For Black History Month and National Poetry Day, Beatrice, member of the Somerset Youth Parliament Advisory Group has chosen a poem by Maya Angelou which demonstrates a powerful response to hate, being abused, oppressed and silenced from a female and black perspective. This response has resonated with Beatrice in terms of the challenges young people are facing in terms of safety, equality, respect and the desire to speak up and rise above with pride and dignity.
In honour of Black History Month across October and National Poetry Day on the Thursday 2 October, I thought I’d share a poem that I think perfectly represents the determination and the resistance of young people who are still surviving prejudice and hate with hope and pride.
I think this poem captures the feeling of self-love and it inspires the feeling of wanting to make a positive change in the work we do as young people.
Our world today is fraught with a challenging and complicated socio-political climate (as well as the climate issues themselves!) Young people today are inheriting an unstable world that we didn’t create.
This poem embodies the strength of those wanting to make change whilst not being taken seriously by those in power.
I hope this poem inspires something in you, like it did with me. Despite the obstacles around us there is a sense of optimism that we can still challenge and make change.
Still I rise, by 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’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 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 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.Beatrice
Black History Month
If you want to find out more about Black History, Black History Month and its importance (now more than ever) here in the UK, visit the Black history month website.
If you want to support black lives in Somerset visit: @BLMTaunton | Linktree
