Composition

Outer composition and rhyme scheme

The outer composition of the poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou is relatively straightforward and mostly consistent throughout the poem.

The poem is split into nine stanzas. The first seven of these, all have four lines each, taking the form of quatrains. The rhyming scheme of these stanzas is also the same throughout, with the second line rhyming with the last line in an ABCB rhyme scheme, such as:

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries? (ll. 13-16)

Most of the final words of the rhyming lines in the poem rhyme with the word “rise”, for example: “cries” (l. 16), “eyes” (l. 22), “surprise” (l. 26), “thighs” (l. 28). Exceptions to this are the words “gloom” (l. 6) and “room” (l. 8) in the second stanza; and “hard” (l. 18) and “backyard” (l. 20) in the fifth stanza. The poem also has one internal rhyme in the second stanza: “Does my sassiness upset you? / Why are you beset with gloom?” (ll. 5-6). 

The last two stanzas have a unique structure. Stanza number eight has six lines. The second and fourth lines are the same, “I rise”, and the rhyme scheme of the stanza is ABABCC. T...