A spoken-word performance exploring Maya Angelou's "And Still I Rise," using humor and vivid metaphors to examine how humans move beyond survival toward thriving despite fear, loss, and oppression. The speaker celebrates the human spirit's defiance and nobleness, weaving in references to historical trauma and ancestral strength.
Chapters
The issues which face us all are not just how to survive—obviously we are doing that somehow—but really how to thrive. Really thrive with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style. This poem is called "And Still I Rise." Now every person in this auditorium has gone to sleep one night or another, or gone to bed one night or another, with fear or pain or loss or terror, unhappiness, grief, insecurity. And yet each of us has awakened, arisen, seen another human being and said, "Morning, how are you?" "Fine, thanks, and you?" Now wherever that abides, whether it's behind the kneecap or in the bend of the elbow or between the teeth, wherever that is, lives, there we will find our nobleness. Not nobility, I think that's a pompous word, but the nobleness of the human spirit, that we rise. You may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still like dust I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? Just 'cause I walk as if I have oil wells pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns with the certainty of tides. Just like hope springing high. Still I 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 sassiness upset you? Hahaha! Don't take it so hard just 'cause I laugh. As if I have gold mines digging in my own backyard. You can shoot me with your words, you can cut me with your lies, you can kill me with your hatefulness, but just like life Alright. Does my sexiness offend you? Oh. Does it come as a surprise that I dance? As if I have diamonds at the meeting of my thighs. Out of the huts of history's shame I rise. Up from a past rooted in pain. I rise, a black ocean leaping and wide, welling and swelling and bearing in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise into a daybreak miraculously clear. I rise, bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave. I am the hope and the dream of the slave. Slave. And so— wow! There I go.
