With your bitter, twisted lies,.
You may trod me in the very dirt.
But still, like dust, I'll rise. ".
she also says:.
"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. ".
And she ends her poem by:.
"Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,.
I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise".
I also came across more writers who were also affected by their environment. One of them is the controversial artist Tupac Shakur. He was born on June 16th, 1971 .he is popular among all sections of the population. He is a superstar because he was incredibly talented but also because he took the side of the poor, because he represented the spirit of the LA Rebellion and he spread that spirit throughout society. He was the first prominent figure to defend women on welfare"Keep Ya Head Up" after he knew that nearly 2,000 women were arrested during the LA Rebellion. In this song he defends women in the face of abandonment, beating, rape, and government neglect. .
He makes a song with the same name as Maya's poem (Still I Rise). In it he describes himself from when he was still a seed of semen swimming upstream in his mother's womb. He talked about how he was stranded on welfare and how he comes from a broken family. He then raised a question "Now, what was I to be?" He went on answering his own question on how he survived the harsh living by turning to an illegal lifestyle. In another song he was talking about the changes that should be made in order to destroy the wall of racism in the society. He talked about 3 important issues; poverty, inequality and education. He says:.
"I see no changes. I wake up in the morning and I ask myself is life worth living should I blast myself? .
I"m tired of being poor and even worse I"m black.
my stomach hurts so I"m looking for a purse to snatch.".
In this verse he is talking about the poverty and how he wakes up every morning depressed and stressed about his income.
