Day 4: "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou

Day 4 of 30 Days of The Five-Two is dedicated to pioneering writer, performer, director, and activist Maya Angelou, born April 4, 1928.

Her popular poem "Still I Rise", archived at the Academy of American Poets website, shows the human spirit overcoming others' hurtful words and actions. As The Five-Two focuses on crime, I'm particularly attentive to the stanza:

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.

This is figurative shooting, figurative cutting, but these word choices drive home that the targets of verbal abuse and sharp glances spot the hate behind them, and history keeps showing us that hate left unchecked will kill.

—Gerald So