More prompts ....

The poem below, Still I Rise, by Maya Angelou has such power. I thought it would be a great piece to respond to.

Here's the challenge:

1) Read and then write your response to the entire poem.
2) Take one word from any five lines and do a twenty minute write incorporating the five words.
3) Read the poem out loud and write about the reaction you have to hearing the poem as opposed to reading it.

I hope that it would be alright with Ms. Angelou for us to use this amazing piece of poetry to help us become better artists.

I listened to her on XM radio just the other day as I drove home from Safeway--watching the sun do its morning dance and feeling its penetrating warmth through the windshield.


STILL I RISE Maya Angelou

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.

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 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.

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 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.