THE POEM

INTRODUCTION

Maya Angelou wrote Still I Rise' in response to the growing African American Civil Rights Movement in the United States that spanned from the 1950-early 1970s. She alluded to the ancestors of African Americans who were slaves living in huts and how they survived and rose above their circumstance. Likewise, African Americans during the Civil Rights movement would also survive and rise.

African Americans In the Civil Rights Movement is about Civil Rights issue when certain people are deprived of their civil rights given to them through the government (mainly the Declaration of Independence). People are discriminated against because of their race, gender, and even orientation. In this case it was race. In most public places in the South, there was segregation. Blacks and Whites couldn't go to the same stores, go to the same school, sit near each other on buses, or even drink from the same water fountains. The Blacks were being deprived of their Civil Rights or their "God Given Rights". Blacks wanted their rights so they fought for them. The Civil Rights Movement was their fight to receive their rights. This poem is historically rooted with the mentions of slavery, a past of pain, and gifts of ancestors. Exclusively, I feel that this poem is telling the audience about the inner strength, the emotion being African American woman and to aspire people to keep on fighting, survive and strong. The poem is perfect, a very strong and powerfully written piece that rises defiantly to stand its ground through the test of time and continue to resonate through the ages with a message that echoes across all humanity; we rise, for we are free.

THE POEM ANALYSIS

In this poem, there are seven poetic devices used:

POETIC DEVICE S
REPETITION RHYME SYMBOLISM IMAGERY HYPERBOLE METAPHORE RHETORICAL QUESTION

REPETITION
What is repetition? It is all about repeating word, stanza, phrase, sound, syllable, sentence, or line. From the poem; the repetition can be seen/read as above;
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.
Just

like moons and like suns, the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.
With You

may shoot me with your words, may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise.
You

The underline words are the example of repetition that can be found from the poem . The phrase of Ill rise is a repetition because it is using the same phrase over and over. It is telling the audience that no matter what happens, I will always rise. Ill rise also emphasize on how much hope and confidence the poet has despite the hardship of her life as an African American woman. 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.

The next repetition is the phrase I rise. It is a repetition because it is using the same phrase over and over. I rise repetition is telling the readers to standing up again and trying over and over without fail. It is all about the strength to overcome the challenges in life.

THE ARTICLES
ARTICLE 1 2

TITLE

POETRY AND REPETITION

THE POETRY CAF IS OPEN! TEACHING LITERARY DEVICES OF SOUND IN POETRY WRITING.

AUTHOR SOURCE

JENNIFER CLARVOE

KOVALCIK, BETH; CERTO, JANINE L . READING TEACHER. SEP 2007 VOL. 61 ISSUE 1, P89-93. 5P. DOI: 10.1598/RT.61.1.10.

ANTIOCH REVIEW. WINTER2009, VOL. 67 ISSUE 1, P30-41. 12P.

POETRY AND REPETITION

THE POETRY CAF IS OPEN! TEACHING LITERARY DEVICES OF SOUND IN POETRY WRITING.

THE REVIEW

THE REVIEW

Repetition plays an important role in giving poetic elements in any poem. The author reviewed few repetition element in: a) Book X of Paradise Lost b)Book X of The Odyssey c) Louise Glucks poem October d)Laurie Andersons song, It Tango and other poems.

Beth Kovalcik and Janine L. Certo had presented poetry minilessons in a series of writing workshops (Calkins, 1994).which began with a read-aloud of poetry. As stated by Lenz (1992) listening to poetry helped her first and second graders develop a feel for the texture and power of language (p.597).

The example of repetition; his most afflicts me, that departing hence, As from his face I shall be hid, deprived His blessed countnance; here I could frequent, With worship, place by place where he vouchsafed Presence divine, and to my sons relate; On this mount he appeared, under this tree Stood visible, among these pines his voice I heard, here with him at this fountain talked: So many grateful altars I would rear Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone Of luster from the brook, in memory, A poem isnt edgeless. a poem attends to edges,breaks up the continuing blocks of prose. Again and again, it goes back to the beginning, the edge from which it launched itself forth, back to the origin. The eye sees the words of a sentence one after another; the brain gathers them up, regroups them according to syntactic hierarchies; it keeps considering the relation of the individual word to the whole.

Mini Lesson 1- focused on Color and Rhyme.

The authors coached the children in the use of rhyme in their poetry by using Kenneth Kochs book Rose,Where Did You Get That Red?(1990).

Mini lesson 2: Repetition and Alliteration Repetition and alliteration give the ideas of musical sound and attract the pupils attention. The use of colorful words adds richness in language within the framework of poetic expression.

Children wrap such language easily around their tongues and play with its sounds (Denman, 1988, p. 3) For example in Melissas poem, Jaguar, with the repetition of the word jaguar gave the musicality to the poem. Jaguar by Melissa Jaguar, jaguar, scratch!

Repetition in a poem can be in type alliteration, assonance, a rhyme, a word, a phrase, a rhythmic pattern, a sentence, a longer passage.

Spots like the sparkling stars. Jaguar, jaguar, scratch! Yellow fur like the sizzling sun. Jaguar, jaguar, scratch!

Repetition can be in the form of questions which attract the readers affection to read and to know more about the beginning, continuation and the ending of any poem.

Leaping and crawling for its prey. Jaguar, jaguar, scratch! Minilesson 3: Can You SayOnomatopoeia?

Repetition can bring us to the poets feeling. When words are repeated again and again, dramatize effort, hesitationhow hard it is to

Onomatopoeia the use of words with sounds that reinforce their meaningcan become an inherent part of a poem. In other words, word that 6

say it, to get it right. As the audience read any poetic genre (poem. novel, drama, song etc) they can feel the emotion of the writers.

sounds like the action it conveys. Here the students were challenged to go back to any of the poems in their poetry journals to see where it might be appropriate to add such words.

Mini lesson 4: Collaborative Poetry

Through Collaborative Poetry reading, it helps the children internalize (through participation in joint reading) the rhythm of fluent reading and the syntax and vocabulary of literary language. The result is the poem that follows, which served as an informal assessment of what skills students learned in previous mini lessons. The focus of this project was to encourage students to think poetically. In the end, the whole class came up and read the collaborative poem Our Class with each child reading one line witnessed by their proud parents.

CONCLUSION/REFLECTION

Both articles, give me the deeper understanding of poetic elements. Repetition is the main focus of the articles. Poem is verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid and imaginative way, characterized by the use of language chosen for its sound and suggestive power and by the use of literary techniques such as meter, metaphor, and rhyme.(TheFreeDictionary by Farlex).

Elements of a poem are rhythm, meter, stanzas, symbolism, imagery and many others. These elements make a poem become more musical, interesting and helps one to understand deeply and enrich the message. Repetition itself may reinforce, supplement, or even substitute for meter, the other chief controlling factor in the arrangement of words into poetry.
7

With many examples of the use of repetition in poems, I found that repetition is one of the attractive elements to keep me continue my enjoyment of reading poems. Generation to generation, the elders, teenagers or even young kids can start love and cherish the beauty of poem by just reading the repetition of word, stanza, phrase, sound, syllable, sentence, or line.
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. Plato

REFERENCES 1. Retrieved from http://warshawcr0607. wikispaces.com/African+ Americans+ During+the+ Civil+Rights+ Movement 2. Retrieved from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/poem 3. Retrieved from http://scholarlysubmissions 1011.pbworks. com/w/file/fetch/ 47264905/ Still%20I%20Rise%20lit%20elements.pdf 4. Retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/poetry 5. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/NattLyre/still-i-rise-11873634 6. Retrieved from http://meganegr5.edublogs.org/2009/03/19/still-i-rise-analysis/ 7. Retrieved from http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/elements.html