. And in conversation with Hughes, you're obviously looking at a legacy of African American writers who are discussing the exact same topics and charting that progression across all of them. I know in our previous episode we discussed alternate histories and being able to track those through, poetic movements, through certain poets in conversation. The fact that Angelou is almost directly calling back to Hughes's dreams here, it just adds another layer saying, you know, I've made it one step further. Here's my story and our story laid out in even more distinct tangible terms. Angelou's been influenced by the poets that came before her. She's had an influence on the poets that came after her. But it's not just poetry where you see her influence play through, is it?

Joe: 39:33

No, not at all. Um, I think that we've spoken a lot about the literary canon today as something of a continuum, this idea that the story is being continually written. And that doesn't end with Maya Angelou. Of course it doesn't. There are a series of people that you might be surprised that are inspired by somebody like Maya Angelou. So if we go into the world of music, the iconic 90s rapper Tupac has an album, Still I Rise. The hip hop artist Nicki Minaj has a song, Still I Rise. And actually Maira Angelou herself was asked, long after this poem was written, about whether or not she feels hopeful for the future of poetry. And the answer she gave was yes, because of hip hop. So that notion of poetic language not necessarily being something that has to exist on the page, and something that is in of itself transformative, Right, so we've spoken a lot about transition in the poem. Well, there's no reason at all why the messages of the poem can't be transformed into different artistic mediums like music. And it's always, you know, fascinating to be able to plot the continuity of a single idea through music. Decades, different, artists, different artistic mediums is really, really interesting. I think one final thing on that, when we talk about people like Langston Hughes, and Langston Hughes, for those listeners who aren't aware, is associated with a type of poetry called jazz poetry, which is all about taking the rhythms of jazz, which obviously is a musical form that have its roots in the African American community and imbuing his poem with that musicality which at the time was incredibly transgressive. Well I think there are clear parallels with the way in which the conversation we're having in the 21st century about hip hop and rap is beginning to change. I think the sort of highbrow academic community for a long time was quite dismissive of rap music and hip hop music. And I think, you know, the fact that those artists are taking on And this poem, which in turn is paying homage to people like Langston Hughes, who engaged with what at the time was a transgressive musical form in the form of jazz, is a really interesting parallel. That notion that in 50 years we might be studying Tupac and people like him alongside Maya Angelou. And that, for me, is a really exciting thing. We don't always know. Which transgressive decisions are going to pay off, which ones are going to fall by the wayside, and which ones are going to become a key part of the literary canon, as Langston Hughes has become.

Maiya: 41:52

For sure. And I mean, in some ways, it's, it's not surprising that people like Nicki Minaj are influenced by Maya Angelou. Actually, if you read a lot of her poems, Phenomenal Woman being one of them, the language she uses is transgressive. I mean, you look at your typical romantic poets, and they're not using Terms like sexiness or, you know, diamonds between their thighs. We look at hip hop now and certain language used by people like Nicki Minaj and think, you know, this is, this is transgressive in the moment. But Angela is writing poetry within a group of people or within a, within an area that's been traditionally reserved for older white men, like we say, she's already pushed so many boundaries, even by the time it gets to 1978, the language she's using here may not seem too unfamiliar to us right now, but. even 30, 40 years ago, it absolutely was. And I think, you know, if you listen to the Nicki Minaj song, the themes that they're discussing are relatively the same. It's, it's pushing the boundaries of being a woman. And I, I think that's such a, an interesting note or an interesting thread to pick up, throughout pop culture now is that these, poets who can so often seem as if they are put on a pedestal and maybe a little bit more inaccessible, have inroads through almost every strand of pop culture or literature or, or music, you know?

Joe: 43:21

No, completely, completely. And obviously, you know, we're talking now about explicit references to Maya Angelou's poetry. I mean, it's impossible for us to make a measurement about the number of people, particularly young women, particularly young women of colour, who would have been inspired to pick up the pen. Whether that's to write songs, to write novels, to write poems, just because they saw someone who looked like them and spoke to their community in positions of prominence. And I think we'll never know the true extent of her influence in that regard, but I can only imagine that there is a whole generation of writers that will never know what it felt like to be the first person of color or the first black woman to occupy these great offices that we've spoken about, the presidential committees and the leading academic institutions that she was a part of, because she was the first. And It would have been an enormous burden for her to carry, but my goodness, I imagine the result would have been unbelievable for the next generation of writers, and that legacy continues to this day.

Maiya: 44:23

And I think that's the, that's the payoff, right? She has this incredible legacy and even ten years on the fact we're dedicating a whole episode to talking about her, the fact that books are being published time and time again, translated into hundreds of different languages, you're really expressing a sense of continuity in her words. And I, I obviously can't speak on her behalf, but I'm sure that this is what she intended for her work, for it to live on.

Joe: 44:55

Yeah, absolutely. I think to live on, and as we said, I think the great thing about this poem is I feel very confident in saying that she would have wanted it to not only live on, but to be remade, to be recycled, to be redefined by readers and of course by subsequent artists. I think the great thing about the poem is it demonstrates her awareness of her position. And her awareness of her place in the canon I think is one of the things that makes her such a phenomenal artist.

Maiya: 45:21

And there is truly this sense, as you come to the close of the poem, that she is kind of almost handing off the baton to the next person to continue into that day, to push forward on that journey.

Joe: 45:34

I know absolutely and one of the things I love about those final three lines which again if listeners aren't sure they are simply I rise I rise I rise is the possibility that those could be spoken by different voices There is a sense throughout this poem that we have a singular speaker, but as we've already talked about, a speaker that is taking on the burdens and the stories and the legacies of hundreds of thousands of people. I'm sure there have been some very interesting live renditions of the poem, I love the fact that you can interpret those as being the same voice or all being different voices, those notions that people have been inspired. by Maya Angelou's Rise to go and rise themselves, to go and take on the message of the poem.

Maiya: 46:16

Yeah, and at the risk of, you know, listeners not necessarily having the poem in front of them, as you're looking at the page layout, the stanzas themselves become a little bit ungrounded. You're looking at a very regular four line set of stanzas as the poem opens. And as you get to those last two, I Rise starts to encroach more and more on those more traditional lines. And I think as a visual medium as well, you get this sense of distance and the fact that the speaker, Angelou, whether it's her speaking, whether it's the collective speaking, whether it's the singular speaker, you actually really feel that sense of, of growth, I want to say.

Joe: 47:00

Okay, that's all we have time for on today's episode of Beyond the Verse. So, from Maya and myself, thank you very much. As we've said many times, you can sign up for Poetry Plus at permanalsys. com for many, many exclusive subscriber benefits, including a weekly newsletter, a catalogue of thousands of printable PDFs, and an extensive PDF learning library. Next week, we're going to be discussing The Road Not Taken by the iconic American poet Robert Frost. We'll But for now, it's goodbye from me, and I'm going to hand over to Maya.

Maiya: 47:30

And it's also goodbye from me. And I leave you with one of Angelou's most famous quotes. You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. So take that with you and go forth.