"I Rise" By Maya Angelou (RIP)

No poem is more emblematic to me of Maya Angelou than her own composition “I Rise.” With a simple rhyme scheme; which was not always the rule with her work; she paints a portrait of fierce determination in the face of overwhelming odds. The poem could well serve as her epitaph. How many of us ever get to write our own? 

RIP Maya Angelou. You took Marguerite Johnson from St. Louis, Missouri to every corner of the globe.

“I Rise” by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may tread 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'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 back yard.

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 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. 

Thoughts on the MLK Memorial.

I don't know which of the errors concerning the Martin Luther King monument, which was unveiled last weekend in Washington, D.C. troubles me more. Maybe it's the fact that it was outsourced to China, while I would have preferred a monument done by an American, not necessarily of African-American descent. Dr. King is often quoted on being judged by the content of character, rather than the color of one's skin. But the monument should have been done by an American, as the whole Civil Rights Era was so uniquely American in it's context.

Maybe it's the way the Chinese artists cast him in a formidable, and almost unnapproachable stance,which was so unlike the man himself. Or perhaps I was troubled by the way in which they mangled the quote used on the monument. In it's short, clipped version the words sound arrogant and full of self praise. They were anything but that.

On February 4th, 1968, while speaking at Ebenezer Baptist Chiurch, a mere 8 weeks before his murder, Dr. King spoke of what his eulogy would be like if he were to pass away before his work was complete. He did not wish to be remembered as a supreme leader, he wanted to be remembered as a man who stood up for what is right, and beat the drum in that cause. He spoke with resignation, as a man who was fully reconciled with his own mortality, his eyes were moist, and his voice filled with emotion when he spoke these words;

"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter."

This is the quote as it appears on the side of the monument;

"I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness."

Maya Angelou said it best when she opined that the statue, along with it's truncated quotation, "minimizes the man."