A poem that could be an anthem of International Women’s Day, by one of the most inspirational women in recent times.
This poem is powerful in its entirety. It has helped me through times comparatively trivial to those it speaks about, and yet I keep coming back to it and drawing strength from the weight of its history.
There are three calls to confidence in this poem. The first is about how you project yourself. My father taught me to “walk into a room like I owned the building” way back when I was too young to really appreciate what he meant. His words came back to me when I read this poem, like I owned the building, the gold mine, the oil well.
The second is about inner strength. Not being hurt by other people’s judgements, because after all, they are only judging you according to their own knowledge and if their knowledge is limited that’s all you’re going to get. Whether at work or socially, we have all come face to face with bullies who like to put us down because it makes them feel important. We don’t need to take that from anyone, but sometimes we have no choice. The images in this poem of tides, hopes, air rising… all are infinite, uncontrollable, strong.
The third call to confidence in this poem is about drawing from your heritage. Who are your ancestors, are you aware of how they influence who you are? Genetics is a given, I am asking you to go into the history of your peoples and find out where they came from, what they did, what would they do now? I come from a long line of female teachers, on both sides of my family… one could argue I had no choice but to become an educator. There is a confidence I get from that, a gratefulness, a humility that I am riding on the backs of giants, that I am not a reinvented wheel but a cog in the wheels of time, furthering my heritage along a few more years.
Your confidence is manifest in how you project yourself, how you use your inner strength, and how you carry the weight of your history. It’s all here in this incredible poem, Still I Rise by Maya Angelou.