Previous Next

Most of the quatrains in “Still I Rise” follow a regular ABCB rhyme scheme. Although this is a very traditional rhyme scheme, particularly for ballads, one unique feature of Angelou’s use of rhyme is the way it privileges words that rhyme with “rise.” The word “rise” itself appears at the end of many lines. But even when Angelou doesn’t explicitly use that word, the line-ending words of many stanzas still rhyme with it. For instance, look at the fourth stanza (lines 13–16):

     Did you want to see me broken?
     Bowed head and lowered eyes?
     Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
     Weakened by my soulful cries?

The use of words like “eyes” and “cries” has the subtle effect of keeping the key word “rise” at the forefront of the reader’s mind, even when that word isn’t directly present on the page. Other rhyme words in the poem, such as “lies” (line 2), “tides” (10), “cries” (16), “surprise” (26), and “thighs” (28), strengthen the overall sense of a sonic through-line. Taken together, they help underscore the importance of the key image of the speaker’s rise.

Whereas the first seven stanzas of the poem strictly follow the ABCB rhyme scheme, a shift in this scheme occurs in the final two stanzas. This shift is twofold. First, the eighth and ninth stanzas adopt couplet rhymes, meaning that they each adopt an AABB rhyme scheme. Second, each of the final two quatrains become less recognizable as quatrains because the speaker inserts iterations of the phrase “I rise” between the lines. These insertions make it more difficult to hear the couplet rhymes. See, for instance, the final stanza (lines 35–43):

     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.

Notice how the rhetorical power of the refrain, “I rise,” threatens to eclipse the couplet rhymes, “fear”/“clear” and “gave”/“slave.” The refrain also actively breaks up the quatrain form itself. This disruptive transformation of the poem’s rhyme scheme symbolizes the speaker’s attempt to break away from oppressive traditions and transcend society’s limiting expectations.

Previous section Meter Next section Key Poetic Devices

Take a Study Break