Eng 871 Studies in Written African Poetry

COURSE
GUIDE
ENG 871
STUDIES IN WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY
Course Developer/Writer: Dr. Auwal Ibrahim Amba
Department of English,
Bauchi State University, Gadau
[email protected]
Course Editor: Dr. Chris Egharevba

Department of English,
University of Uyo,
Akwa Ibom State
[email protected]
Course Coordinator: Dr. Bridget A. Yakubu

Department of Languages,
National Open University of
Nigeria,
Jabi, Abuja
[email protected]
National Open University of Nigeria
Headquarters
14/16 Ahmadu Bello Way
Victoria Island
Lagos
Abuja office
No. 5 Dar es Salaam Street, Off Aminu Kanu Crescent Wuse II, Abuja
Nigeria
e-mail: [email protected]
URL: www.nou.edu.ng
Published by:
National Open University of Nigeria, 2021
First Printed 2021
ISBN: ……………….
All Rights Reserved
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CONTENTS PAGE
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………
What to Learn in this Course…………………………………………………
Course Aims ……………………………………………………………………………
Course Objectives……………………………………………………………………
Working through the Course…………………………………………………………
Course Materials………………………………………………………………………
Study Units…………….………………………………………………………………
Textbooks and References………………………………………………………………
Assignment File…………………………………………………………………………
Presentation Schedule ……………………………………………………………
Assessment……………………………………………………………………………
Tutor-Marked Assignment………………………………………………………………
Final Examination and Grading…………………………………………………………
Course Marking Scheme………………………………………………………………
Course Overview………………………………………………………………………
How to Get the Most from this Course…………………………………………………
Facilitators/Tutors and Tutorials………………………………………………………
Summary……………………………………………………………………………
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INTRODUCTION ENG 871 – STUDIES IN WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY
ENG 871 is a one-semester course of three credit units. It is developed and written to
cater for the study needs of postgraduate students of departments of English in Nigeria.
The course has twenty three units which include a general overview on poetry, the oral
background of African poetry, the scope of written African poetry, aesthetics in African
poetry, the pioneer African poets, poetry and African experience, colonial rule and
African poetic response, the shortcomings of African independence, the Africa’s
cultural crisis/cultural rediscovery, the poets in exile, new protest voices and the
woman’s voice in African poetry. Other units examine the style and themes in the poems
of some selected African poets which include Leopold Senghor, Wole Soyinka,
Christopher Okigbo, Okot p’Bitek, Kofi Awonoonor, Lenrie Peters, Kofi Ayindoho,
Niyi Osundare, Sipho Semphala, Funso Aiyejina and Tenure Ojaide among others.
The materials and examples used for this course are suitable for Nigerian post graduate
students of English. The examples are drawn variously from selected popular African
poetic renditions. However we have designed ENG 871 to improve upon students’
already acquired knowledge of African poetry in previous similar courses taught at the
undergraduate class.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS COURSE
The overall aim of ENG 871: Studies in Written African Poetry is to familiarize the
students with the general knowledge of written African poetry. Your understanding of
this course will provide you adequate knowledge of written African poetry.
COURSE AIMS
This course is designed to take you through a critical study of African poetry from a
detailed thematic and stylistic perspective. It is meant to:
• Acquaint the student with the general background of written African poetry
including its historical development and the concept of African aesthetics.
• Draw ttention to certain issues in African poetry such as the relationship between
African poetry and colonialism and the shortcomings of African independence.
• Rekindle interest in some new issues in African poetry such as feminism, exile
poetry and protest poetry
• Provide deep knowledge of the themes and style in the poetry of some selected
African poets
• Introduce themes and style in the poetry of some selected contemporary African
poets.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
To achieve the aims set out above, there are overall objectives. In addition, each unit
has specific objectives. The unit objectives are always included at the beginning of each
unit. They should be read before going through the units. One should always look at the
unit objectives on completing the unit to ensure that you have done what the unit
required and that you have acquired the competencies it aimed to inculcate.
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Stated below are the wider objectives of this course. By meeting these objectives, you
should have achieved the entire aims of the course. The student, at the end, should be
able to:
• Provide a general overview on poetry
• Outline the oral background of African poetry
• Discuss the background and scope of written African poetry
• Examine the concept of aesthetics in African poetry
• Discuss the poetry of some pioneer African writers
• Examine the idea of poetry and African experience
• Discuss the relationship between colonial rule and African poetic
response
• Discuss the shortcomings of African independence in African poetry
• Examine the themes of Africa’s cultural crisis/cultural rediscovery in
written African poetry
• Explain the themes in the poetry of African poets in exile
• Examine the new protest voices in written African poetry
• Discuss the women’s voices in African poetry
• Discuss the themes and style in the poems of each the following early
African poets: Leopold Senghor, Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo,
Okot p’Bitek, Kofi Awonoonor and Lenrie Peters and
• Examine the themes and styles in the poems of each the following
contemporary African poets: Kofi Ayindoho, Niyi Osundare, Sipho
Semphala, Funso Aiyejina and Tenure Ojaide
WORKING THROUGH THIS COURSE
To complete this course, you are required to read the study units, read recommended
books and other related materials you can lay your hands on. Each unit contains self-
assessment exercises, which you are expected to use in assessing your understanding of
the course. At the end of this course, there will be a final examination.
COURSE MATERIALS
Major components of this course are:
• Course Guide
• Study Units
• Textbooks
• Assignment File
• Presentation Schedule
STUDY UNITS
There are twenty three study units in this course. They are as follows:
Module 1: BACKGROUND OF WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY
Unit 1 An Overview on Poetry
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Unit 2 Oral Background of African Poetry
Unit 3 Background and Scope of Written African Poetry
Unit 4 Aesthetics in African Poetry
Unit 5 Written African Poetry: The Pioneers
Module 2: ISSUES IN WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY
Unit 1 Poetry and African Experience

Unit 2 Colonial Rule and African Poetic Response
Unit 3 Shortcomings of African Independence
Unit 4 Africa’s Cultural Crisis/Cultural Rediscovery
Unit 5 Poets in Exile
Unit 6 New Protest Voices
Unit 7 The Woman’s Voice
Module 3: SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE EARLIER POETS
Unit 1 The Poems of Leopold Senghor

Unit 2 The Poems of Wole Soyinka
Unit 3 The Poems of Christopher Okigbo
Unit 4 The Poems of Okot p’Bitek
Unit 5 The Poems of Kofi Awonoonor
Unit 6 The Poems of Lenrie Peters
Module 4: SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE CONTEMPORARIES

Unit 1 The Poems of Kofi Ayindoho
Unit 2 The Poems of Niyi Osundare
Unit 3 The Poems of Sipho Semphala
Unit 4 The Poems of Funso Aiyejina
Unit 5 The Poems of Tenure Ojaide
The first five units in the Module 1 provide the general background of written African
poetry while the seven units in Module 2 discuss some issues in written African poetry.
The remaining six units in Module 3 and five units in Module 4 discuss the themes and
style employed by some selected African poets.
REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Acholonu C. (1999). The way. In T. Ojaide & T. Sallah (Eds). The new African poetry:
an anthology. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc.
Adey, A.D. (1976). Themes in South African English Poetry since the Second World
War. MA thesis. UNISA.
Alvarez-Pereyre, J. (1984) The Poetry of Commitment in South Africa. London:
Heinemann.
Amuta, C. (1989). The Theory of African Literature: Implications for Practical
Criticism. London: Zed Books.
Asante, K. W. (1994). African Aesthetics. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
VI
Awoonor, K. “Songs of Sorrow.” Poems of Black Africa. Ed. Wole Soyinka. Oxford:
Heinemann, 1975.
Beier, U. (ed.) (1967). Introduction to African Literature London: Longman.
Chapman, M. (ed.) (1982). Soweto Poetry. Johannesburg: McGraw-Hill.
Cook, D. (1977). African literature: A critical view. London: Longman.
Dathorne, O.R (1975) African Literature in the Twentieth Century. London:
Heinemann.
Dennis, B. (1988). Simple Lust. Heinemann. Ibadan
Egudu, R. N. (1978). Modern African Poetry and the African Predicament. London:
Macmillan Press Ltd.
Findly, A. (1985). Root and Branch: An Anthology of Southern African Literature.
London: McMillan.
Finnegan, R. (1977). Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fraser, R. (1986) West African Poetry, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gibbs, J. (ed.) (1980) Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka, Washington, DC: Three
Continents Press.
Gikandi, S. (2003) (Eds.). Encyclopaedia of African Literature. London: Routledge.
Goodwin, K. (1982), Understanding African Poetry: A Study of Ten Poets, London:
Heinemann.
Heron., (1984). Song of Lawino and song of Ocol. London: Heinemann.
Heywood, C. (ed) (1989) Perspectives on African Literature. London: Heinemann
Educational Books. Jones, O. Eldredand Narjorie,
Imbo, S. O. (2002). Oral Traditions as Philosophy: Okot p’Bitek’s Legacy for African
Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Jemie, C. and Madubuike, I. (1980). Toward the decolonization of African literature.
Jones, E. D. and Jones’s, M. (2000). Exile and African Literature: African Literature
Today
Kilam, G.D. (ed) (1973). African Writers on African Writing. London: Heinemann.
Killam, G. D. (2008). Student Encyclopedia of African literature London: Greenwood
Press
Lilyan, K. (1964). Black Writers in French: The Birth of Literature.London Heinemann.
Maduakor, O. (1991). Wole Soyinka: An Introduction to his Writing. Ibadan:
Heinemann.
Murphy, M. J. (1972). Understanding Unseens. London: John Allen and Unwin
Limited.
Narasimhaiah, C. O. (1990). An Anthology of Commonwealth Poetry. Madras:
Macmillian India.
Ngara, E. (1990) Ideology and Form in African Poetry. London: Heinemann.
Nkosi, L. (1981) Tasks and Masks: Themes and Styles of African Literature. London:
Longman.
Nwankwo, C. (1990). “The Oral Foundations of Nigerian Written Poetry”. Literature
and Black Aesthetic, Ibadan: Heinemann.
Nwogu, D. (2008). West African Verse. England: Pearson.
Odumukwu, O. (1999) “The Subject of the Nation in Osundare’s Poetry” Abia Journal
of Humanities, Vol. 1 No.1 June, 79-107.
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Ogede, S. O. (1996). “New Trends and Generations.” African Literature Today, No.20,
London: James Currey Ltd. pp.62-72.
Ogude, S.E. (1983) Genius in Bondage. A Study of the Origins of African Literature in
English. Ile-Ife. University of Ife Press.
Ojaide, T. & Joseph Obi (2002). Culture, Society and Politics in Written African
Literature: Texts and Contexts. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
Ojaide, Tanure (1989) The Changing Voice of History: Contemporary African Poetry.
Genere Afrique.
Okon, F. A. (2013). “Oral Techniques and Commitment in The Poetry of Okot P’bitek
And Kofi Anyidoho: Their Contributions to Modern African Poetry”.
International Journal of English Language and Literature Studies 2(1):10-29
Okot, P’Bitek. (2005). Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol. Ibadan Heinemann Books.
Orhero, M. I. (2017). “Trends in Modern African Poetic Composition: Identifying the
Canons”. UNIUYO Journal of Humanities Volume 21, No. 1, January –
December, 2017. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321776494.
Osundare, N. (1983) Songs of the Marketplace. Ibadan: New Horn Press.
Osundare, N. (1984) Village Voices. London: Evans Brothers.
Oyekan, O. (ed) (1993). A history of twentieth century African literature. London:
University
Peters, L. (1981) Selected Poetry, London: Heinemann.
Povey, John. (1968). A Comment on the Attitudes to the Past in West African Poetry.
London: Heinemann.
Romanus, N. E. (1978). Written African Poetry and the African. New York: Barnes and
Noble,
Sallah, T. (1984) New Poets of West Africa. Lagos: Malt house Press.
Senanu, K.E. & Vincent, T. (1999). A Selection of African Poetry (New Edition).
Longman Group Ltd.
Sepamla, S. (1977). The Soweto I Love. Soweto Poetry, (London & Cape Town: Rex
Collings with David Philip,
Sotunsa, M. (2008). Feminism and gender discourse: the African experience. Sagamu:
Asaba Publications.
Umeh, P. O. (1991). Poetry and Social Reality: The Nigerian Experience. Onitsha,
Bemax Publishers Limited.
Hans, Z. and Silver, H. (eds.) A Reader’s Guide to African Literature. London:
Heinemann.
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ASSIGNMENT FILE
This file contains the details of all the assignments you must do and submit to
your tutor for marking. The marks you obtain from these assignments will
form part of the final marks you will obtain in this course.
PRESENTATION SCHEDULE
The presentation schedule included in your course materials gives you the important
dates for the completion of your tutor-marked assignments and when to attend tutorials.
Remember that you are required to submit your assignments according to the schedule.
ASSESSMENT
There are two aspects of assignment in this course. The first aspect includes all the tutor-
marked assignments, while the second is the written examination.
In tackling the assignments, you are expected to apply the information and knowledge
you acquired during the course.
The assignments must be submitted to your tutor for formal assessment in accordance
with the deadlines stated in the Assignment file. The work you submit to your tutor for
assessment accounts for 30% of the total marks accruing to the course.
At the end of the course, you will sit for a final three-hour examination that will carry
70% of the total course marks.
TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
Each unit has a tutor-marked assignment. You are expected to submit all the
assignments. You should be able to do the assignments from the knowledge you derived
from the course, and information you acquired from the textbooks.
When you have completed the assignment for each unit, send it along with your TMA
(tutor-marked assignment) form to your tutor. Make sure that the completed assignment
reaches your tutor on or before the deadline in the assignment file. If you cannot
complete your assignment on time due to a cogent reason, consult your tutor for possible
extension of time.
FINAL EXAMINATION AND GRADING
The final examination for ENG 871 will be for the duration of three hours. The
examination will carry 70%. It will consist of questions that will reflect the type of self-
testing practice exercises and tutor-marked assignments you have come across. All
areas of the course will be examined.
You are advised to revise the entire course after studying the last unit before you sit for
the examination. You will find the revision of your tutor-marked assignments equally
useful.
COURSE MARKING SCHEME
The table below shows how actual course marking is broken down.
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Assessment Marks
Assignments 1-4 Four assignments, best three marks of the
four counts as 30% of course marks.
Final Examination 70% of overall course marks
Total 100% of course marks
Table 1: Course marking scheme
COURSE OVERVIEW
The table below brings together, the units, the number of weeks you should
take to complete them, and the assignments that follow them.
Unit Title of Work Week’s Assessment
Activity (End of Unit)
Course Guide 1
MODULE 1: BACKGROUND OF WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY

1 An Overview on Poetry 1 Assignment 1
2 Oral Background of African Poetry 2 Assignment 2
3 Background and Scope of Written African Poetry 3 Assignment 3
4 Aesthetics in African Poetry 4 Assignment 4
5 Written African Poetry: The Pioneers 5 Assignment 5
MODULE 2: ISSUES IN WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY

1 Poetry and African Experience 6 Assignment 6
2 Colonial Rule and African Poetic Response 7 Assignment 7
3 Shortcomings of African Independence 8 Assignment 8
4 Africa’s Cultural Crisis/Cultural Rediscovery 9 Assignment 9
5 Poets in Exile 10 Assignment
10
6 New Protest Voices 11 Assignment
11
7 The Woman’s Voice 12 Assignment
12
MODULE 3: SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE EARLIER POETS

1 The Poems of Leopold Senghor 13 Assignment
13
2 The Poems of Wole Soyinka 14 Assignment
14
3 The Poems of Christopher Okigbo 15 Assignment
15
4 The Poems of Okot p’Bitek 16 Assignment
16
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5 The Poems of Kofi Awonoonor 17 Assignment
17
6 The Poems of Lenrie Peters 18 Assignment
18
MODULE 4: SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE CONTEMPORARIES

1 The Poems of Kofi Ayindoho 19 Assignment
19
2 The Poems of Niyi Osundare 20 Assignment
20
3 The Poems of Sipho Semphala 21 Assignment
21
4 The Poems of Funso Aiyejina 22 Assignment
22
5 The Poems of Tenure Ojaide 23 Assignment
23
Revision
Examination
HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM THIS COURSE

In distance learning, the study units replace the university lecture. This is one of the
advantages of distance learning: you can read and work through specially designed
study materials at your own pace, and at a time and place that suit you best. Think of it
as reading the lecture instead of listening to a lecturer. In the same way that a lecturer
might set for you some reading to do, the study units tell you when to read your set
books or other materials. Just as a lecturer might give you an in-class exercise, your
study units provide exercises for you to do at appropriate time.
Each of the study units are written according to common format. The first item is an
introduction to the subject matter of the unit and how a particular unit is integrated with
the other units and the course as a whole. Next is a set of learning objectives. These
objectives guide you on what you should be able to do by the time you have completed
the unit. You should use these objectives to guide your study. When you have completed
the units, you must go back and check whether you have achieved the objectives. This
habit will improve your chance of passing the course.
READING SECTION
Remember that your tutor’s job is to help you. So, when you need help of any sort, call
on him or her. Do not fail to do so.
1. Read this Course Guide thoroughly
2. Organise a study schedule or time table. Refer to the course overview for more
details. Note the time you are expected to spend on each unit, and how the
assignments relate to the units.
3. Once you have created your own study schedule, do everything you can to stick
to it. The major reason students fail is that they lag behind in their course work.
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If you get into any difficulty with your schedule, do let your tutor know it before
it is too late for help.
4. Turn to unit one and read the introduction and the objectives for the unit.
5. Assemble the study materials. Information about what you need for a unit is
given in the overview at the beginning of each unit. You will always almost need
both the study unit you are working on and one of your books on your table at
the same time.
6. Work through the unit. The content of each unit has been arranged to provide a
sequence for you to follow. As you work through the unist you will be instructed
to read sections from your set books or articles. Use the units to guide your
reading.
7. Review the objectives for each study unit to confirm that you have achieved
them. If you feel unsure about any of the objectives, review the study material or
consult your tutor.
8. When you are confident that you have achieved a unit’s objectives, you can then
start on the next unit. Proceed unit by unit through the course and try to face your
study so that you keep yourself on schedule.
9. When you have submitted an assignment to your tutor for marking, do not wait
for its return before starting on the next unit. Keep to your schedule. When the
assignment is returned, pay particular attention to your tutor’s comments, both
on the tutor- marked assignment form and also on what is written on the
assignment. Consult your tutor as soon as possible if you have any questions or
problems.
10. After completing the last unit, review the course and prepare yourself for the
final examination. Ensure that you have achieved the units’ objectives (listed at
the beginning of each unit) and the course objectives (listed in this Course
Guide).
FACILITATORS/TUTORS AND TUTORIALS
There are eight hours of tutorials provided in support of this course. You will be notified
of the dates, time and location of these tutorials, together with the name and phone
number of your tutor, as soon as you are allocated a tutorial group. Your tutor will mark
and comment on your assignments, keep close watch on your progress and on any
difficulties you might encounter and provide assistance to you during the course. You
must mail your tutor-marked assignments to your tutor well before the due date (at least
two working days are required). They will be marked by your tutor and returned to you
as soon as possible.
Do not hesitate to contact your tutor by telephone, e-mail, or discussion board if you
need help. The following might be circumstances in which you will find help necessary.
CONTACT YOUR TUTOR IF:
• You do not understand any part of the study units or the assigned readings,
• You have difficulty with the self-tests or exercises,
• You have a question or problem with an assignment, your tutor’s comments on
an assignment, or with the grading of an assignment.
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You should try your best to attend tutorials. This is the only chance to have face to face
contact with your tutor and ask questions which are answered instantly. You can raise
any problem encountered in the course of your study. To gain the maximum benefit
from course tutorials, prepare a question list before attending them. You will learn a lot
from participating in discussions actively.
SUMMARY
ENG 781: Studies in Written African Poetry makes a critical study of African poetry
from a detailed thematic and stylistic perspective. By the end of the course, students
should be able to answer questions bordering on: general background of written African
poetry, some issues in written African poetry and the examination of style and themes
in the poetry of some selected African poets. The course will make you to be very
conversant with written African poetry.
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CONTENTS PAGE
MODULE 1 BACKGROUND OF WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY……………
Unit 1 An Overview on Poetry ………………………………………………
Unit 2 Oral Background of African Poetry …………………………………...
Unit 3 Background and Scope of Written African Poetry……………………..
……………………………………………
Unit 5 Written African Poetry: The Pioneers ………………………………….
MODULE 2 ISSUES IN WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY ………………………

…………………………………………
Unit 2 Colonial Rule and African Poetic Response ……………………………
Unit 3 Shortcomings of African
Independence…………………………………
………………………….
……………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………
MODULE 3 SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE EARLIER

POETS……….
Unit 1 The Poems of Leopold Senghor……………………..
Unit 2 The Poems of Wole Soyinka ……………………….
Unit 3 The Poems of Christopher Okigbo………………….
Unit 4 The Poems of Okot p’Bitek …………………………
Unit 5 The Poems of Kofi Awonoonor …………………….
Unit 6 The Poems of Lenrie Peters…………………………..
MODULE 4 SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE CONTEMPORARIES…
Unit 1 The Poems of Kofi Ayindoho…………………………

Unit 2 The Poems of Niyi Osundare………………………….
Unit 3 The Poems of Sipho Semphala………………………..
Unit 4 The Poems of Funso Aiyejina………………………….
Unit 5 The Poems of Tenure Ojaide……………………………
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MODULE 1 BACKGROUND OF WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY
Unit 1 An Overview on Poetry
Unit 2 Oral Background of African Poetry
Unit 3 Background and Scope of Written African Poetry
Unit 5 Written African Poetry: The Pioneers
UNIT 1 AN OVERVIEW ON POETRY

CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 What is poetry?
3.2 The Funtions of Poetry
3.3 Features of Poetry
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment
7.0 References/Further Readings
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Poetry is the oldest of the three major forms of literature with roots deep in the
rituals and religious observances of antiquity. This unit will examine the concept poetry,
the methods of appreciating poetry, the concepts of meaning, intention and tone, the
poet’s use of imagery and symbolism, metre and rhyme, sound effects and other devices
and the various figures of speech employed in poetry. Below are some of the objectives
of this unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you should be able to:
• Define and explain what you understand by poetry
• Discuss the various functions of poetry
• Identify different features of poetry
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 What is poetry?
The Concise Oxford’s Dictionary defines poetry as ‘elevated expression of
elevated thought or feeling in metrical or rhythmical form’; and it equally defines a poet
as a ‘writer in verse, especially one possessing high powers of imagination, expression,
etc.’ The words ‘poet’ and ‘poetry’ may appear neutral until you turn out the light when
they will be seen still to glow in the dark like hot coals. When the fashion in twentieth-
century literature turned against the more extravagant claims for the poet’s art inherited
1
from the romantic movement, the words ‘poet’ and ‘poetry’ were given a rest. ‘Poetry’
became ‘verse’, and ‘poets’ ‘practitioners’. This was the period when anthologies had
titles like The Faber Book of Modern Verse (1936), The Oxford Book of Modern Verse
(1936), The Penguin Book of English Romantic Verse (1968), and so on.
The words ‘poet’ and ‘poetry’ could not be neutralised simply by giving them a
neutral context. They brought with them grand claims and magical associations. If
literature was to be rid of that baggage, the words had to be set aside. But as the words
have come back, so have the associations, which were probably in any case never
effectively shed. There are a number of reasons for this curious power that resides in
the idea of poetry, and hence in the word. One is that language more than anything else
is what distinguishes us as a species, and poetry has been generally conceded to the
most comprehensive and demanding use, or manifestation, of language.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
From the above discussions, attempt a definition of poetry in your own
words.
3.2 The Funtions of Poetry
Poetry has Aesthetic and Moralistic functions. Traditionally, poetry was enjoyed.
It gives pleasure. It represesed beautiful things and was itself beautiful. This was the
decorative aspect of the art of poetry. On the other hand there is always the feeling that
when this side became overemphasized, poetry lost some of its power and its weight. A
part from aesthetic function poetry has a moral function. It has to delight and also
instruct. In fact its aesthetic function, from this point of view, was hardly more than a
sugar coating so that the pill of morality would be effortlessly swallowed. So, in the late
years of the nineteenth century there was a reaction against poetry-as-morality—the Art
for Art’s Sake movement. Thus, poetry has two major functions; it embellishes
language and entertain the audience by the high quality of its language. It is an
instrument for language preservation. This quality is manifested in the use of ryme,
rhythm, and meter among many other qualities that make a poetic language unique and
special and it advocates high moral standard among humans that corresponds to the
moral values of its community. From this point of view poetry must be didactic. In other
words the content of poetry should be educating. It should teach the moral values of its
community via a highly embellished language.
Attempt a detail discussion on the functions of poetry.
3.3 Features of Poetry
There are elements of craft skill with poetry as with all other arts; but what seems
to be implied when we distinguish between an art and a craft is that learned skills will
not be enough—there must be that in-born potential as well. And because poetry is an
art with a long history, the poet must inherit the tradition through the medium of the
ancients. Not that poets must have read assiduously back through the ages but most past
2
poetry is present in the poetry of the present. The poet reads rather in the way the body
breathes, drawing life from what has gone before as from an atmosphere. Some critics
argue that the poet’s individual talent is not sufficient to account for poetry. Only those
who have acquired, by however selective method the sense of a living tradition flowing
through poetry from age to age into the present, this carries the tradition forward.
In addition, it is true that the history of poetry is full of schools, wars, and
youthful rebellions. The romantic poets rebelled against the Augustans; modernists
rebelled against the great figures of the nineteenth century and so on. But where
rebellion occurs the flow-on effect is never less marked, and sometimes more. There is
no need for rebellion where what has gone before has had no effect. It is because, in
literature as in society at large, the French are such traditionalists that they have such
need of rebellion. In the popular mind—that is to say, among people who do not
normally read poetry—a poem is distinguishable by the fact that it is broken up into
lines which usually rhyme and have some metrical pattern. Poetry is manifest in its
form. Even before modern poets began to abandon regular forms, this notion was less
than satisfactory. It must always have been apparent that you could write out a statement
that would satisfy the formal requirements of a sonnet, or of any other verse form,
without achieving poetry; while, conversely, passages of prose—in the King James
Bible, or Moby Dick, or Wuthering Heights, to take only three very obvious examples—
were so heightened, and so powerful in their effects, that no reader would want to
quarrel with the suggestion that they were poetry. Poetry then, almost by definition, is
a quality, not a form; though of this you may add, if your disposition is strongly
conservative, that the quality ‘poetry’ does not alone make a poem, and that a poem
occurs only when that quality finds itself in conjunction with one or another of the
traditional forms.
Moreover, poems exhibit in their writing some quality (force,
intensity, density, texture, incandescence) which makes them exceptional.
The language seems to have a life beyond its most obvious function, which is
to ‘mean’. Reading it is an experience demanding and receiving more of the
reader than is the case with a non-poetic text. But all of that is true of most
texts which are literary as distinct from those texts which are not. So we have,
really, a spectrum of literary texts from the least to the most intense, from the
least to the most densely textured, from the least to the most semantically
active and alive with a talent for composition, and somewhere along that
spectrum we pass into the realm of ‘poetry’.
Traditional forms have given an illusion of marking a clear dividing
line between the one and the other, but all they signal really is an intention on
the part of the writer. The distinction of poetry, as already observed, resides
more in a quality of language than in a measurable form.
One of its commonest features is said to be imager, in part to agree, in
part to question. But perhaps less challengeable as an inevitable feature of
poetic language is economy and this is so even in a writer like Shakespeare,
where at a glance what we appears to have is linguistic opulence, words in
excess of the needs of the statement. However, we are told frequently that
3
economy is a stylistic virtue; that ‘brevity is the soul of wit’—and so on. If
that is the case, it must be for a better reason than that generations of teachers
and critics have said so. And the reason is probably relatively simple. If all of
whatever was intended in twelve words—evocation, meaning, emotion, aural
and visual effect—can be conveyed in eight, then those eight words, because
they are working harder, doing more, will seem more active, energetic,
muscular, radioactive than the twelve doing the same work. And this has the
paradoxical effect of making us more rather than less aware of language as
language. The language does its work; but it exists also for its own sake and
in its own right. When that happens we begin to feel the action of poetry.
Discuss the peculiar features of poetry that distinguish it from the other
genres of literature.
1. Write a detail essay on what you understand about poetry including its various
definitions and distinguishing features.
2. Discuss the role of poetic devices in poetry.
4.0 CONCLUSION
This unit have provided you with an overview of what poetry is. Through
examples, it had taking you through the various meanings of poetry and the various
concepts related to poetry including its functions and features.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit you have learned the followings:
• The definition and meaning of poetry
• Functions of poetry
• Features of poetry
6.0 TUTOR MARKED ASSIGNMENT
Read and answer the questions below:
1) Define and explain what you understand by poetry.
2) Outline and discuss the functions of poetry
3) Discuss the distinguishing features of poetry
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Abrams, M.H. (1971). A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston
Adams, Hazard (1961). The Contexts of Poetry. New York: Harcourt.
Brooks, Cleanth (1975). The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. New
York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
4
Goodwin, Ken (1982), Understanding African Poetry: A Study of Ten Poets, London:
Heinemann.
Fowler, A. (1990) in Encyclopedia of Literature and Criticism.
Ngara, Emmanuel (1990) Ideology and Form in African Poetry. London: Heinemann.
Reeves, James, ed. (1972). The Poets’ World. An Anthology of English Poetry. London:
Heinemann.
Romanus N. Egudu, (1978). Written African Poetry and the African. New York: Barnes
and Noble
Wright, E. (1981). The Critical Evaluation of African Literature. London: Heinemann
Educational Books Ltd.
5
UNIT 2 BACKGROUND TO AFRICAN POETRY
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 The Concept of African Poetry
3.2 The Poetry of Pre-Literate African Societies
3.3 Pre-Literate Oral Poetry
3.4 Classification of pre-literate African Poetry
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
To have a clear idea of what constitutes Written African Poetry, you need to
know the root from which it stems. Within the broad definition, the study will
distinguish written African poetry from the oral tradition. The unit will therefore
introduce you to the concept of literature, the poetry of pre-literate African societies,
preliterate oral poetry and the different types of pre-literate African social poetry. Below
are some of the objectives of this unit:
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Discuss the poetry in pre-literate African societies
• Discuss the concept of pre-literate African oral poetry
• Explain some types of pre-literate African poems and how they relate with
present written African poetry
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 The Concept of African Traditional Oral Poetry
According to Sotunsa (2002), the existence, quality and value of African

indigenous oral poetry were a matter of debate until about five decades ago, while the
controversy over the authenticity of African oral poetry as ‘true’ poetry motivated
African oral literature scholars to collect, and analyse reasonable samples of African
oral poetry. He further mentioned that assiduous efforts were made to disprove the
argument that there was no poetry in Africa until the arrival of European civilization.
This assertion was made by some European and Eurocentric scholars. According to
Isidore Okpewho (1985), such scholars argue that poetry is a mark of advanced culture
or civilisation and the business of men of specialised skill and training who devote their
time to observing and commenting on life with beauty and seriousness. In the view of
these critics, traditional African societies were still groping in the dark with rudimentary
problems of existence and were yet to attain the level of achievement whereby men
could indulge in the pursuit of poetic excellence. Besides, their languages were not yet
6
sufficiently developed to cope with the complex techniques of poetic expression.
Nevertheless, it has been proved beyond doubt that, “oral poetry possesses all the beauty
of language, content and style associated with the best of written poetry. The case for
the recognition of oral poetry as true poetry has been most successfully made” (Olajubu
1981).
Aderemi Bamikunle (1985) opines that, instead of defensive criticism, textual
analysis of our literature should concern oral literature scholars. This is so because “we
should disregard “the pre-judicial judgement of western critics who in ignorance said
the most atrocious things about oral literature.” What is the nature of African oral
poetry? Oral poetry has been defined by various people and many explanations have
been offered on its nature. Emovon (1981) opines:
Traditional oral poetry must be seen within the context of folklore – that is
songs or recitations having measured rhythm and dealing with verbal aspects
of customs, observances etc of a people… Essentially, a traditional poetry is
a song that very often tells a story. It is a poem that no matter how composed
has been transmitted primarily by word of mouth and learnt by imitation or
example. This definition underscores the musicality of oral poetry
(1981:205).
Moreover, Finnegan (1992) explains that “oral poetry essentially circulates by oral
rather than written means in contrast to written poetry. Its distribution, composition or
performances are by word of mouth and not through reliance on the written or printed
word.” She nevertheless warns that many generalizations made about oral poetry are
over-simplified and misleading. According to Finnegan, oral poetry can take many
different forms and occur in many cultural situations. It does not manifest itself only in
the one unitary model as argued by some scholars.
By Finnegan’s critical standards, Emovon’s earlier quoted definition appeared
to be an over simplified view of oral poetry. He reduced oral poetry to traditional songs
only. Okphewo (1985), on the other hand, explains that “there are two types of music
which we generally hear in the performance of oral poetry. One of these is the
instrumental music… the other kind of music we hear in oral poetry is vocal or tonal”.
From Okphewo’s assertion, we can deduce that music, either instrumental or vocal is a
component of oral poetry but there are still other features. Finnegan (1992) further states
that:
What we must look for is not one absolute criterion but a range of stylistic
and formal attributes – features like heightened languages, metaphorical
expression, musical form and accompaniment, structural repetitiveness like
recurrence of stanzas, lines or refrains, prosodic features like metre,
alliteration, even perhaps parallelism so that the concept of poetry turns out
to be a relative one depending on a combination of stylistic elements no one
of which need necessarily and invariably be present.
The nature of Yoruba oral poetry is elaborated upon by Olajubu (1981). Yoruba oral
poetry is a living and dynamic verbal art. It is meant to be sung, chanted and intoned in
7
performance in the presence of an audience at a given social, cultural, religious, political
or informal occasion. Its performance is usually accompanied with drum, music and
dance. The poets perform either separately or in groups but most of them perform in
orchestras made up of soloist, singers, chorus, drummers and dancers. Therefore, the
poem in Yoruba is essentially a song and its performance is a musical dramatic opera.
However, Olajubu’s conclusion, which reduces all poems in Yoruba to songs,
seems to be wrong. Yoruba poetry as pointed out by Olatunji (1982) have three modes,
namely the speech, chant and song modes. Nonetheless, Olajubu’s definition highlights
the performance feature of oral poetry. In addition to rhythm, oral mode of transmission
and other stylistic elements, performance is an integral component of oral poetry.
Finnegan (1992) postulates three ways of determining any oral poem. They
include composition, mode of transmission and performance. She further reveals that
oral poetry does indeed possess a verbal text like written poetry but for a piece of oral
literature to reach its full actualisation, it must be performed. The text alone cannot
constitute the oral poem. For this reason, no discussion of oral poetry can afford to
concentrate on the text alone, but must take account of the nature of the audience, the
context of performance, the personality of the poet-performer and the details of
performance itself. “The poet in Yoruba oral poetry is a performer. In reality, he is a
singer and an actor because his performance involves a combination of singing, drama
and dancing, masquerading and costume parade…” (Olajubu 1981). The importance of
performance in oral poetry is further emphasized by Isidore Okpewho (1985) in The
Heritage of African Poetry. He likens the performance of oral poetry to a modern stage
play in which a performer has to support his words with the right movement of his body
or control his voice in order to make an effective impression.
Olajubu (1981) opines further:
A written poem exists and is transmitted and perpetuated in print. But
Yoruba oral poetry like all oral works of art exists and is transmitted and
perpetuated in performance, that is, without performance, a Yoruba oral
poem has no means of existence.
Another significant feature of African traditional oral poetry is the audience. They
constitute a very important part of the performance. In many instances, audience play
active role in the performance, even though the main artist is easily distinguishable.
“Oral poetry achieves its forcefulness not only at the hands of the performer himself,
part of this forcefulness comes from the participation of various persons (present at the
scene of performance) in the creative act taking place” (Okpewho 1985).
Olajubu (1981) identifies three elements that inform the performance of the oral
poem: the situation, the audience and the text”. Similarly Opefehintimi in “indigenous
criticisms of Yoruba Orature” recognises the role of the audience as critics of Yoruba
orature performance (YOP). According to Opefehintimi (1995):
…the audience uses various means to command and praise the effort of YOP
artists who impress the audience. This can be done in various ways. First,
occasional para- linguistic nodding of heads in certain manner can be indicative
8
of approval. Second the placing of money on the foreheads of artists is a glaring
evidence of aesthetic approval. Third, the audience often finds it irresistible to
have shouts and claps of applause in situations of aesthetic satisfactory
experiences… Therefore criticism on stage is the interaction between the artist and
the audience, the latter contribute through statements of critical acuity and even
chorus of songs while the artists endeavour to satisfy the audience by involving
them in YOP in diplomatic ways. Therefore, the stage performance critical facet
of YOP is essentially dialogue oriented. Often, questions and answers feature
between artists and audience as a proof of this interaction.
It was widely believed that oral poetry is fixed and has to be transmitted verbatim
(Sotunsa, 2002). The texts are seen as communal properties of older generations which
the whole community, and not an identifiable individual, is credited with its
composition. The texts are built over time and enriched by each succeeding generation.
New artists apparently learn the fixed texts by ‘rote’ method of memorisation.
Conversely, Olajubu (1981) argues that the text of any oral poem was composed
by a particular poet-composer at a point in time. According to him:
Yoruba oral poetry like most forms of African verbal art is composed in
performance. That is the artist performs his poetry/song as he composes it in
the presence of his audience. The two cannot be separated. They go on
simultaneously. The whole process is extempore and impromptu. There is
no room for rehearsals or pre-prepared/ composed poems… No Yoruba oral
artist can make repeat performance in the past. Each attempt he makes to
repeat an old chanted poem yields a new different poem.
Olajubu’s position here is based on the concept of variability of the three elements
affecting the performance of an oral poem. According to Olajubu, the three elements
that control the performance of the oral poem (the situation, audience and the text) are
highly variable. For instance, the setting of a performance may change and this change
will affect the actualisation of the performance even if the basic text remains the same.
If the setting of the performance remains constant, the socio-economic and political
situation in which the poem was performed may have changed and this may also have
an effect on the performance. If the audience also changes, there will be differences in
audience participation. In fact where the audience remains the same, if the performance
is repeated, there might be differences in audience participation. Variability in any of
the elements affecting the performance produces a ‘new’ performance. Olajubu’s
position is similar to Lord’s (1965) who claims that an oral poem is composed in
performance. Nevertheless, Olajubu admits that the composition and performance of
oral poetry is learned and agreed that the text of the artist is already set. According to
him:
The oral artist supplements his verbal efforts with dramatic actions, gestures,
charming voices, facial expression, dramatic uses of pauses and rhythms and
receptivity of the reactions of the audience. These are all integral parts of the
composition process. Those non-verbal actions described above together with
the costume of the artist and the prevailing mood at the moment of performance
9
all add to the meaning of the oral poem. Therefore, in a way, the performing of
the Yoruba oral poem is much more than mere verbal creation.
The composition of the oral poem must have been undertaken by a poet-artist at a
particular point in time. The exact manner and time of composition cannot be easily
determined because it is an oral form. Most oral forms are not exact because there would
have been additions and alteration over a long period of time.
In recent times, there have been attempts to indigenise written/modern African
poetry. As a result of this, many written poems are performed. In addition, more features
of oral poetry are introduced into the written mode in order to add local ‘flavour’. In
such poems, there is a greater degree of musicality such that the poems can be set to
music and its performance is made a public event like those of oral poetry. Ojaide (1995)
observes that modern (written) African poetry which hitherto was condemned as elitist,
intellectual, difficult and obscure is now enjoying new popularity. This is, according to
the critic, due to the “possibility of some aesthetic strength hitherto unrealised in written
African poetry in the new works which have successfully adapted oral poetic techniques
into the written form.”
Furthermore, Ojaide (1995) identifies two significant changes in recent poetic
practice and the use of oral elements; repetition and musicality. Also, it is common now
to find code mixing, code-switching and ideophmic elements in written African poetry
in English. Similarly, Bamikunle (1995) and Ohaeto (1996) attempted to identify the
oral poetic techniques in the works of by some modern African poets. Kofi Anyidoho’s
Earthchild (1985) and Niyi Osundare’s The Eye of the Earth (1986), are good
illustrations of such oral adaptations. The writers include, among other things, oral
features like, high degree of musicality, translations and transliterations from the poet’s
mother tongue, and actualization of their poetry through performance. The integration
of oral poetic features into the written mode supports Finnegan’s (1992) assertion that
oral poetry and written poetry share a common boundary, and are very similar such that
a clear line of demarcation may not likely differentiate them. According to the
critic,”Oral poetry like written poetry possesses a verbal text.” (Sotunsa, 2002)
Attempt a detail discussion of the concept of African oral poetry
3.2 The Poetry of Pre-Literate African Societies
In his Modern African Poetry (Undated), a course material for students of Centre
for Distance Learning, University of Maiduguri, Ishaku discusses the poetry of pre-
literate African Societies. According to hims, poetry is a branch of literature, an
imaginary expression of deep thought and experience that makes its effect by sound and
imagery of its language. It is often in verse form and arranged in patterns of sound and
lines. A poem may be spoken, recited or sung. Poetry therefore, is a branch of literature
that gives concentrated imaginative utterance to experience in words so chosen, and so
arranged that they create an intense emotional response through the union of theme,
language, sound and rhythm. A famous English poet, William Wordsworth, says all
good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions by a man who, being
10
possessed of more than usual organic sensibility and has fought long deeply. Poetry is
written to give immediate pleasure to a human being possessed of that information
which may be expected from the poet, not as a lawyer, a physician, a mariner an
astronomer or a natural philosopher, but as man. In his preface to the Lyrical Ballads
(1798), Wordsworth describes poetry thus:
The image of men and nature
Acknowledgement of the beauty of the universe
A homage paid to the native and naked dignity of man, to the grand elementary
principle of pleasure, by which he knows, and feels and lives and moves
Is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge. It is the first and last of all
knowledge
It is immortal as the heart of man
In a similar manner, Edgar Allan Poe described poetry as ‘the rhythmical creation
of beauty’. While Arlington Robinson says, poetry is ‘language that tells us through a
more or less emotional reaction to something that cannot be said’. Poetry is about
experiences, feelings and beauty. It is more intense, less direct, more suggestive and
ambiguous.
The term ‘Written African Poetry’ may bring to your mind the thought of an
‘older poetry’ before the ‘written’ one. To clear your mind about this subject, we shall
devote the next few pages of this unit to the earlier poetry of Africa before the Written
African Poetry. Written Africa poetry takes its origin from the oral poetry of pre-literate
African societies. That goes to say before written African poetry, there was African
poetry but in oral form. Poetry at that level performs distinct significant functions in the
society ranging from social, occupational, religious to ‘oracular’ (Ishaku, Undated).
Discuss poetry in pre-literate African societies citing as many examples as possible
3.3 Pre-Literate Oral Poetry
Poetry in Africa before the advent of written African poetry combined all bodies
of work created by African artists of different origins and fields of endeavours. Different
criteria such as location, profession and purpose of the artists, history, sociological or
geographical conditions of the performers, the subject matter of the poetry - e.g.
ancestral worship, profession, love, can be used in identifying the functions of poetry
in such societies. Each class of poetry has its peculiarities commiserate with its function.
For example, under cult the poems listed are religious, medicinal and oracular. These,
at the formal level, share the form of generally being rendered in a heightened voice,
functionally being part of magic or prayer and sharing some significant aspects of the
occult art itself.
At the social level, the dirge may share the same formal quality - slow solemnity
with some Ijala, the Yoruba hunters’ poetry listed under ‘occupation’. The group listed
under ‘occupational’ includes poetry that is peculiar and specific to certain trades. For
example, hunters among Yoruba are bound by their allegiance to Ogun, the god of
hunting, which unites them with blacksmiths. But hunters also share the love of forests
11
and animals; hence, they participate in a more cultic essence of Ogun. The Ijala, one of
the most popular occupational poetry, is a speech-like song chanted at the gatherings of
the devotees Ogun. Ijala contains imagery drawn from all aspects of non-human life. It
deals with human relations, provides admonitions for ethical conduct and covers the
whole range of traditional mythology. Its subject matter includes a salute to animals,
stressing their attributes, characteristics or roles in legend. The Ijala also contains a
salute to particular lineages and distinguished individuals, which form by far the largest
division of the subject matter, sharing something with the Yoruba Oriki praise song
poem which has a broader communal appeal. Other occupational groups use poetry as
an essential aspect of work. These poems go beyond being just mere work songs since
they are part of a reportorial accumulation used in specific religious functions pertaining
to the group’s calling. A good example is the Ewe fisherman’s song tradition. These
poems invoke the sea, fish lore and ceremonies pertaining to specific nets. They are a
times accompanied by drums; they are marked by a quick, almost martial rhythm.
Cult poetry covers religious poetry, medicinal poetry, and oracular poetry.
Religious poetry includes the praise poems of gods, or what may be called hymns. For
instance, the Yoruba god Esu-Elegba, the messenger deity, has his own worshippers
who perform his rituals with his praise names.
Examine the concept of pre-literate African oral poetry
3.4 Classification of pre-literate African Poetry
According to Ishaku (Undated), various attempts were made to classify oral
poetry into sub-genric forms. Finnegan (1992) identifies the following genres of oral
poetry: epic, ballad, panegyric, odes and lyric poetry. Nevertheless, she states, “one has
to accept that the whole idea of a genre is relative and ambiguous, dependent on
culturally accepted canons of differentiation rather than a universal criteria.” Previous
classifications of African oral poetry by critics like Olukoju (1978), Olatunji (1984),
Olajubu (1981), Kolawole (1990) and Ogunjimi and Na’allah (1994) have often been
based on the following criteria: structure, content, language and musical
accompaniment. For instance, Ogunjimi and Na’allah (1994) classify African oral
poetry according to themes. This classification is based on the content. They identify
religious poetry, incantatory poetry, salutation or praise poetry, funeral poetry,
occupation poetry, heroic poetry, topical poetry, lullaby and occasional poetry. Each
genre is further classified into sub genres. This classification is facile, ambiguous and
overlaps. For instance “incantatory poetry” is religious in nature. Similarly, “heroic
poetry” is essentially or primarily praise poetry, neither is “topical poetry” well defined,
Olukoju (1978) attempts to re-classify categories of Yoruba oral poetry. He identifies
three modes of discourse in Yoruba oral poetry. These include (1) speech mode (2)
chant mode (3) song mode. Under the “speech mode” is the drum verse. Olukoju
observes that previous researchers have based their classification of Yoruba oral poetry
on the following criteria: The group of people to which the reciter belongs and the
technique of recitation; Stylistic devices employed in the recitals and the mode in which
each genre should sound in performance; The manner of voice production employed
12
and the internal structure in addition to the mode of chanting; The subject matter dealt
with (reference to oral texts in general). On the other hand, Kolawole (1990) bases his
categorisation on the theme or content of the poem. The following are the sub-genres
of Yoruba poetic forms according to him; Esu Pipe (Esu invocatory chant), Iyere Ifa
(Ifa divination chant), Oya Pipe (Oya Invocatory chant), Esu Egungun (Masquerade
(ancestral) chant), Sango Pipe (Sango invocatory chant), Ijala (Hunter’s chant), Ire
Moje (Hunter’s funeral dirge),Oku Pipe (Funeral dirge), Ekun Iyawo (Nuptial chant),
Oriki Orile (Lineage praise chant), Rara (Praise chant), Etigeri (Satirical chant) and Ofo
(Incantation).
Similarly, Akpabot (1981) suggests that Efik/Ibibio oral poetry exists in two
major categories: ritual poetry and non-ritual poetry. According to him, most examples
of Efik/Ibibio oral poetry are functional. This categorization, does not cater, among
other things, for the formal attributes of poetry.
From the examination of African traditional poetry therefore, the following
fundamental features can be identified: It is transmitted through oral means, and
actualized in performance. Furthermore, it is realized in any of the three modes –
speech, chant and song. In addition, audience participation is an integral aspect of the
performance. Besides, scholars have used the following criteria to classify it: content,
theme, structure, function and mode of delivery. Finally it is a communal property
because of the contributions of various artists over time although a poet/composer must
have composed it at a point in time.
Write a rich essay on the oral background of written African Poetry with ample
examples
4.0 CONCLUSION
You have learnt that poetry in Africa, before the advent of written African poetry,
generally expresses itself in the songs, ritual incantations, prayers to gods, or salutations
to gods and men. It covers all that ordinary every day speech does not express. In
everyday life, good deal of poetry is performed in the name of gods. The pouring of
libation before a meal or a drink is a prayer and a poem. Thus, poetry involves an
extremely complicated sense of materials and structures, the manipulation of multiple
elements. Its boundaries are limitless in the sense that the total world-mythology,
legend, music, dance, worship-is embraced in a feeling for “the solidarity of all life”.
Its folk nature is only discernible within the scope of the genius of individual talent
flowers, for the poem is carried by the voice. The most significant fact is that the
ultimate realization of this material lies in the occasion and atmosphere of its
performance.
5.0 SUMMARY
13
• The Concept of African Oral Poetry
• Poetry in pre-literate African societies
• The concept of pre-literate African oral poetry
• Classification of pre-literate African Poetry
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

Read and answer the questions below
1) Discuss the poetry in pre-literate African societies
2) Discuss the concept of pre-literate African oral poetry
3) Explain the types of pre-literate African poems you learned

Akpabot, S. E. (1981) “Musicological Approach to Efik/Ibibo Oral Poetry” In Oral
Poetry in Nigeria. Abalogu, U. N (ed.) Lagos: Nigeria Magazine: 89-95.
Anyidoho, K. (1985) Earthchild, Legon: Woeli,
Dasylva A. O. (1999). “Classificatory Paradigms in African Oral Narrative”. Isese
Monograph Series 1:1.
Emovon, A. (1981) “Preservation and Development of Traditional Oral Poetry: The
Edo (Bini) Example” Oral Poetry in Nigeria Abalogu U. N et al (eds) Nigeria
Magazine: Lagos: 265-282.
Finnegan, R. (1970). Oral Literature in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Finnegan, R. (1977). Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Iyorwuese, Hagher. (1981) “Performance in Tiv Oral Poetry”. Oral Poetry in Nigeria,
Abalogu U.N. et al (eds). Lagos: Nigeria Magazine: 37-56.
Ishaku, M. (Undated). In his Modern African Poetry. A course material for Centre for
Distance Learning, University of Maiduguri.
Kolawole, A. A. (1990) Major Themes of Yoruba Oral Poetry Diss. University of
Ibadan.
Lord, A. (1965) Singer of Tales. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Maduakor, O. (1991). Wole Soyinka: An Introduction to his Writing. Ibadan:
Heinemann.
Ogunjimi B. & Na’allah A. R. (1994) Introduction to African Oral Literature II. Ilorin:
Unilorin Press.
Ohaeto-Ezenwa (1996). ‘Survival Strategies and the New Life of Orality in Nigerian
and Ghanaian Poetry: Osundare’s Waiting Laughters and Anyidoho’s Earth
child”. Research in African Literature 27:2.
Ojaide, T. (1995) “New Trends in Modern African Poetry. Research in African
Literatures 26:1: 4-19.
Okphewo, I, (1985) (eds) The Heritage of African Poetry – Essex: Longman.
Olajubu, O. (1981) “Yoruba Oral Poetry: Composition and Performance. Oral Poetry
in Nigeria. Abalogu U.N et al (eds) Nigeria Magazine, Lagos: 71-85.
Olatunji, O. O. (1971). Characteristic Features of Yoruba Oral Poetry. University of
Ibadan.
14
Olukoju, E. O. (1978) The Place of Chants in Yoruba Traditional Oral Literature. Diss.
University of Ibadan.
Opefehintimi, A. (1995) “Indigenous Criticisms of Yoruba Orature Performances”.
Research in African Literatures 26:4:151-162.
Osundare, N. (1986). The Eye of the Earth. Ibadan: Heineman Education Books Nigeria
Ltd.
Sotunsa, M. E. (2002). “The Concept of African Traditional Oral Poetry”.
15
UNIT 3 BACKGROUND AND SCOPE OF WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 What is Written African Poetry?
3.2 Historical Development of Written African Poetry
3.2.1 Long, Long Have You Held
3.2.2 Night
3.2.3 Africa
3.3 Themes in Written African Poetry
3.3.1 The Theme of Religious and Cultural Suppression
3.3.2 The Theme of Political and Economic Exploitation
3.3.3 Personal Themes
3.3.4 Contemporary and Post-Independence Themes
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Written African literature, as opposed to its oral actecedents, is an artistic study
of the African predicament from the colonial era, through the time of the attainment of
political independence, to the post-independence era. And it is from this point of view
that written African literature not only manifests glaring human relevance, but also
reflects the writers’ awareness of social reality coupled with an imaginative response to
that reality. According to Thomas E. Kakonis and Barbara G. T. Desmarais, ‘reality
provides the basis for even the most abstract and imaginative of the artist’s conceptions
and the shared experience of reality permits him to communicate with other men.’ But
in dealing with reality, the artist does not merely reproduce it - ‘he arranges, he orders,
he selects’; and this helps him to ‘perceive its faults and envision its remedies’, though
the remedies are only implied in the writer’s attitude (Egudu, 1978). In this unit, we
shall identify and evaluate the various thematic components of written African poetry.
Below are some of the objectives of this unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Explain what you understand by Written African poetry
• Give a detailed explanation of the historical development of written African
poetry
• Discuss the themes in written African poetry
• Explain the following themes in African poetry:
o the theme of religious and cultural suppression
o the theme of political and economic exploitation
o personal themes
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o contemporary and post-independence themes
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 What is Written African Poetry?
Written African poetry refers to the written form of poetry by poets of African
descent. Earlier, we have learned that African poetry in the preliterate African societies
was basically oral. Written African poetry on the other hand is largely written. It is the
re-arrangement of traditional images of Africa by African poets into a cohesive whole
(Dathone 1982). Written African poetry, like the earlier poetry of Africa, expresses the
totality of the experience, worldview, and sensibility of Africans in written forms
(Ishaku, Undated). The middle of the 19th century witnessed the consolation of Western
imperial interests in Africa.This brought about European culture and education and the
rise of a westernized middle class which began to write. It is this class of writing,
especially in poetic form that we now call written African poetry.
African literature generally, and poetry in particular, is a reproduction of African
culture religion, language and art. It expresses the totality of the experience, worldview
and sensibility of Africans. Written African poetry combines two traditions: the African
(oral tradition) and the Western (written tradition). As a result, understanding it requires
the knowledge of:
- Traditional oral literature
- Africa’s history
- The African environment (Flora and Fauna), and
- The influence of Western languages and literary conventions
Orality is one of the cultural determinants that have given written African poetry
its tonality. It involves a totality that conjoins communication and participation as a
communal event. Written African poetry is therefore highly indebted to the oral poetry
of Africa- proverbs, axioms, folklores and epics.
Africa’s history involves the experience of slavery, Apartheid, colonialism, neo-
colonialism, military and civilian dictatorships, civil wars, religious, tribal and political
crises. These serve as constant reference for African imagination. Eustace Palma (1979)
and Irele Abiola (1981) argue that African literature generally is a reaction to the
consequences of imperialism. Written African Poetry, in the opinion of these critics, is
reactive to historical developments: first to external (the European) encounter with
Africa and later to internal (African) experience since political independence. The flora
and fauna of Africa assume symbolic significance wile the African world-view and
sensibility serve as background of Written African Poetry.
Before the emergence of what is now known as written African poetry, writings
had actually begun in the metropolitan languages as a result of regular contact with
European settlers and traders. One of the best-known authors of this era is Phyllis
Whitley, seven year old girl captured into slavery from Senegal in 1760. She wrote
accounts of her experience as a slave girl in a publication “On Being Brought from
Africa to America”. Her style and language were imitative of the vogue in English
poetry, with much recourse to Christian scriptures and hymn books for tone and ethic.
17
She was the first black woman to publish a book of verse in the United States. Her
poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1973) went through 11 editions
before 1816.
What do you understand by Written African Poetry?
3.2 Historical Development of Written African Poetry

While African poetry in English only began to impact upon literary circles during
the nineteen fifties, there is enough evidence suggesting the existence of written poetry
in earlier times. Written poetry in English has been shaped largely by, and has reacted
to, colonial experience which, because of its imperialistic nature, brought with it a great
sense of cultural dispossession on the part of the indigenous population.
In the tension between old and new, African poets and other writers in general began to
revalue the oral literary traditions of Africa. Ama Ata Aido contends that:
From various cultures sacred songs, praise poems, religious chants, funeral
dirges have influenced the poets writing in English who have mediated
between inherited African modes and poetic techniques and the English
language they have acquired. In some cases the poem was first written in the
indigenous language - Song of Lawino (p’Bitek’s 1967:10).
Literary production began overtly to acquire political and ideological ambitions. A
figure worth mentioning in this development is Edward Blyden, the nineteenth-century
Afro-American essayist who foresaw both the romanticism of enigmatising Black
Africa and the tendency by both African Nationalism and Pan Africanism to rely upon
the West. As a consequence of the six conferences that were organized by William Du
Bois and the inimitable Marcus Garvey between 1900 and 1945, the spirit of
nationalism amongst African students who were studying abroad grew. It was at about
this time that negritude was appropriated as a literary movement. This was to have far-
reaching implications in as far as literature was concerned. Because political leaders
and writers in general were inclined to emanate from the literary elite, it became easy
for literature to be tied to the struggle for political liberation because as Harlow (1987)
aptly maintains that:
Poetry is capable not only of serving as a means for expression of personal
identity or even nationalist sentiment. Poetry, as part of the cultural
institutions and historical existence of a people, is itself an arena of struggle.
That written African poetry owes much to, and reflects major influences of, traditional
African culture and colonial experience beyond doubt. Although traditional cultural
influences often vary from one region to another, and thus shape the nature, character
and identity of a specific regional poetry, colonial experience is a common denominator
which is not only shared, but also spans a variety of African cultural experiences. This
commonality of colonial experience amongst African people has had significant
influence in the development of literature in general and poetry in particular. Nkosi
(1985) observes that:
What linked the various African people on the continent was the nature and
depth of colonial experience; and this was the final irony. Colonialism had
18
not only delivered them unto themselves, but had delivered them unto each
other, so to speak, with a common language and an African consciousness;
for out of rejection had come affirmation.
He emphasises on the interplay between traditional and colonial experiences which
made it feasible to divide literature into clearly discernible traditions: East African,
West African and Southern African, and each with its own distinctive style, themes and
experiences dictated by local material conditions prevailing in each circumstance.
The founding of Black Orpheus in Ibadan in 1957 by Ulli Beier and Janheinz
Jahn, a journal which became very influential in and greatly impacted on literary circles,
introduced the literate English-speaking elite to black literary accomplishment in
French by first translating from French to English and later on by publishing inventive
work in English.
Beier was also instrumental a few years later in the establishment of what became
known as the Mbari Club in Ibadan, which fostered an atmosphere in which literature
in general could thrive by publishing, staging plays and encouraging exhibitions. In the
club’s publication writers of note including Dennis Brutus, John Pepper Clark, Wole
Soyinka and Christopher Okigbo made significant regular contribution. In South Africa
and East Africa the nature of events took a different turn. Where West African writers
had Mark Orpheps as their literary outlet and mouthpiece, their counterparts in the East
were largely dominated by Makerere University College - once hailed as the home of
Africa’s intelligentsia - until the coup de tat that brought General Amin Dada to power
signalled the demise of that institution. The College’s demise coupled with Tanzania’s
policy of promoting literature in Swahili exclusively, left Kenya as a dominant force in
East Africa. On the other hand written African poetry can be said to have come in three
phases. Historical consciousness of each period matters in its thematic preoccupation.
As you continue with this unit, you come to discover that these phases dovetail into
each other and the dividing line becomes so thin because poems, poets and issues
reoccur in each phase. Much as the poets address historical issues and happenings in
their environment actually dictate their themes. The poets sought to commend their faith
in Africa and so they show no interest in historical accuracy. As a result, there is little
of direct historical documentation and dating as would refer to in historical material in
the poems.
Senanu and Vincent in their anthology entitled: Selection of African Poetry
(1976) suggest the divisions into generations from the pioneering phase to the
contemporary. Those who started to write poetry in the written way are called the
pioneers. Their works are more of apprentice literature. This group include Dennis
Odadebay of Nigeria, H.I.E. Dlomo and Bendict Wallet of South Africa, Michael Dei
Anang, Gladys Casely-Hayford and R.E.G. Armottoe of Ghana. These poets approved
colonialism without reservation. Osadebay’s “Young Africa Thanks” ignored loss of
indigenous culture, forced labour of natives, unfair taxes, siphoning of natural resources
and suppression of local freedom. This group was generally preoccupied with themes
of race, Christianity and heroism and was influenced by missionary hymn books, the
Bible, Greco-Roman allusions and mimicry of Victorian diction. While the ones already
listed are poems of English extraction when we include the Negritude poems of the
French extraction, and that of Portuguese extractions which were written much later,
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we shall have a solid period of 20 years of poetry writing i.e. 1931-1943. It is this period
that is referred to as the pioneering phase of written Africa poetry.
3.2.1 Long, Long Have You Held
This is a poem by Léopold Sédar Senghor of French extraction.
Long, long have you held between your hands the black face of the
warrior
Held as if already there fell on it a twilight of death.
From the hill I have seen the sun set in the bays of your eyes.
When shall I see again, mu country, the pure horizon of your breast?
Hidden in the half-darkness, the next of gentle words.
I shall see other skies and other eyes
I shall drink at the spring of other mouths cooler than lemons
I shall sleep under the roof of other heads of hair in shelter from storms
But every year, when the rum of springtime sets my memory ablaze,
I shall be full of regret for my homeland and the rain from your eyes on
the thirsty Savannahs. (Senanu 2001:65)
3.2.2 Night
Agostinho Neto’s “Night” best illustrates the Lusophone pattern from the
Portuguese type.
I live
In the dark quarters of the world
Without light, without life
They are slave quarters

Worlds of misery.
Dark quarters where the will is watered down.
And men have been confused
With things.
Anxious to live,
I walk in the streets
Feeling my way
Leaning into my shapeless dreams
Stumbling into servitude.
I walk lurching
Through the unlit unknown streets crowded
With mystery and terror,
I arm in arm with ghosts,
And the night too is dark. (Senanu 2001:80)
20
You should note the ambivalent target of its protest: both oppressors and their victims.
This surrounds the use of “walk” to describe the only living activity of the speaker.
Although the poem begins by refereeing to “dark quarters of the world”, the rest of the
poem gives a specific character to the speaker’s situation. The vague references as well
as the specific location are very important for the total effect of the poem.
However, the second phase of written African poetry came of age at the end of
colonialism in the late 1950s and 1960s. The poetry of this period condemned
colonialism and was characterized by freshness of imagery, innovative use of language,
utilization of the African experience in a personal way, and established the cannon of
the written African poetry. The poets were educated, mostly taught by Europeans in
African universities and very much aware of literature as an art form. Poets like Senghor
and Okara expressed historical grievance against slavery and colonialism as
demonstrated in racial /culture conflict of African versus European, identity issues as in
negritude and African personality.
These poets lived in a period of transition, so they expressed their unease with
the new ways, as in Pbitek’s Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol. These poets wrote in
one voice for all Africans, acted as defenders of all Africa against denigration and as a
result of education, important elements of the Western structure of mind were integrated
in their works. The use of individual and universal experiences as Mtshali, Nwosu,
Senghor, Soyinka and Clark is characteristics of their poems. These poets were
influenced by the writtenists’ use of language: paradox, irony, allusiveness and
difficulty/obscurity. Hence, intertextuality and acute sense of craft in Dennis Brutus,
Okigbo, Clark and Soyinka. This is ironical as they used Western writtenist techniques
while advocating African culture.
The third generation is made up of the new poets who came of age from the mid-
1970s, a period characterized by declining economies due to energy crisis, civil wars,
military coups, apartheid, civilian /military dictatorships, and other forms of social,
economic and political instability. Some examples of these poets include Mapanje,
Ojaide, and Osundare who were highly educated and exposed. They see themselves as
agents of change –attacking corruption, injustice, and economic mismanagement. In
their writing is a growing rebelliousness –anti-establishment and anti-status quo. The
women in particular write about their private lives and individual experiences, their
bodies and sex. This group of poets attached so much importance to communicating a
message; so, the poets use simple language i.e., the syntax of prose as in African oral
tradition and loosening of form in the use of Pidgin English and colloquialisms. This
phase is often criticized for ignoring craft at the expense of urgent meaning and differs
from the first phase in the use of repetition for emphasis, not just for music, as in
Okigbo.
The more recent period is characterized by military /civilian dictatorships,
religious/ethnic violence, political thuggery, energy crisis, corruption, misrule,
unemployment, god-fatherism, human trafficking and terrorism. These are issues that
made available themes for poets to address. Poets like Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide,
Kofi Anyidoho, Jared Angira, Funso Ayejina, and Cyl-Cheney Cooker, feature
prominently. Niyi Osundare and Funso Ayejina particularly have shown a firmer grasp
21
of the contemporary situation through the intensity of their understanding of traditional
aesthetics.
Written African poets of these phases created a clear difference from their
European counterpart by shedding of conventions like rhyme, alliteration and assonance
for traditional forms like dirges, abuse, praise songs, proverbs, axioms and folklore.
This gives birth to national literatures; thus, we have Nigerian, Kenyan, South African,
Ugandan and Zimbabwe.
Discuss the historical background to written African poetry.

3.3 Themes in Written African Poetry
3.3.1 The Theme of Religious and Cultural Suppression
With the coming of European education in the mid-19th century, (Ishaku, Undated)
argues: African culture came to be downgraded by Africans who have been exposed to
the “new things”. Africans started to rush after the new way of life, new form of dress,
attitudes and general mannerism that were contrary to the African way of life. This
affects religious activities where African religions were considered heathenism. The
poets who took up these issues did not ask questions about Western practices but were
opposed to being asked to abandon their indigenous religious beliefs and practices in
preference to the supposedly ‘superior one’. This is the point George Awoonor-
Williams is making in the “Weaver Bird”:
The weaver bird built in our house
And laid its eggs on our only tree
We did not want to send it away
We watched the building of the nest
And supervised the egg-laying.
And the weaver returned in the guise of the owner
Preaching salvation to us that owned the house
They say it came from the west
Where the storms at sea had felled the gulls
And the fishers dried their nets by lantern light
Its sermon is the divination of ourselves
And our new horizons limit at its nest
But we cannot join the prayers and the answers of the communicants.
We look for new homes every day,
For new alters we strive to re-built
The old shrines defiled from the wear’s excrement.
In Kwesi Brew’s “Least we should be the last”, the poet presents in cynical way the
disappointment and disillusionment of the early Christian converts who on getting into
Christianity become disillusioned because they did not get something new
3.3.2 The Theme of Political and Economic Exploitation
22
Politics is usually integrated into a people’s culture and everybody is in one way
or the other affected by politics. Political practices are part of a people’s culture. Thus,
politics forms an important thematic preoccupation for written African writers. In
poetry, like other genres of literature, the writer and the context are important. Time and
space, history and place set the context of a literary creation. The history of a society is
also essential as many themes stem from a society’s historical background. Written
African poets are greatly influenced by their rich oral literature which is essentially
didactic. Most poets make use of the functional didacticism of oral literature to reflect
the culture, history, politics and society as a whole in their writings. The experience of
Africans after independence was so terrible and called for protest. African poets being
an integral part of the struggle for independence felt cheated and so being disillusioned
they started to write. An example of this poetry is Abioseh Nicole’s “The Meaning of
Africa” which is based on the situation of Africa after independence. Africa is presented
as a continent of multiple complexities. For instance, David Diop’s “Africa” the
political theme is fully illustrated in a moving and rhetorical language.
3.3.3 Personal Themes
This involves poems that discuss personal themes but with universal
applications. Poets like Gabriel Okara, Wole Soyinka and Lenrie Peters are concerned
with what on the surface look like personal problems but have universal applicability to
the rest of humanity. For instance, Okara in “The Call of the Nun” is worried about
man’s prospects on the journey of life from dawn to that inevitable end. In “Death in
the Dawn”, Soyinka warns the early traveller to be curios because the rest of the day
might hold something ominous in store for him. Senghor’s “African Woman” and
Peter’s “The Fire has Gone Out” are classified as the frustration of hopes at the initial
stage of one’s life. However, these poets think locally but write globally.
3.3.4 Contemporary and Post-Independence Themes
The failure of independence to bring about a new dispensation is a hot cake for
writers. The abundance expected from independence was unfortunately just a bag-load
of unprecedented social upheavals. There are incessant military coups that have plagued
most of the African states since independence. Political instability, coupled with
economic instability, disorganized the society and made life unbearable for the ordinary
people. Corruption became endemic with the rich becoming richer and the poor poorer.
J.P. Clark’s “The Casualties” and “A Song for Ajegunke” by Niyi Osundare are about
post-independence problems. The poems discuss the marginalised citizens who have
been reduced to sub-human level in society, while Ojaide’s “The Fate of the Vulture”
depicts military in politics’.
Discuss the themes in Written African Poetry with examples
4.0 CONCLUSION
23
Written African poetry is actively influenced by African oral tradition, culture
issues, African encounters with Europe, effects of colonialism and socio-political events
of the past and present. Like other genres of literature, written African poetry, is a major
participant in all the vigorous revolutionary struggles of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Therefore, politics imposes greater strain on the written African poetry than any other
factor. Written African poetry in its characteristic of addressing historical issues, usually
determines where and how the poet lives and prefigures a degree of personal struggles
greater than that which poets of the free world tend to experience.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The concept of written African Poetry
• The historical development of written African poetry
• The analysis of some written African poems
• The themes in written African poetry, including the themes of religious and
cultural suppression, the theme of political and economic exploitation, the
personal themes and the contemporary and post-independence themes in written
African poetry.
1) Explain what you understand by written African poetry
2) Give a detailed explanation of the historical development of written African
poetry
3) Explain the following themes in written African poetry
i. The theme of religious and cultural suppression
ii. The theme of political and economic exploitation
iii. Personal themes
iv. Contemporary and post-independence themes
7.0 REFERENCES/SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Amuta, C. (1989) The Theory of African Literature: Implications for practical Criticism
London: Zed Books.
Heywood, C. (ed) (!989) Perspectiveson African Literature. London: Heinemann
Educational Books. Jones, O. Eldredand Narjorie,
http://www.google.com/urf/m.brighthueducation.com
Irele, A. (1991). The African experience in literary ideology. London: Heinemann.
Ishaku, M. (Undated). Modern African Poetry. A course material for Centre for
Distance Learning, University of Maiduguri.
Jones (ed) (1996) New Trends and Generations in African Literature, No.20, London:
James Curry Ltd. pp.1-8
Nwoga, I. D. (1979)”Written African Poetry: The Domestication of a Tradition”.
African Literature Today, Retrospect and Prospect, No.10, New York: Africana
Publishing Company. pp. 32-56.
24
Senanu K. E, and T. Vincent (eds) (1967). Selection of African Poetry. London:
Longman.
Senanu, K.E. & Vincent T. (1999). A Selection of African Poetry (New Edition)
London: Longman.
25
UNIT 4 AESTHETICS IN AFRICAN POETRY
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 The Concept of Aesthetics
3.2 The African Aesthetic
3.3 The Expressive Nature of the Aesthetic
3.3 1 Significant Elements
3.3.2 The Commemorative Functions
3.3.3 Motifs
3.4 Contextualization of the African Aesthetic
3.5 Aesthetics in African Poetry
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Aesthetics may be defined as the philosophical study of beauty and taste. It
comprises of what is good and bad in any work of art. It deals with nature and value of
arts as well as those responses to natural objects that find expression in the language of
the beautiful and ugly. The term African aesthetic refers to the African perception and
appreciation of the nature, beauty, and value of artistic expressions or representations
of African origin. It is embedded in the plurality of African cultures and embodied in
people’s practices within their lived African societal contexts. It draws from and is
directly related to the diverse geographical, environmental, historical, cultural,
religious, or spiritual experiences of African people. It is therefore a significant
component of African people’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage that
simultaneously affirms their diversity and reinforces their cultural unity (Shava, 2015).
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Explain the concept of African Aesthetic
• Discuss the expressive nature of the Aesthetic
• State the Significant elements of Aesthetics
• What are the commemorative functions of Aesthetics?
• Which are the motifs in Aesthetics
• Discuss the idea of Aesthetics in African poetry
26
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 The Concept of Aesthetics
Aesthetics (the study of beauty) is a subject that has developed, especially in
Germany, into a formidable one. Lack of space forbids any attempt to deal with its
philosophical and psychological problems here; but some discrimination may be made
to clarify and amplify its use as a critical term (Childs and Fowler, 2006). First, aesthetic
pleasure may be distinguished from other pleasures – according to the Kantian
definition now widely accepted – as that which is disinterested, the result of perceiving
something not as a means but as an end in itself, not as useful but as ornamental, not as
instrument but as achievement. To perceive it so is to perceive its ‘beauty’ (if it turns
out to have any). Such beauty, being the counterpart to use or purpose, which largely
depend on content, must spring from formal qualities, as must the special pleasures its
perception gives rise to. Non-moral, non-utilitarian and non-acquisitive, this is the
purest of the pleasures, the one least exposed to bias from areas outside the work of art
(and therefore the one most appropriate for defining what ‘art’ is). Second, aesthetic
pleasure may be distinguished from aesthetic appreciation. The former emphasizes
one’s experience of the work, which may be mistaken, untutored or injudicious; the
latter emphasizes the characteristics of the work, and implies a critical assessment of
their ‘beauty’. Third, both presuppose aesthetic attention. Unless a work is regarded in
the way indicated above – for what it is, not for what it is up to – its aesthetic qualities,
if any, are likely to go unperceived. For this reason works where the subject, or manner,
deeply involves the reader are less likely to give aesthetic pleasure or to prompt
aesthetic appreciation than those that encourage aesthetic attention by formal devices
that lend aesthetic distance. Finally, aesthetic merit should be distinguished from
aesthetic qualities and reactions, for a work might possess genuine aesthetic qualities,
properly provide for their appreciation, yet be a poor specimen of its kind. Merit and
pleasure, too, are not necessarily related. An untrained or naturally crude sensibility
could clearly be aesthetically pleased by a crude work and so, in certain circumstances,
could a trained and refined sensibility.
Moreover, Aesthesis (aesthetic perception) is normally a blend of aesthetic
pleasure and appreciation, and may be of three kinds: aesthesis of composition, resulting
from purely formal harmonies of part and part, or parts and whole, and more
characteristic of the fine arts than of literature; aesthesis of complementarity, resulting
from the matching of form and content; and aesthesis of condensation, resulting from
the perception of aesthetic qualities in part of a work only.
In addition, the Aesthetic Movement, or Art for art’s sake, which started in France
during the latter part of the nineteenth century and flourished in England in the 1880s
and 1890s, was less concerned with such niceties than with a general reaction against
the Art for morality’s sake so characteristic of the earlier part of the century. When
Wilde averred that ‘all art is quite useless’ he spoke truly – if art is defined in aesthetic
terms. But the pleasures of literature are usually multiple and its proper appreciation
therefore rarely limited to the aesthetic. Critics, such as Paul de Man and Terry
Eagleton, have argued that the aesthetic is primarily an ideological category reflecting
and promoting Western bourgeois taste (Childs and Fowler, 2006).
27
Examine the concept of Aesthetics in literature
3.2 The African Aesthetic
Explication of African aesthetic requires an operative definition of aesthetic.
Admittedly, the term evolved out of the Greek word aesthetikos, which means
“perceptive,” but the term aesthetic is widely held to connote a philosophy of beauty.
We normally speak of an aesthetic as representing the standards by which a society
assigns value to their cultural productions, especially their expressive art forms; as
music, dance, theater, and the visual arts (e.g., painting and sculpture) (Asante and
Mazama, 2005). Aesthetics, according to the Hamlyn Encyclopedic Dictionary is
recognized as a science in philosophy and its stands for that which “deduces from
natures taste and rules and principles; the science of the beautiful…” Also in psychology
aesthetic is seen as “the study of the mind and emotions in relations to the sense of
beauty even if nothing else rings a bell about aesthetics from both philosophy and
psychology, one does namely, that aesthetics has to do with the beautiful. According to
Akpan and Etuk as cited by Johnson (2004) aesthetics experiences are usually obtained
from enjoying work of art… we very easily and naturally tie our aesthetics experiences
to work of art which are man-made object”. Aesthetics is also concern with moral or
ethical judgment of human behaviour. Aesthetics involves every aspects of human
social life in relation to the work of art pp.19-28.
The encyclopaedia Britannica also defines aesthetics as the study of beauty and
to a lesser extents of it opposite, the ugly. It has often been defined as the science of the
beautiful suggesting an organised body of knowledge of a special subjects matter. It is
usually concerned with the theoretical study of the beauty in work of arts, with effort to
understand and explain them.
Although many African ethnic groups do not have a specific word or term similar
to the word aesthetic, the value that they place on their artistic productions – music,
dance, sculpture, and masked spiritual entities – is equal to the value that other societies
place on similar art forms, and thus an African aesthetic exists in practice even if not in
name.
What is Aesthetic in Literature?
3.3 The Expressive Nature of Aesthetic
Melodic speech that comes down to us as song is probably as old as speech itself,
and movement to music-dance- is synchronous in inception with speech and song.
Visual expression reaches at least as far back as the Paleolithic age, and it is through
this early recorded art form one can plausibly points to ritual dance scenes that would
also, no doubt, involve incantations or song. Furthermore, Africa’s expressive arts can
be identified because their character is distinctive from that of other cultures’ artistic
modalities. Although no exact formal philosophy of African art exists, when the practice
of African art is scrutinized over time and space, it speaks volumes. Black Studies
scholars have investigated ways of developing an aesthetic construct that encompasses
28
one African art form and can also be applied to other African art forms. (Asante and
Mazama, 2005).
3.3.1 The Significant Elements
An examination of African art from the early period down through the ages
reveals the embodiment of three significant elements: craftedness, originality and
spirituality. The fact that at different sites different types of images are identifiable
reveals that certain stylistic norms were being practiced even during the Paleolithic
period. Such adherence to an acceptable mode of creating images or scenes is a
communicable craftedness. Within the various identifiable types, subtle variations
appear to have been permissible, allowing for a certain amount of originality. While
specific religious intentions cannot be proven or corroborated, most paleontologists and
art historians agree that some, if not most, of the human images with symbols connoting
natural or celestial concepts represent some form of spirituality or spiritual ritual. Thus
the ability to craft the images to meet specific group criteria, but with individual
variation, and yet have the image exude or suggest a certain spiritual aura follows
African art’s evolution and metamorphosis down through the ages. A close study of
Paleolithic African art therefore establishes that even in this early age a predilection for
particular expression, a predisposition for specific icons, a propensity for symbolic
images with religious implications, an “aesthetic” is indisputable (Asante and Mazama,
2005).
Anthropological field research has shown that traditional African art’s function
is related to one or more of life’s passages—birth, initiation, marriage, eldership, death,
rebirth. This need to create art for a ritual or ceremony to celebrate the rites of passage
is a sociological behaviour shared by most of Africa’s indigenous groups. It is through
an examination of certain images, icons, and symbols, as well as an unprecedented use
of mixed media to create the unique concepts of African art, that one can discern a
plausible connectedness of African art across time and space. This diachronic and
synchronic inquiry also reveals that African art is often spiritually based, even when
such art serves a cultural function rather than having been created for or used in a
specific religious ceremony. That African art has continued to have a cultural function
when many other cultures ceased to use art in such a fashion is indicative that there is a
shared African aesthetic.
3.3.2 The Commemorative Functions
Examples of the continued use of art with a cultural function are the
commemorative sculptures of African rulers—earlier on the monumental Pharaohs of
ancient Kemet and Nubia, and more recently the Ndop of the Bakuba. Just as the
Kemetians and the Nubians felt that their rulers were god-kings (i.e., rulers endowed
with godlike qualities), the Bakuba symbolize Ndop’s significance as Chemba Kunji.
Each sculptural image is a commemorative work of art paying homage to a beloved and
respected ruler by the portrayal of his physical likeness or by indicating symbolic
embellishment his attributes and contributions that enhanced his people during his
reign. As the ruler, he is revered unquestionably because his ordination began with a
divine ritual giving him the sacred abilities of the supreme creator. The same can be
29
said of the images of the Oni of Ile Ife, of the Oba of Benin, and of the Bangwa of the
Bamaleke (Asante and Mazama, 2005). Other examples of how different African ethnic
groups share an aesthetic of a spiritually based art are the mother-and-child figures of
the Asante, the Yoruba, the Senufu, the Bamana, the Bakongo, the Chokwe, and the
Makonde, to name just a few. All of these mother-and-child images serve the same
purpose as the earlier image of Auset holding Heru. A comparison of the religious
practices of Kemetians (ancient Egyptians) and those of the Nubians and other
indigenous Nilotic peoples reveals similarities. The religious practices one finds in
Egypt and Sudan, one also finds in Congo and Benin. The mother figure as gestator,
nourisher, and giver of life symbolizes the earth as mother and the African woman as
the visual prototype. A Paleolithic rock painting of this Madonna motif and a sculpture
of the earliest portrayal of Auset and Heru leave no question about the Africanness of
either of these mother-and-child figures symbolizing birth, regeneration, and
nourishment.
The unique variations of masked figures among most African groups—such as
Nimba of the Baga, Kponiugo of the Senufu, Banda of the Nulu, and so on—have their
counterparts in early rock and cave art, as well as in the Kemetian panoply of sacred
images that are part human and part animal (e.g., Sphinx, Anubis, Sekhmet, etc.). Many
African scholars agree that a primal reason for African people art from prehistoric times
forward is that it serves a survival function that involves giving physical form to
spiritual meaning. African artists create a synthesis of visual elements that exemplify
the special attributes of the spiritual entity being represented.
3.3.3 The Type Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to
develop and inform the text’s major themes. There are many type-motifs that symbolize
various aspects of culture. These type-motifs may be the exaggeration of content-loaded
concepts, such as enlarged breasts, oversized genitals, the pregnant stomach, or the
expanded protruding navel, suggesting nourishment, procreation, or continuity of life.
Such aesthetic standards become visual canons, general formulas, artistic conventions
that must be followed by the artists or artisans of each ethnic group; otherwise viewers
from outside of the particular cultural groups would not be able to recognize Yoruba art
as being distinct from Asante art, Bakuba art as distinct from Dan art, Senufu art as
distinct from Bayaka art, and so on. While the art of each group is distinct from the art
of every other group, each discernible practice is nonetheless one of multiple
expressions of similar cultures sharing a common origin of interconnectedness flowing
from earlier rock and cave art. It is clear that this vast interconnected African art shared
a beginning from which flowed similar content concerns with spiritual and religious
ramifications. Through an examination of the form—medium selection, decorative
motifs, design patterns—an African aesthetic becomes even more incontrovertible
(Asante and Mazama, 2005).
African artistic expression is older and more numerous than any other group’s
artistic achievement the world over. From thousands of Paleolithic rock and cave
paintings to the monumental art of the Nile Valley civilizations to traditional and
30
contemporary expressions throughout Africa and the pan-African world, a multitude of
African groups have shared unique and distinct artistic idioms.
There is no separation between form and content in African art. A broad analysis
of the form of Africa’s art, from its masked spiritual representations to its expressive
sculptural statues to its textiles and tapestries, reveals cultural productions that are
complex— brightly colored with multifarious patterns and/or embellished with intricate
designs. This type of expressive elegance is also exhibited in Africa’s other expressive
art forms, such as music, dance, and theater, as well as in different religious rituals. The
richness of African music and dance has long been accepted and documented as a viable
contribution to world culture.
Write short notes on functions and significant elements of African Aesthetic.
3.4 Contextualization of the African Aesthetic
The essence of the African aesthetic is its representation as a construct of African
people on the continent and people of African descent in the diaspora that articulates
African culture, identity, and spirituality. It is how Africans consciously define their
own concept of beauty—that is, the African-derived standards of perceiving,
appreciating, appraising, or applying aesthetic values or knowledge of things African.
The African aesthetic is African centred, and it reveals the cultural bond between
Africans in the continent and abroad. The African aesthetic embraces a rich variety of
creative forms and styles peculiar to people of African origin that incorporate a
combination of practical, physical, material, temporal, and spiritual aspects. It includes
African artistic expressions— visual and performative images, verbal arts (poetry,
oratory performance), music (song and dance), dress, rhythm, hairstyles, cosmetics,
designs and crafts in and from Africa. It can be decorative and ceremonial as well as
serve a functional purpose (Shava, 2015).
Describe the content of African aesthetics.
3.5 Aesthetics in African Poetry
Praise poetry is a common practice among African communities. Praise
accompanies community leaders in ceremonial functions describing the prowess of such
leaders. For instance, the Nguni izimbongi praise poetry for kings and chieftainships
attest to that stance. Praise is also used to thank and to appease other community
members. The use of totemic praise is common among the Shona tribe and is applied to
both men and women as a greeting, gesture of respect, or means of appreciation. It is
applied in diverse contexts, from private bedrooms to public occasions. Poetry is also a
form of entertainment at Shona ceremonial gatherings, whereby the poet, mudetembi
(the Shona term for poet), will demonstrate his or her creative oratory prowess in
relation to the occasion through poetry interpolated with the appropriate use of idioms
and proverbs. Similarly, among West African peoples such as the Ashanti and the
31
Yoruba, poetry and proverbs formed the basis for logical argument in personal relations,
legal proceedings, and political negotiations.
Discuss the concept of aesthetics as it relates to written African poetry.
4.0 CONCLUSION
The African perception and appreciation of the nature, beauty, and value of
artistic expressions or representations of African origin is embedded in the plurality of
African cultures and embodied in people’s practices within their lived African societal
contexts. It draws from and is directly related to the diverse geographical,
environmental, historical, cultural, religious, or spiritual experiences of African
peoples. It is therefore a significant component of African people’s tangible and
intangible cultural heritage that simultaneously affirms their diversity and reinforces
their cultural unity. It provides symbolic representations that communicate what it is to
be an African to future generations on the continent and in the diaspora. Most Africans
in the diaspora have retained some of their traditional aesthetic elements, which are
exhibited in their dress, hairstyles, ornamentation, music (song and dance), and
artworks. These various artefacts are symbolic elements defining and sustaining their
identity and origin. Below are some of the objectives of this unit.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The concept of African aesthetic
• The expressive nature of the aesthetic
• The Significant elements of aesthetics
• The commemorative functions of aesthetics?
• The type motifs in aesthetics
• Aesthetics in African poetry
• Explain the concept of African aesthetic
• Discuss the expressive nature of the aesthetic
• State the Significant elements of aesthetics
• What are the commemorative functions of aesthetics?
• Which are the type motifs in aesthetics
• Discuss the idea of aesthetics in African poetry
Asante, K. W. (1994). African Aesthetics. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
Asante, M. K. & Mazama, A. (Eds) (2005). Encyclopedia of Black studies. Thousand
Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc.
Childs, P. and Fowler, R. (2006). The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms. New
York: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
Garlake, P. (1987). The Painted Caves. Harare, Zimbabwe: Modus.
32
Jesse Matz, Literary Impressionism and Modernist Aesthetics (2001).
Press
Lewis-Williams, D. (1983). The Rock Art of Southern Africa. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Monroe C. Beardsley, Aesthetics (1958)
P. Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Taste (1979)
Paul De Man, Aesthetic Ideology (1997)
Shava, S. (2015). “African Aesthetic” in The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural
Heritage in North America.
Sheppard, A. Aesthetics: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art (1987)
Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (1990)
33
UNIT 5 WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY: THE PIONEERS
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Pioneer Poetry
3.2 Early Responses to Slavery and Colonialism
3.2.1 Phillis Wheatley
3.2.2 Francis Williams
3.2.3 Juan Latino
3.2.4 B.W. Vilakazi
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The beginning of Written African poetry can be traced to “African exiles in
Europe and slaves and ex-slaves in the New World” (Nkosi 1981: 108). Slavery initiated
a new consciousness among Africans. Slaves became educated and tried their hands in
the arts of their masters. With the coming of Christianity in Africa, some Africans
acquired education and started writing poems. Poems of people like Juan Latino, Philis
Wheateley and B.W. Vilakazi are good examples of the first generation of Written
African Poetry. The poems of the ex-slaves were largely imitations of the West. Some
reveal their African identity and contain some form of protest. Others reveal acceptance
of Christianity and glorify their white masters. The relationship between African
literature and African historical experiences is characterized by slavery and colonialism.
The earlier responses to colonialism by writers of African origin can be seen as origin
of written African literature. This unit is going to introduce you to the African pioneer
poetry which are mostly characterised by early responses to slavery and colonialism by
writers of African origin such as Phillis Wheatley, Francis Williams, Juan Latino and
B.W. Vilakazi. While these writers spent almost their entire life outside Africa, they are
of African origin and express so through their writings. Below are some of the
objectives of this unit:
2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit you should be able to:
• Discuss the pioneers of written African poetry
• Examine early responses to slavery and colonialism by writers of African origin,
with specific references to:
o Phillis Wheatley
o Francis Williams
o Juan Latino
34
o B.W. Vilakazi
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 The Pioneers of Written African Poetry (Pre-Independence Echoes)
According to Okon (2013), from the beginning, modern African poetry has
illuminated the political concerns of its history. Putting aside Benibengor Blay’s
imitative poetry,1 we find the politics of anti-colonial struggle highlighted in the poems
of Gladys Casely-Hayford, R.E.G. Armattoe, D.C. Osadebay, Micheal Dei-Anang, and
Vilakazi. The first echoes of nationalist protest against colonial rule can be found in the
works of these early poets. These poets used African imagery and concepts to realize
their aims.
In Gladys Casely Hayford’s “Rejoice” African nationalism is expressed. The

persona exhorts Africans (blacks) to rejoice:
Rejoice and shout with laughter.

Throw all your burdens down,
If God has been so gracious
As to make you black or brown.
The persona attributes a great birth and a glorious heritage to Africa, and therefore urges
all Africans to rejoice in spite of their present political denigrations. Therefore, Africa
is painted in a positive light:
For you are a great nation,

A people of great birth
For where would spring the flowers
If God took away the earth?
Rejoice and shout with laughter
Throw all your burdens down
Yours is a glorious heritage
If you are black, or brown (Nwogu, 1975:5).
A similar vein runs through the poem of R. E. G. Armattoe: “Africa”, where Africa is
portrayed as a sad maiden:
I once saw a maiden dark and comely,

Sitting by the wayside, sad and lonely.
The poet portrays the helpless plight of Africa in the midst of an acquisitionist industrial
Europe:
‘I am neither sad nor lonely,’ she said,

‘But living, Sir, among the deaf and dumb;
Relentlessly watching these shameless dead,
Makes my warm heart very cold and numb’. (Nwogu, 1975:11).
Osadebay’s “Who Buys my Thoughts” projects the thinking of Africa from the
perspective of the masses and their basic problems:
35
Who buys my thoughts
Buys not a cup of honey
That sweetens every taste;
He buys the throb,
Of Young Africa’s soul,
The soul of teeming millions,
Hungry, naked, sick,
Yearning, pleading, waiting.
It is also the dilemma of young Africans caught in the clash of cultures:
Or restless youths who are born
Into deep and clashing cultures,
Sorting, questioning, watching.

Finally, it is the thoughts of the Nationalist struggle that seeks to rid the African
continent of colonial rule:
…Buys the spirit of the age,

The unquenching fire that smoulders
And smoulders
In every living heart
That’s true and noble of suffering; it burns all over the earth,
Destroying, chastening, cleansing. (Nwogu, 1975:15-16).
Also, in ‘Young Africa’s Plea’, Osadebay argues against the preservation of African
traditions and culture for their sociological allure to pamper European tastes:
Don’t preserve my customs

As some fine curios
To suit some white historian’s tastes.
Rather, let the African be modern by working with the Whiteman’s methods while
doing his own thinking and being independent in every sense:
Let me play with the Whiteman’s ways

Let me work with the blackman’s brains
Let my affairs themselves sort out.
It is only in this way that the African can regain his lost self-respect and face the world
manfully. After all, those who denigrate Africa, in reality, fear her strength and talents
in private:
Then in sweet rebirth

I’ll rise a better man
Not ashamed to face the world.
Those who doubt my talents
36
In secret fear my strength
They know I am no less a man.
For these reasons, he calls on Africa’s detractors to have a change of heart and give
Africa her freedom; unconditional freedom of which there shall be nothing to regret:
Let them bury their prejudice,

Let them show their noble sides,
Let me have untrammeled growth,
My friends will never know regret
And I, I never once forget. (Nwogu, 1975:17).
Dei-Anang exhorts Africans to wake up from their long slumber and display their love
for the continent, in his poem “Dear Africa”. In addition, he points to the danger posed
to Africa by its lure that has attracted foreigners (Whites) to colonise her:
Awake, thou sleeping heart!

Awake, and kiss
The Love-lorn brow
Of this ebon lass, Dear Africa,
Whose virgin charms
Ensnare the love-lit hearts
Of venturing youth
From other lands. (Nwogu, 1975:21)
The urgency of the situation is stressed: Awake, sweet Africa Demands thy love,
Thou sleeping heart!

… Know then, thou sleeping heart, Dear Africa stands
Knocking at the door. (Nwogu, 1975:21).
In the above examples giving by Okon (2013), pioneer African poets have been shown
to have used the prevailing colonial situation at the time as subject-matter of poetry.
They are so called ‘pioneers’ because their works represent the first major, serious
attempts by Africans within the continent to write modern poetry with modern concerns.
Besides, chronologically, writing in the early 1920s and 1930s, their works pre-dated
the main-stream of modern African poetry that took off effectively with the formation
of the Negritude movement in the 1930’s up to the early 1960’s. Interestingly, much as
these early writers were unaware of Negritude, however, their objectives were similar
to the later Negritude poets in the urge to project a respectable image for the Blackman
as well as protest the colonial domination of Africa. In both these respects, their poetry
was successful. The success of their political and cultural message can be seen in their
subject-matter and diction. For example, words like “us”, “black”, “dark” and “ebon”
as found in the above examples of representative poems represent the black/African
37
personality. These words too, shall be seen in the poetry of the Negritude movement. It
is on the strength of this that we refer to them as pioneers, as their works represent pre-
echoes of the Negritude phase in African poetry (Okon, 2013).
Discuss the themes of African pioneer poets with special reference to Senghor’s “Black
Woman”
3.2 Early Responses to Slavery and Colonialism
Indeed, “the story of the development of black writing in written European
languages is part of the history of black contact with the written European world”
(Ogude, 1983). In other words, earlier writers were of slave origin and their writings
were a response to the history of Slave Trade and the brutalities that went with it as well
as the desire for independence. Although the style in which the blacks wrote was largely
imitations of the forms of literary genres of the eighteenth century, they evolved a
unique tradition which has been regarded as “protest literature.” It was a kind of
literature that was related to anti-slavery movement, which is comparable to the written
protest literature represented by anticolonialist and anti-apartheid writings.
Those writers wrote to their white audience who viewed them with astonishment
and sometimes even contempt. Although they cannot be said to have influenced African
writers of the contemporary period, their writings have affinity to the contemporary
writing in their “presentation of themes that have definite African slant”, in their
expression of “a concern for African society, an African way of life”, “for African man”
(Ogude, 1983). This shows that Written African Literature is related to early writings
of the black people in exile in content and thought. Practical example can be seen in the
excerpts of works from Phillis Wheatley and Francis Williams, as follows.
3.2.1 Phillis Wheatley
She was the first creative talent that emerged among those of slave origin. She
lived most of her life in Boston. She was brought to America in 1761 and bought in a
slave market by John Wheately and his wife. Mary, the daughter of the Wheatley family
became her teacher. She learnt Latin and English literature of that period. Phillis was
known and respected as a poet. Her poems were modeled after poets like Milton, with
religious undertones. Some of her poems however reveal spirit of rebelliousness. One
of such is entitled: “To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth.” As the
following lines show, the poem suggests attack on the British government of those days:
No more America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain,
No longer shall thou dread the iron chain
Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand
Had made, and with it meant t’enslave the land.
In the following stanza Phillis casts her mind back to Africa and reflects the pain of
separation and the cruelty of slavery.
38
Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from where my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatched from Afrc’s fancy’d happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast?
Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d
That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway? (Nkosi, 1981)
3.2.2 Francis Williams
He was well known in both England and the West Indies in the 1750s. He wrote
a long ode, upon which his reputation rests till today. The ode was dedicated to George
Haldane, a leading political figure in the British Imperial Authority. Williams’s poems
constantly refer to the issue of colour and contain emotionally charged words, which
are signs of tension, inferiority complex, the myth of racial superiority and protest. In
the lines below, quoted from the ode, although he confesses his blackness, he also makes
clear the black man’s claim to humanity.
Yet may you deign to accept this humble song
Tho’ wraps in gloom, and from a falt’ring tongue;
Tho’ dark the stream on which the tribute flows
Not from the skin, but from the heart it rose.
To all human kind, benignant heaven
(Science nought forbids) the one common soul has giv’n.
This rule was ‘stablished by th’ Eternal Mind;
Nor virtue self, nor prudence are confin’d
To colour; none imbrues the honest heart;
To science none belongs and none to art. (Nkosi, 1981)
3.2.3 Juan Latino
Juan Latino was brought with his mother to Spain in the 16th century at the early
age of twelve. He studied poetry, music and medicine. Married to a daughter of Spanish
noble man, he wrote poems in standard Latin praising important personalities, including
clergy men and aristocrats. His praise poetry reveals a connection with African style of
panegyrics. But it can also be connected to the widespread practice in those days of
writing laudatory poems on powerful personalities. Although he seemed to have
integrated into the Spanish society, his poems portray his sense of identity as African.
In his poem addressed to the Pope, Latino portrays awareness of racial identity as
follows:
For if the Blackness of our king offends your official ministers
Your whiteness does not delight the men of Ethiopia
39
There, whoever in his whiteness visits the East is scorned,
And there are black leaders; the king too is black
Queen Candace and her race of black ministers
Had sent her son in a chariot to Christ (Nkosi 1981: 109).
Latino’s works reveal unconditional acceptance of Christianity and Spanish patriotism.
For example, in one of his poems he said: “Famous Philip, you are my protector against
the Turks/ Reigning as a catholic, you have been accustomed to defend our countries,
and in a more holy way to cherish the Faith” (Nkosi, 1981).
3.2.4 B.W. Vilakazi
Vilakazi’s poems deal with the South African situation of oppression and racism.
Vilakazi was a protest poet who, according to Nkosi was one: “among the founding
members of the strongest protest movement which has been the marked feature of South
African verse in more than a quarter of a century” (Nkosi, 1981)
In his poem “On the Gold Mines” (translated from Zulu into English) the persona
presents an interesting picture of a white foreman. He (the white foreman) is seen as the
representative of his race and civilization: a civilization that is sterile, mechanical, in-
human and, at once, totally alien to the African and his environment:
Bellow you frenzied bulls of steel!

Far is the place where first you came to life
And – roasted by fiery furnace
Until you were ready and only ash remained-
Were quickly dispatched, and having crossed the sea
Were loaded on trucks, for puffing fuming engines
To bring you to Goli, place of gold and us.
Loudly you bellowed, till we, like frightened dassies
Swarming towards you, answered your strident summons (Tasks and Masks,
(Nkosi, 1981:111-13).
Note the use of “bellow” and “bull” in the poem. They allude to the unnecessary use of
force, and by extension, violence by colonists against the natives. In other words, the
Whiteman is seen as behaving like a bull, and by inference, a bully (Okon, 2013).
In another poem, entitled: ‘Because’, Vilakazi focused on the theme of

exploitation of workers in cities. The poem represents the voice of a protesting
commoner. His style of composition varies. In most cases he observed the rules of
English prosody, although he did not apply exact imagery and terminology of the West.
Part of Vilakazi’s ‘Because’ goes as follows:
Because when night approaches,
You see me loosening the chains
Of daily drudgery,
And, meeting people black like me,
Dance with new-born energy
40
While chanting tribal songs
That roused our stifled zest
And banish weariness:
You think me but an animal
Who, should it die, is soon replaced (Nkosi 1981: 112).
Describe the features of pioneer written African poetry with references to the pioneer
poets
4.0 CONCLUSION
The development of black writing in written European languages is part of the
history of black contact with the written European world, and that the first responses to
slavery and colonialism came from ex-slaves living outside Africa. Although the works
of these early writers were fashioned after the forms of literary genres of the eighteenth
century, they evolved a unique tradition which has been regarded as “protest literature.”
It was a kind of literature that was related to anti-slavery movement, which is
comparable to the written protest literature represented by anti-colonialist and anti-
apartheid writings. The nature of these responses can be illustrated with excerpts from
poems of Phillis Wheatley and Francis Williams.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The African pioneer written poetry
• The early responses to slavery and colonialism by writers of African origin, with
specific references to:
o Phillis Wheatley
o Francis Williams
o Juan Latino
o B.W. Vilakazi
1) Discuss the African pioneer written poetry
2) Examine early responses to slavery and colonialism by writers of African origin,
with specific references to the following pioneer writers and citing relevant
examples from their writings:
i. Phillis Wheatley
ii. Francis Williams
iii. Juan Latino
iv. B.W. Vilakazi
7.0 REFERENCE/FURTHER READING
Heinemann.
41
Nkosi, Lewis (1981) Tasks and Masks: Themes and Styles of African Literature.
London: Longman.
Nwoga, D. (1976) West African Verse. London: Longman, 1976
Ojaide, T. & Sallah, T.M. (Eds.). 1999. New African Poetry: An Anthology. London:
Rienner.
Okon, F. A. (2013). “Politics and the Development of Modern African Poetry.” English
Language and Literature Studies. 3.1 (2013): 94
Okunoye, N. (2016). “Critical Reception of Modern African Poetry.” Cahiers D’e’tudes
Africaines. 176 (2004): 769-790.
Olowookere, D. (2013). “The Nature of Modern African Poetry” International Journal
of English and Education Volume:2, Issue:4, October 2013.
42
MODULE 2 ISSUES IN WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY
Unit 2 Colonial Rule and African Poetic Response
Unit 3 Shortcomings of African Independence
UNIT 1 POETRY AND AFRICAN EXPERIENCE

CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Sociological Approach to African Poetry
3.2 Written African Poetry
3.3 African Experience in Written African Poetry
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Written African literature is an artistic study of the African predicament mostly
from the colonial era, through the time of the attainment of political independence and
the post-independence era. And it is from this point of view that written African
literature not only manifests glaring human relevance, but also reflects the writers’
awareness of social reality coupled with an imaginative response to that reality.
According to Kakonis and Desmarais (1969) ‘reality provides the basis for even the
most abstract and imaginative of the artist’s conceptions and the shared experience of
reality permits him to communicate with other men.’ However, in dealing with reality,
the artist does not merely reproduce it - ‘he arranges, he orders, he selects’; and this
helps him to ‘perceive its faults and envision its remedies’, though the remedies are only
implied in the writer’s attitude. Therefore, in treating ‘human existence’ in his work,
‘the artist is profoundly reminded of its deficiencies, for what he does is to measure
reality against the deal.’ This is what contemporary African writers do regarding the life
in the African society during the colonial and post-colonial periods. Poetry has man
with his life as its raw material, that natural material to which it gives an artistic shape
and life by means of its imaginative breath. What the poet does with this basic raw
material, how he reshapes, re-creates, re-clothes and transfigures it for our emotional
and imaginative enjoyment, entirely depends on his imaginative resources and his
linguistic and visionary powers; for ‘art is life seen through a temperament’. Written
African poetry, therefore, keeping to this tradition of poetry, is intimately concerned
with the African people in the African society, with their life in its various ramifications
43
cultural, social, economic, intellectual, and political. It endeavours to give us a new
version and assessment of that life, to present it to us interpreted and re-dressed by the
artistic genius and craftsmanship of the poets, and to awaken in us a fresh awareness
and pleasantly shock us into a renewed recognition of that life with its activities and
problems, which we may have always known. The following are some of the objectives
of this unit:
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Discuss the Sociological Approach to African Poetry
• Explain the Written African Poetry
• Describe the African Experience in Written African Poetry
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Sociological Approach to African Poetry
Every research endeavour should be premised around a theoretical framework.
In literary criticism, there are a lot of methods available for a critic in the analysis and
criticism of literary works. These methods are known as literary theories. Among the
available literary theories, the one that is best suited for our work in this unit is
sociological criticism. In other words, the theoretical framework that will be adopted
here is the sociological criticism. Sociological criticism is a type of criticism that can
include discussion of society, of social relationship and of historical issues. It shows the
relationship between the artist and the society in which they live as society affects an
artist. This particular theory examines the work of art in its social context and it also
describes the experience of people who live in a particular society.
Sociological criticism starts with a conviction that art’s relations to society are
vitally important and that the investigation of these relationships may organize and
deepen one’s aesthetic response to a work of art. Constantine Taine called literature the
consequence of the moment, the race and the milieu. Sociological critics “place the
work of art in the social atmosphere and define that relationship.” In this approach, the
critic examines literature in the cultural, economic and political context in which it is
written or received. It examines both the writer’s background as well as the role the
audience play in shaping the literature. Sociological critics believe that the relations of
art to society are important. Art is not created in a vacuum. Language itself is a social
product. A writer is a member of a society and he takes his material from the society.
According to the sociological theory, literature portrays the experience of the society in
which it is produced. Part of the aspects of the society which is reflected in literature is
the culture of the society in which it is produced.
Using at least three poems, examine the cultural, economic and political context in
which they were written.
44
3.2 Written African Poetry
Written African poetry encompasses a wide variety of traditions arising from
Africa’s 55 countries and from evolving trends within different literary genres. It is a
large and complex subject, partly because of Africa’s original linguistic diversity but
primarily because of the devastating effect of slavery and colonization, which resulted
in English, Portuguese and French, as well as Creole or pidgin versions of these
European languages being spoken and written by Africans across the continent
(Arifayan, 2005). As Ziljima (2002) points out, “because there are literally thousands
of indigenous languages spoken in Africa and many more dialects, every African
country has an official language (or II as in the case of South Africa). This official
language acts as the “lingua franca” or at least a reasonably sized region”. According to
Ushie (2005):
Written African poetry has a double heritage – Pre-colonial and western. As
in most post-colonial situations the tilt of our writings should be more
towards the pre-colonial Africa literary heritage as manifested in the song,
dirge, folktale, elegy, panegyric or riddle. Essentially, such art was meant for
the whole community rather than for a few initiates.
Poetry, as an art form, has undergone several phases of evolution from pre-
colonial to colonial and then to post-colonial eras in most African countries. There
existed a thin line between poets and musicians who composed and rendered poetry in
musical form. Poets then published their works in form of renditions at funerals and
marriage ceremonies with themes focused on praising virtues and condemning vices in
the society. The contemporary African poets equally strive to fulfil the above mentioned
role of the traditional poet. Written African poetry is therefore the kind of poetry that
emerged as a result of the contact between Africa and Europe. The coming of the
colonial masters brought about the act of writing. Many Africans became educated in
the language of the colonial masters and were therefore able to write their literary works
in English or the indigenous languages. This kind of poetry emerged as a result of
colonialism. This poetry was committed to exposing the ills of colonialism in the
different regions of Africa. So, written African poetry emerged as a result of the contact
between Africa and the West and the need to react to the activities of these European
countries in Africa.
Provide a detail description of Written African Poetry.
3.3 African Experience in Written African Poetry
African poetry from its earliest time has evolved alongside Africa’s historical
experiences. As earlier mentioned, the first contact between Africa and Europe was
brought about by the slave trade. This is to say that the first African experience to be
portrayed in written African poetry was the experience of slavery. According to S. E.
Ogude in his essay African Literature and the Burden of History (1991), “the first
Africans to write in English were all unwilling exiles and children of unwilling exiles.
And they all wrote in response to historical conditions that denied them their humanity”.
45
The unwilling exiles referred to by Ogude above are the Africans who were sold into
slavery in America and other parts of Europe. Some of them include Phillis Wheatley,
Ottobah Cugano, Olaudah Equiano and many others.
This group of African writers wrote against the background of the harsh realities
of slavery and the painful experience of man’s inhumanity to man. This experience is
well encapsulated in the poetry of Phillis Wheatley. In the poetic piece below, Wheatley
portrays vividly, this experience.
Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood;
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatched from Africa’s fancy’d happy seat;
What pangs excruciating must molest
What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast?
Steel’d was that soul and by no misery moved.
That from a father seiz’d his babe beloved
Such, such may case. And cant then but pray
Others my never feel tyrannical sway? (Culled from Ogude’s African
Literature and the Burden of History, 1991)
The above lines clearly portray an expression of a very personal emotion that bothers
on the painful and lugubrious experience of slavery. After the experience of slavery
came another advanced form of slavery in the garb of colonialism. For the African poet
of this time according to Iyengar Srinivas (1968), poetry became a powerful medium
through which they conveyed to the world audience, not only their:
Despairs and hopes, the enthusiasm and empathy, the thrill of joy, and the history
as it moved from freedom to slavery, from slavery to revolution, from revolution
to independence and from independence to task of reconstruction which further
involves situations of failure and disillusionment.
When we read African poetry of the colonial period, one thing that occurs to one’s mind
is that colonialism was at its harshest in Africa. As history stands proof, it was highly
exploited and savaged by the ambitious white man. In South Africa, the poetry of
Dennis Brutus and other South African poets portrayed the experience of apartheid in
South Africa.
One of the most important phases in written African poetry emerged during this
period of colonialism and this is the literary movement of Negritude. Negritude was a
powerful literary movement founded by Aime Cesaire of Senegal. Among other things,
the Negritude poets favoured the theme of glorification of Africa. They worshipped
anything African in scintillating rhymes. Anger at injustice meted out to the colonized
Africa is also one of the oft-repeated themes of their poetry. Here is an example from
David Diop poem “Africa”.
46
Africa, my Africa
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral
Savannas...
Is this you, this back that is bent
This back that breaks under the weight of
humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying yes under the
Midday sun...
That is Africa your Africa
That grows again patiently obstinately
And its fruit gradually acquires
The bitter taste of liberty (Norasimhaiah, 1990)
Dennis Brutus, a South African poet, was subjected to torture by a cruel regime. His
writing is full of images of love for Africa contrasted with images of death thus:
Desolate
Your face gleams up
Beneath me in the dusk
Abandoned
A wounded dove
Helpless
Beneath the knife of love (Thereoux, 1986).
Similarly, great feeling for Africa is felt in Abioseh Nicol’s poem “The Meaning of
Africa” thus:
Africa, you were once just a name to me
... So I came back
Sailing down the Guinea coast
... You are not a country Africa,
Happiness, contentment and fulfilment (Povey, 1968).
A poet’s affirmation of his love for Africa shines radiantly through the following lines.
Dark Africa
My dawn is here,
Behold! I see
A rich warm glow in the East,
And my day will soon be here (Norasimhaiah, 1990)
The praise of Africa is a fit topic for many African poets. Perhaps this is their reaction
to the self-glorification and the civilizing zeal of the imperial powers of Europe. Bernard
Oadie’s poem attains special significance viewed in that light. He says in a poem
entitled: I Thank God,
I thank God for creating me black.
White is the colour for special occasions
47
Black the colour for every day
And I have carried the world since the down of time
And my laugh over the world, through the night creates
The day (Norasimhaiah, 1990)
In Africa, the advent of the white’s civilizing mission displaced scores of native
societies form their cultural roots. The impact of the spread of Christianity combined
with material benefits, such as class room education and well-paid jobs forced many
Africans to abandon their own faith and adapt the religion of the pale-faced aliens. This
situation is responsible for the native’s cultural alienation. Nevertheless, the native is
expected to owe allegiance to his own tribal culture. This is a point that will be pursued
further under this chapter.
According to Sam Awa (1967) “moreover, African poetry is protest in nature. It
comes as a reaction to various forms of injustice meted out on Africans by the colonial
masters and later, post-colonial masters”. This underscores the fact that African poetry
has been committed to the portrayal of African experiences.
Most African nations gained their independence in the 1950s and 1960s and with
liberation and literacy. Since the 1960s, political, economic, and cultural events have
begun to shape African poetry. Gone are the days when the shades of colonialism were
an unending preoccupation of African poets. In written African poetry, works that focus
on the healing and purging of the country and families have dominated African poetry.
Poets in Africa have faced issues in ways that not only explain how indigenous cultures
are absorbed by Western standards but also how limiting in vision their leaders have
been.
Furthermore, in Nigeria, we have three generations of poets and none of them
have been able to walk away from the experience of the Nigerian society. In Soyinka’s
poems, (first generation) this experience has a continental reach. In his Ogun Abibiman
and Mandela’s Earth and other poems, both are dedicated to the struggle for liberation
in Southern Africa- the first on Mozambique’s 1975 declaration of war against the
apartheid regime of South Africa and the second on the South Africa struggle itself as
epitomized by the indomitable Nelson Mandela, then chained, like Prometheus, to the
rocks of Robben Island. Among the other poems of this highly lyrical collection are
those who focused on the brutal and cannibalistic leadership that Africa has had to suffer
in the past three decades.
The character of commitment to portrayal of African experience of the second
generation poets is typified in the poetry of Odia Ofeimun and Niyi Osundare. Both of
them are Marxists whose artistic credo is an unwavering commitment to the cause of
the proletariat and emancipation of the masses. The poets in this second generation have
taken it upon themselves to document the daily experience of the people.
Give a detail discussion on the African experience in Written African Poetry.
4.0 CONCLUSION
48
Written African literature was produced in the crucible of colonialism. What this
means among other things is that the men and women who founded the tradition of what
we now call written African literature in European and indigenous languages were
without exception, products of the institutions that colonialism had introduced and
developed in the continent. In fact this encounter forms part of the themes espoused in
written African literature. In each phase of African literature, the need to portray the
dehumanising experience of Africa has always been the ultimate goal of writers. The
African experience has oscillated from slavery to colonialism and now to neo-
colonialism and post-colonial disillusionment. The African writer has not lost focus of
his role as a social moralizer in all these phases of experiences. The written writer even
though in an alien tongue, understands that he is a “town crier” who must firmly identify
with his cultural heritage as an African because he must first of all be an African before
becoming an African writer.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The sociological approach to African poetry
• The written African poetry
• The African experience in written African poetry

1) Describe the sociological approach to African poetry
2) Highlight the scope of written African poetry
3) Comment on the African experience in written African poetry

Agbor, Sarah. History, Memory and Tradition in African Poetry. The Journal of New
Poetry Vol 6. Pp. 10-16.
Arifayan, T. (2005). Modern Literature on African Experience and Cultural Heritage:
A Study of Niyi Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place.
Irele, A. (1991). The African experience in literary ideology. London: Heinemann.
Iyengar, Srinivas K. R. (1968). Two Cheers for the Common Wealth. New Delhi: Asia
Publishing House.
Joseph Ushie (2005) “Phases in Nigerian Poetry in English” Nigeria, University of Uyo
Printing Press
Lionel Abraham, “Black Experience into English Verse: A Survey of Local African
Poetry, 1960-70,” Soweto Poetry.
Narasimhaiah, C. O. (1990). An Anthology of Commonwealth Poetry. Madras:
Macmillian India
Povey, J. (1968). A Comment on the Attitudes to the Past in West African Poetry.
London: Heinemann.
Ogude, S. E. (1991). “African Literature and the Burden of History” in C. Ikonne, E.
Oko & P. Onwudinjo (Eds). African Literature and African Historical
Experiences (pp. 1-9). Heinemann Educational Books Nigeria Plc.
Theroux, Paul. “A Study of Six African Poets” Voices out of the Skull. In Ulli Bier (ed).
London: Heinemann, 1986.
49
Thomas E. Kakonis and Barbara G.T. Desmarai, (1969) “The Literary Artist as Social
Critic” Harvard University Press
__________ Modern Literature on African Experience.
www.coursehero.com/file/47708905/MODERN-LITERATURE-ON-AFRICAN-
EXPERIENCEdoc/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiYnKfpud_vAhXlD2MBHZYnDQIQFjAAegQI
ABAB&usg=AOvVaw0beixg3JVvjRaYsgIg38uX. Accessed on 08/08/2018
50
UNIT 2 COLONIAL RULE AND AFRICAN POETIC RESPONSE
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Poetic Responses to Colonial Rule
3.2 African Poets and their responses to colonial rule
3.2.1 Christopher Okigbo
3.2.2 Kofi Awoonor
3.2.3 David Diop
3.2.4 Okot p’Bitek
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Like all the other arts poetry is a compendious symbol of diverse reactions -
mental and emotional - organised by the force of imaginative response to what had been,
what is, and what will be. The African poets who have handled colonialism as their
subject are to that extent concerned with what had been, with a past that was
overwhelming in itself and still remains overwhelming in its undesirable intrusion into
the present. In this unit, we are going to look through responses to colonialism by some
contemporary African poets. The unit specifically take you through the responses to
colonialism by African poets such as Christopher Okigbo, Kofi Awoonor, David Diop
and Okot p’Bitek. Below are some of the objectives of this unit:
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Highlight the poetic responses to colonial rule
• Describe how some African poets responded to colonial rule, using poems by the
following poets for illustrations
o Christopher Okigbo
o Kofi Awoonor
o David Diop
o Okot p’Bitek
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Poetic Responses to Colonial Rule
The words poetry uses are words that do not just represent life, but a
transmutation of life; and that is art. The kind of transmutation or picture of the colonial
forces as they operated in Africa, which has been effected by the poets, depends largely
on their individual imaginative orientations and the influences of their cultural and
intellectual backgrounds. To read their poetry therefore is to be treated to varying
51
imaginative and emotional exhibitions that are held together by a central theme -
colonialism - which has had a terrible impact on their life and culture.
According to Cartey (1971), ‘the theme of colonialism is one of the most
persistent notes in African literature and in fact in that of all newly emerging nations. It
appears of historical necessity and will continue to be present in many literatures, for
its effects on individuals and societies have been deeply wrenching, precipitating...
‘And expatiating on these ‘effects’, Cartey says:
The whites who came from Europe to Africa filled different positions in the
colonial societies. They were governors, administrators, road builders,
ministers of God, merchants, or landowners. The native turned alternately to
one group and then to another, but soon he discovered that with none of them
could he escape brutality or find relief from exploitation. The material
exploitation of the colonial administration was no harsher than the spiritual
domination exercised by the missionaries.
These are the bare facts of history to which various African poets have responded. The
task before us now is to see how these poets have used imagery to represent those forces
that organised this tragic past of their.
Examine how African poets use their creativity in responding to colonial rule in their
poetic writings. Cite examples from differents poems.
3.2 African Poets and their responses to colonial rule
3.2.1 Christopher Okigbo
The images of colonialism which dominate the relevant works of these poets are
those of fright, danger, repulsion, and oppression. In the poetry of Christopher Okigbo
(Nigerian) (d. 1967) the assemblage is terrifying: we see unrolled before us (as we read
through some of his poems) pictures and pictures of destruction and death. In ‘DARK
WATERS of the beginning, for example, the ominous setting can only support a
confused drama of struggles and conflicts: short violet ‘rays’ are confronted with thick
‘gloom’ which they try to ‘pierce’; the deadly ‘rainbow’ is already ‘arched like boa bent
to kill’; and the ‘rays’ on one hand and the ‘rainbow’ on the other foreshadow
respectively ‘fire’ and ‘rain’ - two forces which are eternally irreconcilable, and which
ultimately come into collision: ‘rain and sun in single combat’.
The image of hostility grows into one of bodily injury inflicted ironically in the
name of salvation in ‘Initiations’:
SCAR OF the crucifix
over the breast,
by red blade inflicted
by red-hot blade,
on right breast...
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This injury inflicted by two forces of cannibalism – sword and fire - was said by the
oppressors to be the symbol of mysterious baptism which the protagonist received ‘upon
waters of the genesis from Kepkanly’. Kepkanly and ‘John the Baptist’ are two agents
of this baptism, who represent the mental injury also inflicted on the protagonist and his
kind. ‘Kepkanly’ is a name coined by Okigbo for the teacher-catechist who taught him
the Catholic catechism in preparation for his baptism. Derived from two Igbo
expressions, aka-ekpe and aka-nli, which stand for ‘left’ and ‘right’ respectively,
‘Kepkanly’ is symbolic of the apeish manner in which some Africans deliberately
mispronounced words in their own mother tongue as the English colonialists did, in
order to echo the English. For the English would pronounce aka-ekpe as ‘aka-epe’, so
that as the teacher-catechist kept the rhythm for pupils marching in the field, he would
be saying’ k’ep - ‘kanli (left - right). It is this shortened form of aka-epe - aka-nli (the
Englishman’s version) that Okigbo transformed into ‘Kepkanly’. For one to drop the
right and natural pronunciation of words in one’s own language, and adopt the incorrect
foreign mode, is unhealthy imitation. ‘John the Baptist’, the representative of the
Catholic religion, indoctrinates the Africans. The ‘gambit’ which he preaches is ‘life
without sin, without life’. Okigbo’s idea here is of course that to preach ‘life without
sin’ is tantamount to preaching life without life, and that this recommendation is
unrealistic, and therefore deceptive; for the preacher gives the impression that man can
in this world become an angel. Even T. S. Eliot, convinced Anglo Catholic as he was,
recognised that ‘sin is Behovely’ to man.
The preaching started by John the Baptist is continued by ‘Flannagan’ who
‘preached the Pope’s message’, which was: ‘To sow the fireseed among grasses/ & 10,
to keep it till it bums out...’. ‘Fireseed’ is a parody of the mustard seed as it appears in
St Luke, 13: 19. While the ‘grain of mustard seed.. grew and waxed a great tree’
harbouring the ‘fowls of the air’ in its branches, the ‘fireseed’ is meant to destroy; and
this shows that the early Christian missionaries came to Africa not to sow the mustard
seed of the Kingdom of God in the African cultural soil, but rather to sow the ‘fireseed’
which would burn up the ‘grasses’ of African cultures, and in order to ensure that this
unholy act against the cultures was accomplished, the agents of Christianity, incarnated
in birds of prey, the eagles, invaded the habitat of the ‘Sunbird’ and the ‘twin gods’ who
constitute the bedrock of these cultures. Thus in ‘Limits X’, they first ‘killed the
Sunbird’, who is the minion of the gods, and then
Their talons they drew out of their scabbard,
Upon the tree trunks, as if on fire-clay,
Their beaks they sharpened;
And spread like eagles their felt-wings,
And descended upon the twin gods of Irkalla
And the ornaments of him,

And the beads about his tail;
And the carapace of her,
And her shell, they divided.
53
This is the culminating point of the Christian missionaries’ sacrilege against the
protagonist’s indigenous culture. The way these ‘murderers’ went about the
‘ornaments’, ‘beads’ and the ‘shell’ of the gods is an indication that their religious
mission was compounded with an economic quest. The indigenous religions of the
Africans they would not tolerate, but the wealth in the shrines they would acquire.
It was this deracination which forced Okigbo’s protagonist into exile, where he
had to live a false life, as we gather from ‘Newcomer’. The bells of the angelus become
the ‘bells of exile’, and of course the protagonist, like true believers, has to pray - to
‘sign/remembrance of calvary’. But we know he is not sincere, for he is merely wearing
a ‘mask over my face’ and he does not believe in the doctrine about the guardian angels.
That is why he asks ‘Anna of the panel oblongs’, who is one of the believers and who
has been tempting him with the offer of the foreign faith, to protect him ‘from them
fucking angels/protect me/my sandhouse and bones.’
It is because Okigbo felt brutalised and uncomfortable in the Christian world that
he now stages a dramatic retreat homewards like the Biblical prodigal son:
Before you, mother Idoto,
naked I stand;
before your watery presence,
a prodigal
Under your power wait I

on barefoot,
watchman for the watchword
at Heavensgate;...
Idoto is a river in Okigbo’s village, Ojoto. After his period of spiritual buffeting, loss
and aridity in the desert of the Christian religion, Okigbo’s protagonist returns to a water
goddess - to water which is the source and symbol of life. He is now under the power
of the goddess, the power of life; and it is by the power of this goddess that he hopes to
win salvation, for he is already at ‘Heavensgate’. The imagery here strikes a note
different from that of the imagery of Christian forces: there is here genuine humility, a
sense of security and hope. For to Okigbo and other Anglophone West African poets
‘that which is African is rich and meaningful and that which is non-African (White,
European) is disruptive and destructive’ (Egudu, 1978).
3.2.2 Kofi Awoonor
Like Okigbo, the Ghanaian Kofi Awoonor sees the destruction committed by
colonialism as both physical and psychological. The short but effective poem ‘The
Cathedral’ deals with physical destruction which has material and spiritual implications:
On this dirty patch
a tree once stood
shedding incense on the infant corn:
its boughs stretched across a heaven
brightened by the last fires of a tribe.
54
They sent surveyors and builders who cut that tree
planting in its place
A huge senseless cathedral of doom.
The tree that is cut down is more than an ordinary tree: it is the tree of life, giving
sustenance by ‘shedding incense on the infant corn’, and having a protective influence
by ‘stretching across a heaven’ that shelters the ‘tribe’. The last line of the poem in
which the word ‘senseless’ appears superfluous informs us of what has supplanted this
symbolic tree - an artefact organised by the ‘builders’ in place of the natural symbol of
life and protection, an artificial creation which spells doom for the Africans.
At times such destruction of nature in Africa by the white man has an economic
rather than a religious motive behind it. In Part I of J. P. Clark’s ‘Ivbie’ we are told of
‘strangers’ ‘from far-fabled country’ who invaded ‘our virgin jungle’ and ravaged ‘our
occult groves’. These strangers, Part II informs us, were searching for ‘gums and oils’
which were finally carried ‘in barrels off to foreign mills’. The result of this operation
was that the African soil became ‘quarried out of recognition I As never would
erosion/another millenium’.
But returning to Kofi Awoonor, we find that the psychological and spiritual harm
done to Africa is much more disturbing. For the ‘psychological destruction of the
African and his mode of being’ was part of the white man’s design. He imposed ‘his
own customs, religion and values on the black man’ and ‘native tradition and way of
life were interrupted by proselytizers’. ‘The Weaver Bird’ (p. 37) is a central poem in
this connection. The bird-imagery we noted in Okigbo’s poetry is present here also, but
the birdagent is different in both cases. Here it is the weaver bird. Awoonor ‘uses
imagery of the weaver bird and its notorious colonizing habits, which often kill the
chosen tree, to unfold a vision of the whole colonial period in Ghana’. One factor which
gives this poem the tragic intensity with which it is imbued is the contrast between the
friendliness of the Africans and the callous ingratitude of the white man whom the
weaver bird symbolises:
The weaver bird built in our house.
And laid its eggs on our only tree.
We did not want to send it away.
……………
And the weaver returned in the guise of the owner.
Preaching salvation to us that owned the house.
This theme of tenant turned landlord is also the basis of the poetic reaction in South
Africa. The ‘weaver bird’ has not settled down to supervise its newly acquired domain,
for that would have presented it as humane, which it is not. It rather embarked upon
fouling ‘trees, totems, and shrines so that the contemporary African has to build anew’:
For new altars we strive to re-build
The old shrines defiled by the weaver’s excrement.
55
Gerald Moore, while commenting on the word ‘excrement’, said that the poem distils
‘its arrested bitterness into the single word “excrement”‘. This word expresses the poet’s
picture of the weaver bird and what it symbolises, and not his emotion of anger of
bitterness. ‘Excrement’, being that of the weaver bird, is used to show how insensitive
to human values the bird is - it deposits faeces on shrines; and to show how oppressive
the colonial attitudes to the indigenous African religion were, for the bird exercises no
control over the distribution of its own dirt. The word therefore sums up, not the poet’s
bitterness, but the contempt with which he holds the weaver bird and all it represents.
In Awoonor’s poetry the gods with their shrines are victims not only of
oppression by the whites, but also neglect by their own ‘children’ who happen to be
converted into the new religion. Gerald Moore was conscious of this fact when he said
that Awoonor’s ‘poetry abounds in laments for the neglected shrines and forgotten gods,
ignored by a society now intent upon individual status and materialism’. That the
‘shrines’ and the ‘gods’ were neglected, ignored and forgotten is a correct observation;
but that the cause of this was the society’s quest for ‘individual status and materialism’
is far from the truth. The true cause according to Awoonor was the foreigners who by
preaching other kinds of shrines and gods distracted some members of the society from
discharging their duties to their own gods. Even in the same poem, ‘The Years Behind’
(p. 59), lines 8-11 of which Moore quoted to illustrate the fact of neglect, Awoonor
hints at the cause of this neglect: ‘My life’s song falls low among alien peoples.’ That
is to say that his entire life - song, culture, religion - was looked down upon by these
‘alien peoples’ who condemned his culture and set up a foreign one for his adoption.
This desertion is very dramatically presented in another of Awoonor’s poems,
‘Easter Dawn’. In this poem we learn that
the gods are crying, my father’s gods are crying
for a burial - for a final ritual -
but they that should build the fallen shrines
have joined the dawn marchers
singing their way towards Gethsemane...
This is not all, for, a few lines later, we see the tragedy clinched by the priest of the gods
deserting them himself:
the gods cried, shedding
clayey tears on the calico
the drink offering had dried up in the harmattan
the cola-nut is shrivelled
the yam feast has been eaten by mice
and the fetish priest is dressing for the
Easter service.
And at this point the desertion is complete; but the deserters are not pursuing individual
status or material wealth - they are drawn into another religion, Christianity. This is
natural, for every act of conversion is counterpoised by another of aversion. And as
Taban Lo Liyong would put it, they are withdrawn from one type of superstition and
56
planted into another (if superstition means ‘credulity regarding the supernatural’). In
one of his Haiku-like poems Liyong says:
I’d have loved god more
had Christian missionaries confirmed my superstitions
its hard to believe
after being undeceived
The absence of punctuation is the poet’s making; and so is the use of the lower case g
for the Christians’ ‘God’. The argument of this short poem is of religious and historical
significance. It is believed by many that Christianity has not been effective in African
societies because the early missionaries did not base their religion on the Africans’
religious consciousness which they (Africans) developed even before their contact with
the Europeans. The rather belated realisation of this ‘sin’ of omission has recently led
to frantic, sometimes haphazard, efforts at using indigenous African musical
instruments during the Christian service (especially the Mass). But the substance of the
service remains unchanged. And many people are waiting, rather cynically, for the time
when the indigenous wooden and clay vessels will also replace the imported golden
chalice and ciborium on the altars.
The African is a victim of historical determinism. He has lost something of his
religious inheritance and, according to another poem by Awoonor, he is threatened with
loss of identity. The imagery this time is no less terrifying. The scene now shifts to the
smithy in ‘The Anvil and the Hammer’ (p. 29). The African now becomes the crude
iron in the hands of the smith, goldsmith not blacksmith, since his colour must be other
than black. Thus the African is ‘caught between the anvil and the. hammer/In the
forging house of a new life’. In this ‘forging’ there is a lot of confusion: ‘The trappings
of the past, tender and tenuous’ are ‘laced with the flimsy glories’ of the present
symbolised by ‘paved/ streets’; and in an attempt to resist the new formation, the
Africans endeavour to remain pure and original when they sing, but find themselves
spontaneously using ‘snatches/from their [whites’] tunes’.
The smith’s job is therefore wrong from the beginning. Indeed the word ‘forging’
in the poem becomes pleasantly ambiguous, for ‘forgery’, ‘counterfeiting’, ‘falsifying’
are all equally implied. For complete transformation would mean dehumanisation of the
African. But in the circumstances change, that is modification, is inevitable; and the
poet himself concedes this. That is why he pleads for a kind of admixture, which is no
synthesis, for synthesis is impossible:
Sew the old days for us, our fathers,
That we can wear them under our new garment,
After we have washed ourselves in
The Whirlpool of the many rivers’ estuary.
It is significant that the two kinds of garment are to be made from different materials -
the old and the new. Thus the African retains his old self but adds on to it something
borrowed from the imported culture. Furthermore, it is remarkable that the ‘garment’
57
made up of the ‘old days’ is to be worn close to the skin, for that is nearest to his heart,
and it is, as it were, protected by the borrowed garment.
The protagonist of this poem has therefore achieved a measure of success in his
bid for ‘cultural salvation’ in the face of ‘cultural turmoil’. He has not yielded to a total
change of himself as the enemies of his culture aimed at in their ‘forging house’; but he
has not come out unscathed from it either. For it was through fire he went, and washing
‘ourselves in/The Whirlpool of the many rivers’ estuary’ can only be a euphemism for
the pangs of purification experienced in the ‘whirlpool’.(Egudu, 1978)
3.2.3 David Diop
Another African poet who has employed images of brutality, both physical and
psychological, to depict the colonial monster is David Diop (d. 1960) from Senegal.
Commenting on Diop’s ‘The Vultures’ Knipp says: ‘In one of the most effective
political images in all African poetry, the white man becomes a vulture’. In this short
poem, Diop displays colonialism in its hydra-ramifications of administrative
oppression, religious domination and economic exploitation. His weapon consists of a
collection of powerful images, three of which have behind them the combined effects
of metonymy and personification:
In those days
When civilization kicked us in the face
When holy water slapped our cringing brows
The vultures built in the shadow of their talons
The bloodstained monument of tutelage
In those days
There was painful laughter on the metallic hell of the roads
And the monotonous rhythm of the paternoster
Drowned the howling on the plantations
O the bitter memories of extorted kisses
Of promises broken at the point of a gun
Of foreigners who did not seem human
Who knew all the books but did not know love
But we whose hands fertilize the womb of the earth
In spite of your songs of pride
In spite of the desolate villages of torn Africa
Hope was preserved in us as in a fortress
And from the mines of Swaziland to the factories of Europe
Spring will be reborn under our bright steps
Apart from the pictures created, there are also in the poem a number of words that have
particular effect, and these are ‘kicked’, ‘slapped’, ‘extorted’ and ‘torn’, which in
themselves are sufficient symbols of the harshness and violence that marked colonial
administration - ‘metallic’ which multiplies the effect of an already hot hell; and
‘drowned’ which, with the implied presence of a sea, best portrays the callousness and
sadism involved. Some other words are specially apt in their depiction of the suffering
condition to which the Africans were subjected by the beastly forces: their brows are
58
‘cringing’, they were in the ‘shadow’ of death created by the vultures’ talons, their
‘laughter’ was ‘painful’ (oxymoron), and they were ‘howling on the plantations’. Many
critics have earlier observed the effectiveness of this poem in its portrayal of the lot of
the Africans in the hands of the colonial masters. Wilfred Cartey has, for example,
noticed that ‘Diop makes use of words arid images denoting harshness, brutishness,
destruction. Through the use of connotative words charged with sound effects the poet
constructs a picture of harsh material exploitation and its agonizing results’. But in spite
of this agony, Diop, as is usual with him, expresses a sustained hope of survival and
triumph.
In many others of Diop’s poems it is the consequences of historical forces that
are dwelt upon, but here and there a stroke is landed on the directors of the forces. For
example, in ‘Africa’ Africa’s back is bent - ‘this back that breaks under the weight of
humiliation/This back trembling with red scars/And saying yes to the whip under the
midday sun’. And quite correctly, Taiwo points out that this refers to ‘the great
humiliations which Africa has suffered in history with slave trade and colonialism,
which resulted in untold hardships for the people’. In ‘Nigger Tramp’, the black tramp
is presented as “You who move like a battered old dream/A dream trans pierced by the
blades of the mistral’, and who carry ‘your old coat of thorns’. He has become another
Christ, but for a crown he has a coat. The picture is clinched in lines that epitomise the
effect and the cause:
Now you stand naked in your filthy prison
A quenched volcano exposed to others’ laughter
To others’ riches
To others’ hideous greed
For Diop there should be no basis for association with the white man who imprisoned
and muzzled the tramp and who stole all his wealth. It is for this reason that he indicts
with characteristic anger that African renegade whom the white man has succeeded in
changing into something detestable. In The Renegade’ this victim of dehumanisation is
presented as ‘my brother’ who flashes his ‘teeth in response to every hypocrisy’, and
‘my brother with gold-rimmed glasses’ who gives his ‘master a blue-eyed faithful
look’,and who screams, whispers and pleads ‘in the parlours of condescension’. He is
one whose face has been ‘bleached/by years of humiliation and bad conscience’. The
word ‘brother’ and the apparent tone of ‘pitying’ are ironical, for Diop could neither
have such a brainwashed African for a brother, nor genuinely sympathise with one who
shamelessly sold his true self for a false one. Thus when Wilfred Cartey observed that
Diop ‘ridicules and yet pities the negro who has allowed himself to become
whitewashed and who can now go through the same grimaces so condemned by the
poet of Negritude’, he was right except in so far as he thought that Diop actually pitied
the renegade. Diop has put up the renegade before the world, saying, as it were, here is
one case of the dehumanising effect of colonialism in Africa. (Senono and Vincent,
2001)
3.2.4 Okot p’Bitek
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Two other examples of ‘whitewashed’ Africans are ‘Ocol’ and ‘Clementine’ as
they are presented to us by ‘Lawino’ in Okot p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino. This book is a
beautiful schema, a bold balance-sheet on which the profit and loss of acculturation are
displayed, with loss heavily outweighing the gain, and on which the African cultural
values far outweigh those of the white man. p’Bitek presents Ocol and Clementine
(Tina) to demonstrate the tragedy of being a slave to foreign cultures.
Section 12 of Song of Lawino is devoted to Ocol’s complete deracination and its
emasculating effect on him. He is so well read ‘like white men’ that ‘in the ways of his
people/He has become/A stump’. He ‘abuses all things Acoli’ (indigenous) and says
that the ‘ways of black people/Are black’. The second ‘black’ connotes something
sinister. Ocol’s house is described as ‘a dark forest of books’, with pieces of paper lying
scattered on his desk. The ‘backs’ of the books and the ‘papers’ on the desk are
compared to snakes and oppressive giant trees:
Their backs shine like
The dangerous OTom snake
Coiled on a tree top
……………….
The papers on my husband’s desk

Coil threateningly
Like the giant forest climbers,
Like the Kituba tree
That squeezes other trees to death.
These images are in consonance with Lawino’s notion of the destructive force of the
white man’s culture. For those books which are the products of white ‘civilization’ are
to Lawino ‘the ghosts of the dead men/That people this dark forest’, ‘the ghosts of the
many white men/And white women’. These ghosts have ‘captured’ Ocol’s ‘head’ so
that he has become ‘a walking corpse’. They have so transformed him that
He cannot hear
The insults of foreigners
Who say
The songs of black men are rubbish!
Lawino then calls her husband’s attention to what he has become - ‘a dog of the white
man’ - and summarises the functions of such dogs. Besides barking at night, chasing
‘away wild cats/That come to steal the chicken’,
The dogs of white men
Are well trained
And they understand English!
When the master is eating

They lie by the door
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And keep guard
While waiting for left-overs.
This is the final stage of the ugly transformation of the black slave of the white man’s
culture: he is now reduced to the level of an animal, a beast.
It is for this reason that Lawino summons the whole clan to a communal
weeping: ‘Let us all cry together’, ‘let us mourn the death of my husband.’ It is indeed
‘death’, for, culturally speaking, Ocol’s is life-in-death or death-in-life. But it is not only
Ocol that is so dead; he is only a representative figure of his kind. The mourning is for
many others:
For all our young men
Were finished in the forest,
Their manhood was finished
In the classrooms
Their testicles
Were smashed
With large books!
The male organ, which is regarded as the centre of a man’s life as a man, symbolises
culture which is the centre of a man’s nationality and the bedrock of nationalism.
The other cultural tragic figure is Clementine (Tina). Lawino sarcastically refers
to Tina as ‘the woman with whom I share my husband’. This role of Tina’s as
homebreaker is only one aspect of the total ugliness of her cultural transformation. For
she is also physically ‘bleached’ (to borrow Diop’s term) or ‘whitewashed’ (to borrow
Cartey’s). The result of Tina’s aspiration ‘to look like a white woman’ is as follows:
Her lips are red-hot
Like glowing charcoal,
She resembles the wild cat
That has dipped its mouth in blood,
Her mouth is like raw yaws
It looks like an open ulcer,
Like the mouth of a field!
Tina dusts powder on her face
And it looks so pale;
She resembles the wizard
Getting ready for the midnight dance
She dusts the ash-dirt all over her face
And when little sweat
Begins to appear on her body
She looks like the guinea fowl! [Section 2]
The irony of Tina’s efforts is that she believes her face which has been bleached (‘some
medicine has eaten up Tina’s face’) is beautiful ‘because it resembles the face of a white
woman’.
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Using more frightful images, Lawino builds up a complete picture of Tina. Her
body ‘resembles/The ugly coat of the hyena’; ‘She looks as if she has been struck/ By
lightning/ or burnt... in a fire hunt’; ‘her head is huge like that of the owl/She looks like
a witch.’ Furthermore,
Her breasts are completely shrivelled up,
They are all folded dry skins
They have made nests of cotton wool
And she folds the bits of cow-hide
In the nests
And calls them breasts.
Tina is obviously no longer young, but she struggles to pretend to be. Her pretence is
typical of all who try to assume false natures. This is precisely what Kofi Awoonor
would call the ‘impiety of self-deceit’. Finally, we have the following about Tina’s hair-
dressing:
When the beautiful one
With whom I share my husband
Returns from cooking her hair
She resembles
A chicken
That has fallen into a pond;
Her hair looks
Like the python’s discarded skin. [Section 5]
Besides imagery, words are carefully chosen for various effects. ‘Beautiful’ is ironic;
‘share’, ‘cooking’ and ‘discarded’ constitute a parody. The imagery itself is as effective
and original as that in other sections of the poem we have already seen. As Gerald
Moore has rightly observed, ‘Lawino uses the imagery of traditional Acoli funeral and
dancing songs... to give her song depth within the culture and enable it drink from the
abundant springs of inherited experience’.
Part of the cultural destruction effected by colonialism in Africa as noted before
is religious. When G.-C.M. Mutiso said that ‘Lawino condemns the missionaries who
only wanted to make her a house-girl’ and who could not ‘explain Christianity and show
how the “sacrifice” of Christ... is any different from traditional sacrifices’,36 he only
told part of the story. For in Sections 8 and 9 Lawino levels a much more comprehensive
attack not only on all the missionaries and aspects of the Christian religion, but also on
their African agents who have in the first instance embraced the foreign religion. The
first aspect of Christianity attacked is the ‘meaningless’ Christian name - ‘oh how young
girls/Labour to buy a name!’ ‘Buy’ is indeed the word, and the price paid is the girls’
entire humanity. They do all sorts of menial work for the priest and the teachers, from
‘drawing water’ to ‘harvesting their crops’. To show her utter contempt for the Christian
names, she says:
Who understands
The meaning of the Christian names?
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…………….
To me
They all sound
Like empty tins,
Old rusty tins
Thrown down
From the roof-top.
Lawino next indicts the Catholic Confession and also the Holy Communion which
implies (in her opinion) cannibalism. For the priest asks people ‘to come and eat/Human
flesh’ and ‘human blood’. And all these Christians are therefore ‘wizards’ who ‘exhume
corpses/for dinners’. Church prayers are equally ‘meaningless phrases’ which are
‘drummed’ into the people by the teachers in the evening classes.
As for the priests and teachers, they are lecherous, materialistic and intimidating.
The priests and teachers alike use their religious positions to attract girls who give them
carnal pleasure:
They have sharp eyes
For girls’ full breasts;
Even the padres
Who are not allowed
To marry
Are troubled by health,
Even the fat-stomached
Who cannot see
His belly-button
Feels better
When he touches
A girl’s breasts,
And those who listen
To the confessions
Peep through the pot-hole
And stab the breasts
With their glances.
Though these vices may not be peculiar to foreign priests, the point is that the whole
religious system was transported to Africa by them. And to Lawino it is all a sham.
These missionaries are as materialistic as they are lecherous. Their sermons are
baits for the people’s money. For after shouting on the people as they preach, they
collect money from them, frightening them into donating generously:
Immediately
They start collecting
The gifts
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You hear:
Who sows a little

Will reap a little
Who sows much
Will reap much
It is not by force
The Hunchback thanks those who give with soft hearts
To say that ‘it is not by force’ sounds ironical, for the priests employ all the
psychological force which ensures hell fire for those who do not give ‘much’. The word
‘Hunchback’ used for God is incidental here, but it is most appropriate in view of
Lawino’s whole attitude towards the Christian religion and it’s God. ‘Hunchback’ has
curious significance in Bitek’s community: ‘The name of the Christian God in Lwo is
Rubanga. This is also the name of the ghost that causes tuberculosis of the spine, hence
Hunchback’ (p. 157). But Lawino’s reaction to the priests’ quest for money is also
shown in a more direct and violent manner. She asks if ‘they buy the places in Skyland
with money?’ She also wonders if ‘the stools/on the right hand of the Hunchback’ are
reserved only ‘for moneyed fellows’, and ‘fat-bellied men/The backs of whose
necks/Resemble the buttocks of the hippo’.
Afraid of intelligence and rationality, as if they were not certain about the faith
they are propagating, the missionaries and the teachers prevent their followership from
asking questions about the new religion. To them, ‘asking too many questions/Befits
only Martin Luther.’ If asked any questions, the ‘Padre’ and the ‘Nun’ quarrel and
become angry with the questioner ‘as if it was I/Who prevented them marrying’.
Because ofthis attitude of intimidation, Lawino sees them as those who welcome only
cowards and imbeciles:
To them
The good children
Are those
Who ask no questions,
Who accept everything
Like the tomb
Which does not reject
Even a dead leper!
Who accept everything
Like the rubbish pit
Like the pit-latrine
Which does not reject
Even dysentery.
The imagery here smacks of scatology, but it is very effective, and it reflects the
seriousness and forthrightness with which the traditional African condemns what he
considers evil, that is, without resorting to the hypocrisy of euphemism.
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To appreciate Lawino’s stand in this poem fully would require a high degree of
objectivity, such as has been shown by G.-C.M. Mutiso when he said: ‘Lawino is not
simply a throwback to a pre-colonial era advocating a return to the ways of the past.
Rather she is a sensitive person who argues for a cultural relativity and the acceptance
of the validity of this position by those who call themselves educated and therefore
written, but who does nothing more than engage in blind imitation not necessarily of
what is European but of what they perceive as European.... These people ignore their
traditional games, dress... dances, and religion’. Lawino’s ‘song’ is a study in
comparative culture. She has, as it were, placed the white man’s culture and that of the
black man side by side and left us to decide which is richer, more natural and appropriate
for an African to embrace and retain.
The entire poem is almost paradoxically the traditional African’s pre-perception
of written logical positivism. All Lawino is asking for is some evidence, according to
the rule of verifiability, to prove that the white man’s culture is superior to the black
man’s; or that the white man’s religion is less superstitious than the black man’s; or
indeed that the black man’s belief has a less valid basis than the white man’s. That is
why it sounds illogical to her that God made the earth, yet this God has no hands, no
legs; and there was no ‘clay’ for ‘moulding’ the earth, and there was no ground on which
God was to stand while ‘moulding’ the earth. In the same vein, the ‘birth of Christ’
seems ridiculous to Lawino. She could not see any rationality in the Christian belief that
Christ’s ‘mother did not know man’ and yet ‘the bridewealth had already been paid’
(Section 9). The whole opposition of metaphysics, especially that aspect relating to
God’s omnipotence, by logical positivists crystallises around such want of verifiability.
Lawino, in all her ‘primitivism’ and illiteracy, reasons right through like any of those
positivists.
‘Second Olympus’ by Mabel Segun of Nigeria provided an early pointer to the
perspective in which colonialism would be viewed in later days by the poets:
From the rostrum they declaimed
On martyrs and men of high ideals
Whom they sent out,
Benevolent despots to an unwilling race
Straining at the yoke,
Bull-dozers trampling on virgin ground
In blatant violation.
They trampled down all that was strange
And filled the void
With half-digested alien thoughts;
They left a trail of red
Wherever their feet had passed
Oh, they did themselves fine
And strutted about the place,
Self-proclaimed demi-gods
From a counterfeit Olympus.
One day they hurled down thunderbolts
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On a toiling race of earthworms...
Though these lines are uneven in terms of artistic effectiveness, they contain enough
significant and vivid images to constitute a synopsis of the picture of colonialism which
the African poets who wrote later expanded and developed with imaginative vigour and
vision.(Senanu and Vincent, 2001)
What is the relationship between written African poetry and colonialism? How did they
influence one another? Your answer should include citations from different African
poets.
4.0 CONCLUSION
African poets who have handled colonialism as their subject are to that extent
concerned with what had been, with a past that was overwhelming in itself and still
remains overwhelming in its undesirable intrusion into the present. The kind of
transmutation or picture of the colonial forces as they operated in Africa, which has
been effected by the poets, depends largely on their individual imaginative orientations
and the influences of their cultural and intellectual backgrounds. To read their poetry
therefore is to be treated to varying imaginative and emotional exhibitions that are held
together by a central theme - colonialism - which has had a terrible impact on their life
and culture. The theme of colonialism is one of the most persistent notes in African
poetry in particular and literature in general.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The African poets’ poetic responses to colonial rule in Africa
• How some African poets responded to colonial rule, using poems by the
following poets for illustrations:
o Christopher Okigbo
o Kofi Awoonor
o David Diop
o Okot p’Bitek
1) Discuss the employment of poetry in responses to colonial rule by contemporary
African writers.
2) Describe how the following African poets used their poems in responding to
colonial rule in Africa:
i. Christopher Okigbo
ii. Kofi Awoonor
iii. David Diop
iv. Okot p’Bitek
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Acholonu C. (1999). The way. In T. Ojaide & T. Sallah (Eds). The new African poetry:
an Anthology. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc.
Cartey, W. (1971). Whispers from a Continent: The Literature of Contemporary Black
Africa. London: Heinemann.
Cook David, (1977). African literature: A critical view. London: Longman.
Heinemann.
Egudu, R. N. (1978). Modern African Poetry and the African Predicament. London:
Macmillan Press Ltd.
Jemie, C. and Madubuike, I. (1980). Toward the decolonization of African literature.
Senanu, K.E and Vincent T. (2001) A Selection of African Poetry Nigeria: Longman
Group Limited.
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UNIT 3 SHORTCOMINGS OF AFRICAN INDEPENDENCE
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Disillusionment Poetry
3.1.1 Christopher Okigbo’s “Hurrah for Thunder”
3.2 Apartheid Poetry
3.2.1 Themes and Techniques in “Just a Passer-by” Oswald M. Mtshali
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The disillusionment poetry of 1960s was characterised by the experiences of
independence. The prospect of independence and self-rule brought high expectations
when Africans thought that self-rule would bring forth an Eldorado and the continent
would transform into a utopia. However, this was not the case because most African
leaders became grossly corrupt and dictatorial and the people’s expectations were
shattered and this result to disappointment which later metamorphosed into
disillusionment. The poetry of this period has socio-political themes and the poets
decried the corruption of African leaders. The South African poetry on the other hand
is usually related to the apartheid political system. The tone of some poems like those
of Dennis Brutus’ Letter to Martha are critical and defiant while others like Mtshali’s
Sounds of Cowhide Drum, are cautious in their criticism. Others are revolutionary, fire-
breathing poems like Keorapetse Kgosile’s Spring Unchanted and Sipho Sepamla’s The
Soweto I Love. Oswald M. Mtshali’s “Just a Passer-by” was analysed to illustrate
apartheid poetry. Below are some of the objectives of this unit:
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Explain the concept of disillusionment poetry
• Analyse Christopher Okigbo’s “Hurrah for Thunder” as a poem of
disillusionment
• Describe Apartheid poetry
• Discuss the themes and techniques in “Just a Passer-by” Oswald M. Mtshali
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Disillusionment Poetry
In each phase of African literature, the need to portray the dehumanising
experience of Africa has always been the ultimate goal of writers. The African
experience has oscillated from slavery to colonialism and now to neo-colonialism and
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post-colonial disillusionment. The African writer has not lost focus of his role as a social
moralizer in all these phases of experiences. The modern writer even though in an alien
tongue, understands that he is a “town crier” who must firmly identify with his cultural
heritage as an African because he must first of all be an African before becoming an
African writer. African literature is being employed as a veritable weapon for depicting
the postcolonial disillusionment in African nations (Kehinde, 2004).
According to Orhero (2017), the term disillusionment poetry used to refer to the
poetry of the 1960s. The experiences of independence, coloured the poetry of the period.
While by 1960 most African countries were free of European rule after the struggle for
independence, the prospect of independence and self-rule was accompanied by high
expectations. However, African leaders became grossly corrupt and dictatorial,
shattering the expectations of the masses. There was disappointment which later
metamorphosed into disillusionment. The poetry of this period was socio-political and
poets decried the corruption of African leaders. Nwachukwu Agbada describes this
period as that of “Afro-Pessimism”. Most of the poets of this period had written earlier
but had not been socially concerned. However, the activities that permeated the society
were too gloomy for the poets to be private and obscure. They wrote to address the
failure of leaders to meet expectations. Their themes centred on bad leadership, tyranny,
corruption, and social commitment. Their techniques were largely Writtenist and based
on techniques such as imagery, realism, symbolism, etc. Poets of the time include Wole
Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo, Lenrie Peters, Kwesi Brew, Kofi Awoonor, and others
(Orhero, 2017).
Discuss the concept of disillusionment poetry.
3.1 Christopher Okigbo’s “Hurrah for Thunder”
To illustarete poetry of disillusionment, Orhero (2017) analyses Christopher
Okigbo’s “Hurrah for Thunder”. According to him, the poem, which can represent
disillusionment poetry, addresses the dashed hopes of the people in the newly
independent African society. This poem was regarded as prophetic by some critics. The
poet persona thematises corruption in the verse: “But already the hunters are talking
about pumpkins:/If they share the meat let them remember thunder” (Okigbo). The poet
persona airs his anger through the metaphor of “thunder”. The “hunters” is used as a
symbol of corrupt politicians and the idea of sharing the “meat” suggests the looting of
the collective wealth of the people. Stylistically, the poem is full of symbols and images.
In the first few lines of the poem, the “elephant” is used as a symbol to represent
Nigeria’s federal and regional governments “whose tenacity in monopolising power
made the thunder clap inevitable” (Eyoh, “Political Leadership”).
Examine the theme of disillusionment in Okigbo’s “Hurrah for Thunder”.
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3.3 Apartheid Poetry
According to Egudu (1978), while the modern African poets who wrote about
colonialism were concerned with a past problem and that their poetry, like yam shoots,
flowered out of the corpse of colonialism, the South African poets have painted and are
painting from life, Apartheid, their model, is before them and very much alive in all its
ugly aspects, terrorising the poets as they write and demonstrate various attitudes
towards that enemy. Apartheid is a hydra-headed beast, which more than colonialism,
brutalised and dehumanised the black South Africans. This situation of racist oppression
– Apartheid - has forced South African poets to write poems depicting its gory aspects
to the world, in a bid to muster world disapproval for it, which would lead to its
dismantling (Okon, 2013). In the words of Orhero (2013), in Apartheid South Africa,
where the white rulers segregated the blacks, the rulers instituted racially discriminatory
laws which limited the freedom and total life of the black South Africans. They were
not allowed to go to the same schools, attend churches and live in the same places with
whites and were not allowed to vote or to be voted for. The aboriginal blacks were
reduced to mere occupants in their own land. Some South African poets wrote to address
these divisions and talk to the conscience of the white oppressors. Most of them were
harassed and detained. Their themes included segregation, racism, oppression, protest,
pain, inequality, etc.
The major technique of the Apartheid poets was the protest form, critical and
socialist realism, imagery and symbolism (Orhero). Poets in this tradition include
Mazizi Kunene, Lewis Nkosi, Dennis Brutus, Oswald Mtshali, Wally Serote, Richard
Rive, Njabulo Ndebele and others. According to Okon (2013), oppression, brutality,
pain and unmitigated suffering of the masses is aptly depicted in Dennis Brutus’ “This
sun on this rubble”. Physical battery and torture are here highlighted:
… Bruised though we must be
………………………………….
Under jackboots our bones and spirits crunch
forced into sweat-tear-sodden slush
- now glow-lipped by this sudden touch:
But in spite of battery and torture, the people are unyielding, resilient, and with the hope
of revenge upon their white torturers:
… our bones may later sing
or spell out some malignant nemesis
Sharpevilled to spear points for revenging
(Nwogu, 2008:58)
3.4.1 Themes and Techniques in “Just a Passer-by” Oswald M. Mtshali
Ishaku (Undated) discussed Mtshali’s poem, “Just a Passer-by”. The poem will
be analysed thematically and stylistically so that the theme of the poem can be discussed
and he poetic techniques employed by the poet can as well be identified. Oswald M.
Mitshali is one of the black South Africa’s most talented poets. He was born in Natal
and was a victim of the Apartheid system which denied him admission into the
University of Witwatersand. However, this did not diminish his desire for literary
70
progress as he published his first volume of poems titled Sounds of the Cowhide Drum
(1971) which established him as a significant poet.
Mitshali’s poems are about the people and their life in a hostile society which he
is part of. The theme of survival in a defiant and hostile society runs through a number
of his poems. The quiet control and the colloquial tone is noticed when the poet writes
of his peoples’ sufferings. There is no venom of hatred expressed but most of the themes
are conveyed through distilled lyrical verses and ironic humour. Similarly, irony and
cynicism are the main characteristic features of his poetry as can be seen in the poem
below:
“Just a Passer-by”
I saw them clobber him with kieries
I heard him scream with pain
like a victim of slaughter;
I smelt fresh blood gush
from his nostrils,
and flow in the street.
I walked into the church
and knelt in the pew
“Lord I love you.
I also love my neighbour. Amen.”
I came out
my heart as light as an angle’s kiss
on the cheek of a saintly soul.
Back home I strutted
past a crowd of onlookers.
Then she came in –
My woman neighbour:
“Have you heard ? They’ve killed your brother.”
“O! No! I heard nothing. I’ve been to church.”
This is a very ironic and sarcastic piece of poetry through which the poet expresses the
helpless condition of many blacks in apartheid South Africa. The poem incorporates a
number of themes besides describing the gruesome incident of brothers being
‘clobbered’ while he (the poet) passes on by without rendering any help. The poet draws
an ironic parallel with parable of the Good Samaritan. The religion of the whites
(Christianity) that preaches one to be his brother’s keeper is itself the cause of violence.
But the irony of what the poet considers an escapist religion is that the poet instead of
helping his brother from ticklers goes instead to the church to pray for the brothers’
soul. The poem is indicative of the height of violence and the helplessness of the people
in the society the poet lives in (Ishaku, Undated).
In his “The Master of the House”, Mtshali takes a satirical look at the apartheid
system in which the white minority are the masters while the black majority are the
servants, doing degrading menial jobs. But even under this condition the blacks have
learnt to survive and outwit the inhuman system:
71
Master I am a stranger to you
But will you hear my confession?
I am a faceless man
Who lives in the backyard/of your house
I share your table/so heavily heaped with
bread, meat and fruit/it huffs like a horse
drawing a coal cart.
The master’s luxury contrasts sharply with the deprivation of the persona; a situation
not unlike the Biblical parable:
As the rich man’s to Lazarus,
the crumbs are swept to my lap/by my Lizzie:
‘Sweetie! Eat and be satisfied now,
Tomorrow we shall be gone’.
The last two lines demonstrate the precariousness of life for the blackman in South
Africa, and also bring out the South Africans’ seeming consciousness of time (Okon,
2013). Nonetheless, the Blackman seems in someway to live with the system by
outsmarting and spooking it, but this also underscores his consciousness of the time
element:
So nightly I ran the gauntlet,
wrestle with your mastiff, Caesar,
for the bone pregnant with meat
and wash it down with Pussy’s milk.
I am the nocturnal animal
that steals through the fenced lair/to meet my mate
and flees at the break of dawn
before the hunter and the hounds/run me to ground.
(Mtsheli, 1971:55)
Discuss some shortcomings of African independence as portrayed in various African
poetic responses.
4.0 CONCLUSION
The poetry of disillusionment of the 1960s was coloured by the experiences of
independence. The prospect of independence and self-rule brought high expectations
when Africans thought that self-rule would bring forth an Eldorado and the continent
would transform into a utopia. Unfortunately, this was not the case. African leaders
became grossly corrupt and dictatorial and the people’s expectations were shattered and
this result to disappointment which later metamorphosed into disillusionment. The
poetry of this period was socio-political and poets decried the corruption of African
leaders. On the other hand, the South African poetry is usually related to the apartheid
political system. The tone of some poems like those of Dennis Brutus’ Letter to Martha
are critical and defiant while others like Mtshali’s Sounds of Cowhide Drum, are
cautious in their criticism. Others are revolutionary, fire-breathing poems like
Keorapetse Kgosile’s Spring Unchanted and Sipho Sepamla’s The Soweto I Love.
72
5.0 SUMMARY
• The concept of disillusionment poetry with illustrations from Christopher
Okigbo’s “Hurrah for Thunder”
• The concept of Apartheid poetry
• The themes and techniques employed in Oswald M. Mtshali’s “just a passer-by”
• Explain the concept of disillusionment poetry
• Analyse Christopher Okigbo’s “Hurrah for Thunder” as a poem of
disillusionment
• What is Apartheid poetry?
• Discuss the themes and techniques in “Just a Passer-by” by Oswald M. Mtshali
Eldred J. The Essentials of Soyinka. In Introduction to Nigerian Literature, ed. Bruce,
King, Lagos, Evans Brothers, 1971.
Isidore, O. Oral Literature and Written African Literature. African Literature:
Anthology of Criticism and Theory. Australia. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2007.
Kehinde, A. (2004). “Post-Independence Disillusionment in Contemporary African
Fiction: The Example of Meja Mwangi’s Kill Me Quick”. Nordic Journal of
African Studies 13(2): 228–241
Nwogu, D. West African Verse. England: Pearson.2008.
Obiajunwa, W. “The Dead End of African Literature”. African Literature: An
Anthology of Criticism and Theory. Australia. Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
Okon, F. (2013). “Politics and Development of Written African Poetry”. English
Language and Literature Studies; Vol. 3.No. 1
December, 2017 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321776494.
Accessed on 08/08/2018
Mtsheli, O.M, (1971) Sounds of a Cowhide Drum UK: Oxford University Press
73
UNIT 4 AFRICA’S CULTURAL CRISIS/CULTURAL REDISCOVERY
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Written African Poetry and African Cultural Heritage
3.2 Negritude and Its Philosophy
3.3 Cultural Affirmation: Specific Aspects
3.4 African Poets and their Affirmatory Poems
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
African poetry would not have gained the momentum it has gained in the
nineteenth century, if not for negative and biased portraits and images of African,
painted by European writers, like Joyce Cary and Joseph Comrade. Hence, much of the
Poetry that were weaved that era were to respond consciously to the colonialist false
representations of Africa as a way of writing back and critically engaging on the realities
of society. (Okon, 2013) argues: “In Africa the poet cannot just play around with words.
It is natural that he should handle some of the realities of his society”. This reveals that
African poetry actually emerged to recreate Africa in a better light, to X-ray its cultural
ingredients like language, custom, type of food, clothing, folktales, song, myth etc. to
the global village with the aim of reclaiming her lost dignity and pride. In this unit, we
shall use relevant works from each region to illustrate how the poets of that period were
able to assert and affirm the beauty and glory of Africa through the Negritude ideology
and apartheid poetry. Below are some of the objectives of this unit:
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Discuss how written African poetry manifest African cultural heritage
• Explain the concept of Negritude
• Highlight the philosophy of Negritude
• Discuss the Negritude’s aspects of cultural affirmation
• Explain how African poets manifests African cultural affirmation in their poems
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Written African Poetry and African Cultural Heritage
Written African poetry, even though written in foreign languages is not divorced
from African cultural heritage. In human history, where a group of people are
dominated, decolonization is in most cases, a gradual process. Indeed, while it has often
been much easier to end the physical occupation, mental purging of a formerly
74
dominated group is usually the most difficult process and requires conscious and
concerted effort. One reason for this is that the actual physical domination of a people
by another, if it is to succeed and be beneficial to the group, must be preceded by a
deliberate and systematic attack on the cultural foundations of the group to be preyed
upon. Hoogvelt sums it that: “No society can successfully dominate another without the
diffusion of its cultural patterns and social institutions” (109). And central to culture is
language as people’s means of communication and interaction, as a bearer of their
culture, and as a conveyor of their world view. Sapir, for instance, maintains that
“language does not exist apart from culture that is from the socially inherited
assemblage of texture of our lives (Language, 207, Culture, 34). Since the independence
of various African countries, the question of what language(s) to use in African
literature has naturally engaged the attention of African scholars, linguist, literary artists
and critics as well as general public. At its broadest level, the question has been, “what
should the African, who is educated in the language of his colonial master do with the
erstwhile master’s language? “Should he continue to express himself and his culture
through these languages? If so how can he guarantee that these languages can
effectively convey his culture and world view? And if he has to switch to an African
language, what happens to the large audience that English offers him? Joe Ushie in his
“Many Voices”, (50-51) summarizes the major positions adopted by African scholars
on this debate as follows:
i. Those who, following Obi Wali, have continued to advocate the use of African
indigenous language. Example Ngugi wa Thiong’O and Ime Ikideu.
ii. Those who have followed the sophisticated formal English expression, example
Okigbo, Soyinka, Dennis Brutus, J. P. Clark etc.
iii. Those who following Jonhernz John have suggested that European languages for
instance English be used in such a way that the languages bear the African
cultural experience while remaining intelligible internationally. The poetry of
Okot P. Bitek and Kofi Awoonor illustrate this category.
The key question here is: How can the African poet continue to use non-African
languages, and in the printed form, and still ensure that the African folklore and culture,
which are thus transferred preserve their identity as African cultural heritage. In other
words, what linguistic choices does the African poet has to make that would ensure that
his oral culture is preserved even in print and foreign tongue rather than swept into the
sea of world literature and culture without race? This is important as it often happens
that tributary contributions to major world civilizations that had left no residue of their
origin had been unacknowledged and subsequently appropriated by other cultures. The
dominant features of African orality in written African poetry include the presence of
repetition, the use of refrain, proverb, the pronoun and the evocative and also other
elements of performances.
Drawing examples from Niyi Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place, discuss the
African cultural heritage in written African poetry.
3.2 Negritude and Its Philosophy
75
About the origin of Negritude, Jack (1996) quoted Kesteloot on the coming of a
‘new literature’:
With the awakening of the African continent, demanding its freedom, it is
time to recognize that black writers of the French language form a
comprehensive literary movement. As early as 1948, “Black Orpheus,” Jean-
Paul Sartre’s brilliant preface to L. S. Senghor’s Anthologie de la nouvelle
poésie nègre et malgache de langue française [“Anthology of the New
Negro and Malagasy Poetry in French”] saluted the accession of the poets of
“Negritude.” Today, everything about this poetry, its abundance and quality,
its diversity of style and form, its incontestable originality, prompts us to
consider these neo-African authors as creators of an authentic literary school.
According to Timibofa (2007), Negritude is a cultural movement launched in
1930 by Paris-French speaking black graduate students from France Colonies in Africa
and the Caribbean territories. The intellectuals converged around issues of identity and
black internationalist initiatives to combat French imperialism and found solidarity in
affirming their pride in their shared black identity and African heritage and reclaiming
Africa self-determination, self-reliance and self-respect. In addition their struggle
signalled an awakening of race consciousness among blacks living at Diaspora. It
provided a renewed hope that at last the disfigured and blatantly weaved images of
Africa were re-created and given scholarly and magnificent representation. It is
uncontested that this African renaissance, healed several wounds of African all over the
world: “Today the Black man raises up his head…He refuses henceforth a white
imposed destiny…He says no to servitude and rejects the prejudices heaped on his race(
Lilyan).
The guiding principle of Negritude is broadly, a return to African cultural values
in the face of gross attack by colonial values and its history dates back to 1932 when a
group of West Indian blacks including Etienne Lero, Rene Menil and Jules Monnerot
brought out a journal called Legitime Defence. The journal celebrates Africa and laid
the philosophy which inspired the negritude poets. In 1934, a set of students including
Leon Damas, Aime Cesaire, Leopold Sedar Senghor and later Birago Diop and
Ousmane Soce founded another journal, L/Etudiant Noir. Those associated with this
journal became negritude poets. According to Aime Cesaire (1969) “Negritude is the
simple recognition of the fact of being a Negro and acceptance of its cultural and
historical consequences” (quoted in Mohammed).
Senghor sees it as:
The sum total of black Africa’s cultural values’
…the cultural heritage, the values and above
All the spirit of Negro- African civilization’
‘the re-affirmation our being, and development of
African cultural values.
Ikeddeh avers that the term has political overtones within its cultural
frame work:
This is first of all negation…rejection of the
76
Other, refusal to assimilate… rejection of the
Other is self-affirmation.’
… so that our negritude should be effective instrument for a liberation.’
Moreover, Irele (1965) in his “What is Negritude” also noted, that:
The term thus has been used in a broad and general sense to denote the black
world in its historical being in opposition to the West and in this way resumes
the total consciousnesses of belonging to the black race as well as awareness
of the objectives, historical and sociological implication of that fact.
In other words, Negritude is is a movement with a strong and solid philosophy that
everything called or termed as black is beautiful and the consciousness of being superior
and never inferior to any alien culture. Not only that; but also proudly building the
consciousness to radically defend it at all course; even at dagger points to refurbish her
image. Therefore, Negritude can said to be a movement geared towards creating a black
renaissance, accepting our state of being black, appreciating it, rejecting foreign
influence on our culture, and raising our culture above theirs through conscious
assertion of its beauty and ethical standard.
Examine the concept of Negritude and how it is employed for the affirmation of African
cultural heritage.
3.3 Cultural Affirmation: Specific Aspects
Negritude poetry is geared towards affirming Africa’s cultural heritage
(Timibofa, 2007). However, to achieve this, Negritude poets reflect and capture these
integral specific aspects of African culture: language, dress code, food, songs, dance,
rituals, festival, norms, custom, rites, folklore, myth, legend, colour etc. in their poetry
in comparison to the west, thereby foregrounding Africa’s for general appreciation and
acceptance. This is because culture itself is fully expressed in these areas. In the words
of Isidore:
One of the most notable nationalist ideologies of this country has been the
philosophy of negritude, especially as propounded by Leopold Sedar
Senghor in his poetry and essays. The aim of negritude was to project
everything African-the colour black, the physical features of the African and
his environment, the human quality of African culture, etc. as beautiful and
salutary.
In his work, the poet tries to demostrate how language is used and expresses its beauty
and he does so by code mixing and switching, neologism and transliteration.
Sometimes, the poet also attempts to write in his own language so as to reach his local
audience. In reality, the radical school of thought argues that literature be composed and
expressed in our indigenous languages. In their view, until when African literature is
written in African languages, is it not African. According to Obi, (2007):
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Until these writers and their midwives accept the fact that any true African
Writer must be written in African languages, they would be merely pursuing
a dead end which can only lead to sterility, uncreativity and frustration.
In his view, Ngugi asserted that African literature must be written in Africa languages:
“written literature and oration, one the main means by which a particular language
transmit the combats of the world contained in the intuitive it carries languages”. He
also argues that the only way to affirm that aspect of our cultural heritage is to express
it in our own way. Okara also supports this argument in his poem that western culture
is nothing but confusion and full of complexities. It is also against this background that
Achebe tries to create what he calls new English; that diluted or Africanize English to
carry African interpretation and meanings all in an attempt to glorify the language. He
asserts below:
The price world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many
different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way
that brings out his message best without altering the languages (sic) to the
extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost.
Similarly, the African customs, norms and attires are also celebrated as a way of
expressing culture. African poets deliberately celebrate the African made clothes, rich
customs and norms in their poems. They do so in their poetry to attract global attention
(Timibofa, 2007). In addition, the various African foods and medicines which are other
aspects of African culture are celebrated by the poets, portraying their qualities as higher
than foreign delicacies and medications. This can be seen in Okot p’Bitek Song of
Lawino & Song of Ocol. In the poem, Bitek compared African food and drugs and
foreign made medicine and food to affirm the quality of African made food and
medicine.
African poets were also known to draw attention of readers to African myth and
rituals, the performed norms, songs and rite during those events. They do this to show
the uniqueness of African made products. Thus, the poems of Okara, Clark, Osofisan,
Soyinka etc. and more importantly, David, Cesaire, Birogo, and Senghor were
composed to foreground these different aspects of African culture.
Other aspects of culture celebrated are the skin colour, lips, legs and other parts
to affirm their uniqueness in comparison to the European. Hence, the negritude poets
attempted to capture all these aspects of African culture in their poems. To this end,
Muhammed (2011) has this to say:
Skimming through African works with or without negritude inclination, we
see similar sentiments and sensibilities. Senghor’s “I will pronounce Your
Name”, carries out re-assessment of beauty of African culture of the poets
Africaness.
Using Senghor’s “I will Pronounce Your Name”, discuss the theme of cultural
affirmation in written African poetry.
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3.4 African Poets and their Affirmatory Poems
One of the the recurrent themes in African poetry, is an attempt at affirmation of
African cultural identities. According to Timibofa (2007), Aime Cesaire, in his popular
poem, “Return to my Native Land”, writes:
my negritude not a stone.
Nor deafness flung out against the clamour of the day
my negritude not a white speck of dead water
on the dead eye of the earth
my negritude is neither tower nor cathedral
it plunges into the red flesh of all soil
it plunges into blazing flesh of the sky
my negritude riddles with holes
the dense affliction of its worthy patience….
The poet coined the term to emphasise and maintain the ideology behind the concept so
as to ensure its message is clear and achieve its intention. Also, in another poem, ‘Black
Woman’, Senghor celebrates the African woman and her beauty. Using imageries, he
adores her naturally endowed features and wishes that she remains with him forever. In
this poem, Senghor begins by praising the addresses colour, which according to him, is
life and her form which is beauty. He affirms that it is in her shadows he grows which
is Africa. In stanza two, he stated that her blackness strikes him like the flesh of an
eagle. He stressed further that, even her nakedness itself is beautiful. As he puts it:
Naked woman, black woman clothed with your colour/which is life with your form is
beauty/in your shadows I have grown the greatness of/your hand was laid upon my eyes
(Naked) lines -4) (Timibofa, 2007). Senghor went further to celebrate her voice and the
song produced. He does so to show that only in Africa can this kind of rendition be
found. Again, he appreciates her skin and her hair stating that he has to do so urgently
before she answers the call of nature: “Before jealous fate turns you to ashes to feed
roots of life” (Naked. line 22).
Similarly, David Diop in Senghor’s tradition affirms some aspects of African
culture in his poems. In his “vulture” Diop argues that Africa had an organized system
of Education that taught people the basics of ethics. According to him, these institutions
groomed African on relationship and how to treat man humanly. He asserts in this poem
that, the system of education introduced by the European is too light to be assimilated
because it never taught people to be human and also preach a philosophy of segregation
which is alien to Africa. In his words: “of foreigners who did not seem human “Who
knew all books but did not know love” (Vulture, lines 12-13). David implies here that
the Whiteman brought a system of education that does not practice what it teaches.
Therefore to this form of education can at best be called shadows which is why; it kicks
them on their faces (Timibofa, 2007).
David also condemned their monotonous kind of music and songs that are not
thought provoking and inspiring like Africa’s beats… “And the monotone rhythm of
the paternoster” (Vultures, line 8). Again in his “Africa” he made us to understand
Africa had her form of storytelling and praise poetry before the colonial invasion. In his
79
flash back technique and historical allusion he brings to bear how he came to know
about Africa through the songs and rendition about African from his mother. He puts
this way; “Africa my grandmother sings of in the far distant river” (lines 2-3). In a more
radical and militant manner Bernard Dadie affirms certain aspects of its culture. In his
poem “I give you thanks my God” Bernard Dadie affirms that his colour, hair, hips, legs
and skin are unique this is because both are black which symbolize beauty. David asserts
in this poem that black is a universal colour while white is an improvised colour for an
occasion. He states that he thanks God for his nose which is not pointed because it will
enable him to breathe well. Also he appreciates God for his thick skin which according
to him allows him to stand out. Same thing applies to his short leg that allows him to
walk the whole earth without weakness.
Dennis Brutus does same in his poem “At a Funeral” though dedicated to a dead
friend who died after been awarded a doctorate degree, Dennis, in this poem was not
only concerned about her fame but her black beauty which will soon be dissolved into
mother earth by worms. He affirms her dark colour and even the graves’ panting which
were also black that will be lowered. His jealousy is that this black African beauty that
shines as gold will no longer be seen again; “black, green and gold at sunset. Pageantry
and stubble graves: expectant of eternity…” (lines 1-2)
Gabriel Okara (1963) affirms same in his “Piano and Drums” that everything
about African culture is complex and incomprehensible. He noted that the tone produce
from the piano which represents European is cumbersome and does not communicate
any meaning to its listeners, contrary to his drum that is comprehensive and the voice
produces is inspiring and mind blowing. In this poem Okara draws our attention to this
reality that African culture was at its best before its rape by the European. He uses his
flashback device to give us a picture of Africa when it was still a virgin drawing our
attention to the fact that African culture is the best and should be embraced. Isidore
Okpewho, lends his voice again: “the aim was to demonstrate that Africa has had, since
time immemorial traditions that should be respected and culture to be proud of” Also
he tries to tell us how peaceful and harmonious Africa was before its sudden invasion
by the colonizers:
When at break of day at a riverside…
Then I hear a wailing piano solo
Speaking of complex ways…
And I lost in the labyrinth of its complexities. (Piano, 23 - 24)
Gabriel ends the poem on a note of confusion indicating that at best what the western
culture is known for is confusion and complexities. In a more vivid way, the Ugandan
poet Okot P’Bitek shows us beautiful portraits of Africa in his poem “Song of Lawino
and Song of Ocol”. In this poem Okot reputes the colonial claims about Africa of being
dark and black. In this poem okot affirms that indeed Africa is black but that is her
unique identity. He takes time to compare his Alcholi culture from the western through
his stubborn character Lawino who represents an advocate of the African culture. She
defends the African culture radically and with all seriousness to ensure that she has
recreates African image that has been misrepresented by the western world.
80
Like black America writer high Langston asserts same: We the creators of a new
generation want to give expression to our personality without shame or fear” It is same
vision that Okot p’ aims to achieve and we see his portraiture of the western culture
represented by Clementine as he uses Lawino to satirize and mock her: Hear what he
says:
Brother, when you see Clementine!
The beautiful one aspires
To look like a white women;
Her lips are red-hot like glowing charcoal,
She resembles wild cat
That has dipped it’s month in blood
Her mouth is like raw jaws
It looks like an open ulcer,
Like the mouth of a field!
Tina dust power on her face
And it loves so pace;
She resembles a wizard
Getting ready for the midnight dance.
(Lawino p.37 lines 17-32)
Okot went further to describe her physical appearance which according to him is
disgusting:
You feel a little pity for her!
Her breasts are completely
Shriveled up,
They are all fold dry skins
They have made nests of cotton wool… (P. 39 lines 28 -30)
Okot went to mock their dance styles which he compares with African styles:
I am completely ignorant
Of the dances of foreigners
Holding each other
Tighting, tighting
In public,
I cannot
I am ashamed
Dancing without a song
Dancing solemnly like wizards
Without respect; drunk…
If someone tries
To force me to dance this
Dance
I feel like hanging myself
Feet first… (Page 47, lines 8-23)
He argues that his Acholi songs and dances styles are far better than theirs
81
…I sang sweetly…
Nobody’s voice was sweeter
Than mine!
And in the area
I sang solo
Loud and clear
Like the ogilo bird
At sunset…
Okot tries in the poem to demonstrate that his Acholi (African) culture is the best using
similes and metaphors to show us in the poem affirming that everything the Whiteman
brought was already here from same to song, clock, food, school and even medicine
which functions better than the western (Timibofa, 2007).
Examine in detail, how African poets use their poetry in response to cultural crises
created by longterm colonisation of the continent, citing many examples from written
African poems.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Negritude poetry generally rejected colonialism and the policy of “Assimilation”
which sought to make all colonial subjects Frenchmen. They opted for a celebration of
African womanhood, blackhood, the ancestors and their cultures. Some of their features
were also political and denounced the oppression and exploitation in the colonial
system. From the foregoing it has been made clear that African poetry is a by-product
of cultural affirmation. African writers like the negritude poet and other writers use
poetry to show a contrast between their culture and the western in a humble attempt to
bring out the African culture that dies into westernism. Hence, the poets through this
media show that everything black which the Whiteman perceives with contempt is more
beautiful than the artificially made white that is not natural as Africa’s.
5.0 SUMMARY
• How written African poetry explore African cultural heritage
• The concept and the philosophy of Negritude
• The Negritude’s aspects of cultural affirmation
• How some African poets employ their poems for African cultural affirmation

• Discuss how written African poetry manifest African cultural heritage
• Explain the concept of Negritude
• Highlight the philosophy of Negritude
82
• Discuss the Negritude’s aspects of cultural affirmation
• How do African poets manifests African cultural affirmation in their poems
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Aime, C. (1969). Return to my Native land. London: Penguin.
Irele, A. (1965) Negritude or Black Cultural Nationalism. Nigeria: Journal of Modern
African Studies
Jack, B. E. (1996). Negritude and Literary Criticism: The History and Theory of
“Negro-African” Literature in French. Westport: Greenwood Press
Lilyan, K. (1964) Black Writers in French: The Birth of Literature.London Heinemann.
Muhammed, Y. “Africaness of African Literature Negritude in Focus Ibadan”. AAU:
African Studies. 2011: p. 55-77.
Ngugi, wa Thongo’O. (2007). “The Language of African Literature”. African
Literature: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory. Australia. Blackwell
Publishing.
Okot, P’Bitek. (2005) Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol. Ibadan Heinemann Books.
Senghor, L. (2009). “Negritude: Humanism of Twentieth Century”. African Literature:
An Anthology of Criticism and Theory. Austria. Blackwell Publishing.
Timibofa, A. (Undated). “African poetry and Cultural Affirmation: the
Negritude”.Department of English, University of Oyo.
Yakubu, M. (2011). “Africaness of African Literature Negritude in Focus Ibadan”.
AAU: African Studies. p. 55-77.
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UNIT 5 POETS IN EXILE
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 The Concept of Exile
3.2 Exile and African Experience
3.2 Exile and Written African Poetry
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Exile occupies a vital place in poetic exploration in particular and literary
conception in general. This may not be unconnected with the fact that human history
world over is characterized by elements and moments of dislocation at one point or the
other. George Lamming’s (1960: 24) asserts that “The exile is… a universal figure…
and to be in exile is to be alive”. This unit will discuss the concept of exile poetry with
specific references to the African poets’ exilic experiences together with citing relevant
examples from their poems. Below are some of the objectives of this unit:
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Discuss the concept of exile literature
• Show the relationship between exile and African experience
• Discuss the concept of exile in written African poetry
• Provide some illustrations of African exile poetry
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 The Concept of Exile
Considered in the orthodox sense for the purpose of convenient discursive
departure, exile, that result of dislocation from one’s native land, occupies a
conspicuous place in poetic exploration in particular and literary conception in general.
This is perhaps so because human history world over is characterized by elements and
moments of dislocation at one point or the other. The veracity of this remark is
underscored by an assertion as George Lamming’s (1960: 24) that “The exile is… a
universal figure… and to be in exile is to be alive”. But perhaps there must be an
admission of an extremely allegorical twist to this notion of Lamming’s apprehension
of the concept. This is in view of the fact that the context from which the assertion
extracts articulation revolves around the capacity of the political to engender
estrangement. More literally, therefore, exile must be viewed as a human condition
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which is defined by dispersal or drift usually against the wish of an individual or
community.
The fact of humanity’s vulnerability to exile is evident in the various
circumstances and incidents by which it is necessitated. These circumstances and
incidents range from war to famine to political crisis and in some cases, a dissident
stance. It thus becomes understandable why the literary contents of peoples’ cultural
traditions, whether oral or written, are replete with engagements of dislocation. To
return to the exposition on exile, the triumphs and tribulations of it are indeed expressed
and evident in the representation of the Jewish race in biblical times as nomadic. The
simplicity of this view is however blurred in the Pauline hermeneutics which inverts the
literal understanding of the Jewish race by introducing an allegorical twist by which as
many as are converted to the Christian faith, a theology that is complicitous with the
civilizing alibi of western colonialism is to be Jewish (Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan
Boyarin 1995: 332). Nevertheless, the all-embracing, spiritualizing liberalism of this
philosophy is thoroughly compromised by the historical persecutions to which
genealogical Jews have often been subjected especially in the western world, so much
so that, the word Jew is a metaphor for the dreaded, rootless and rejected “Other” against
whom all measures of exclusion must be executed (Gorge Mosse 1995: 196). Not
surprisingly, therefore, exile, as soberly reviewed by Edward Said (2001: 173) with
insightful acuity, invariably becomes that strangely compelling condition whose
“achievements… are permanently undermined by the loss of something left behind”.
Give a critical discussion of the concept of exile.
3.2 Exile and African Experience
In terms of Black Africa’s first major dispersal of diasporic magnitude to the
West, the period is generally, but not exclusively, agreed to date back to the 16th
century. Nevertheless, scholarly evidence abounds to the effect that it is not in all cases
that the “pre-Columbian scheme” (Okpewho 1999: xii) can be wished away. The
circumstances of this dispersal were as epochal as they were evolutionary. Again, we
would choose to invoke Okpewho’s paradigm here, which identifies three imperatives
in the said dispersal and making of Black diaspora in the West. The first of the
imperatives is the “labor imperative” which stresses the era of the West’s unbridled
quest for the slave labour of Africa’s “sons and daughters” via the agency of the trans-
Atlantic Slave Trade. Logically following on the trail of the first is the “territorial
imperative” which, in response to America’s monopoly and foreclosure of any further
European colonization of Latin America, pushed European imperial powers to
convergently scramble and partition Africa. The third imperative is the “extractive
imperative”, an era “when Africa’s mineral wealth had become the main focus of
western interest in the continent”8. In their cumulative significance, the imperatives
have built a major Black presence in the West. Indeed, the historical circumstances
under which the unenviable condition of exile translated into diaspora have resulted in
a dispersal experience. However, this experience for the most part continues to point to
how the posterity of the uprooted Black race lives through a world with evidence to the
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fact of “the loss of something left behind” on the African continent. This is essentially
because of the tribulations that have dogged the lives of the African diaspora in the
West. Of course, while this view is a basis for why Africa remains crucial in the
discussion of Black diaspora, it does not fail to inspire counter-critical perspectives
which interrogate this view as one may find in articulations of the sentiments of the
Black Atlantism as advocated by Paul Gilroy and others in this school of thought. In
this case, Black Atlantism, among other things, seeks to transcend the question of race
or soul in the contemplation of Africa and its diaspora (Michael Echeruo 1999:3).
However, to say that persecution is all there is to the configuration of African
diaspora in the West is to miss the mark. The point returns the discussion to the “Black
presence” phenomenon especially in America, which Okpewho (1999: xiii-xiv)
contends is manifest in every area of the American configuration: from culture to
literature to the making and consolidation of the American capitalist economy. To the
extent that there is a measure of logic in the foregoing argument, exile with respect to
the conditions of African diaspora originally formulated through the historical
antecedent of slavery must as well be considered from an angle that transcends the
calamity that defines the initial expulsion of people from their homeland. To echo Nikos
Papastergiadis (1993: 1), the apprehension of exile must transcend inflections of
political banishment and incorporate, among other things, “the dislocation of peoples
by economic pressures and (more substantially as in the case of the bulk of Black
diaspora) the redefinition of values and norms through cultural transformation. In this
sense exile embraces the totality of ruptures that pervade the mechanisms and constitute
the dynamism of social change.”
In the process of establishing the genesis of African large scale migration/exile
to the West, it is also important to incorporate the memory of the trade and its aftermath
for African exile. This is in order to show what subsequently followed on the continent,
especially as colonialism was a follow-up to the antecedent of the trade. Once this
historical liberty is granted, the discourse of exile in African literature begins to have
its appeal of logic as it presents a holistic approach since the place of the continent as a
primordial homeland for its diasporas in the West cannot be obscured. Moreover, it also
provides the groundwork for the possibility of presenting an argument about the
continuum of African exile in the West, and showing how the dimensions have changed
over the centuries owing to the ever-changing historical epochs the continent has
witnessed.
Examine the African experience in exile.
3.2 Exile and Written African Poetry
The engagement of African poets of the first generation with exile was basically
cultural, giving a strong validity to the “importance of the language-place disjunction”
(Ashcroft, et al 1989) in the construction of the post-colonial realities. Beginning with
the poetics of Negritude as most exemplified by Sedar Senghor, one encounters a
reaction to colonialism and its consequences of disjunction which is that of a double
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alienation from African heritage and that of the West. The attempt at reclaiming the lost
African ontological space and its endowments becomes the focal point of Senghor and
other negritude artists. Among other things, the imposition of the paradigm of western
modernity on Africans and the ambiguity of identity it created in them due to the fact
that the conflation of indigenous and western epistemological practices was indeed a
crisis in itself. One way of resolving the conflict as exemplified by Senghor, was to
pursue a quest for synthesis both in “life and poetry” (Mortimer, 2002). This brings into
perspective the cultural exile that resulted from the contact with western culture and its
impact on Africa. Such synthesis through which Senghor finds some kind of parallel
between, say, “Sine and Seine”, goes to show the dilemma of cultural exile. Senghor
“combined Sine with Siene, the rivers of Africa and Europe, knowledge of the culture
and traditions of his native Senegal with that of his adopted French heritage”. This is
because caught between both ends of conflicting epistemologies, an attempt to
internalize and become an embodiment of both can be regarded as some kind of
metaphorical return. This way the cultural exile is able to utilize the knowledge of both
worlds to redefine his identity.
Christopher Okigbo dwells on the same theme in Heavensgate where his
atonement becomes vicarious as there is a sense in which it speaks for the pains of the
severance of the modern African from the otherwise authentic African culture as a result
of the purchase of colonialism on him in all its ramifications. For Okigbo therefore,
exile is painfully spiritual as it is physical. The cultural implications of his inability to
take up the path charted for him by the dictates of tradition are not only regretted, they
also go to validate the Spanish etymological underpinning of exile as “los despistados”,
that is, the disoriented (Wojciehowski, 1992). Also from West Africa, Soyinka’s “The
Telephone Conversation” touches on the theme of exile, this time in the physical sense.
Similarly, in the poetry of Portuguese-speaking writers, the preoccupation with the
condition of the exilic among writers of this generation is remarkable; Antonio Jacinto’s
“Poem of Alienation” comes to mind here. With Okot p’Bitek, the issue assumes a
grand dimension of extended metaphors as one finds in Song of Lawino and Song of
Ocol. In both, there is a contextualization of the socio-cultural tensions of exile. There
is however a parallel twist to the notion of exile among poets of the first generation in
South Africa, as it is in the main an experience engendered by the aberrations of the
politics of apartheid. It is in fact for this reason that Udenta (1996) asserts that during
this period, it was impossible to talk about South African poetry without discussing
exile. This trope is most represented by the poetry of Brutus.
In a similar vein, various critical works have been done on African poetry in
general and the concept of exile in particular. In the context of the first generation
prominent among such was Ken Goodwin’s Understanding African Poetry. The work
consciously selects poets of English expression in a manner that places it, even two
decades after, as a critical intervention not only intent on recognizing the
accomplishment of the poets, but making statements of canon formation at the same
time. In understudying the impact of western tradition on these poets the journey motif
associated with modernity is also manifest. This is because either in the literal or
metaphoric sense, the internalization of western poetic traditions and the influence on
the works of the African poets speaks to the question of exile which, as has been seen,
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is crucial in one way or the other to the understanding of poets in this generation. The
list runs from West to Southern Africa: Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka, Gabriel
Okara, Lenrie Peters, John Pepper Clark, Kofi Awoonor, Taban lo Liyong, Okot
p’Bitek, Mazisi Kunene and Dennis Brutus. Earlier Romanus Egudu had published
Modern African Poetry and the African Predicament which was linguistically all
encompassing by looking at the commitment of African poetry to the socio-political
realities of sub-Saharan Africa.
Bound by the paradigm of periodization, one is constrained to assess the works
of poets of the second generation against the backdrop of the influence of their
emergence. Their preoccupation with exile becomes more literal than allegorical; that
is, while it is possible to locate part of their thrust within the project of cultural
reclamation, their poetry within the context of exile bears more “of the material forces
of politics [and] economics”. This is achieved as they confront in the immediate sense,
mementos of the dead end of post-independence euphoria, an attitude informed by the
alienation agenda constituted in the manner of the ruling class which leaves most of the
countries in an array of crisis. Invariably, the recognition of their poetry as postcolonial
in relation to exile becomes more challenging as it necessarily takes into account the
trend of human migration from the latter part of the 20th century especially as a global
phenomenon. As Joseph (1999) succinctly puts it:
Migration has become a way of life in the latter part of the twentieth century.
The large scale displacement of people from the rural to the urban or across
nations has heightened the precariousness of arbitrary boundaries while
fuelling contemporary identifications with ossified national identities. The
1970s in particular witnessed a global reconfiguration of national
citizenship. As new nations contended with older ones, new geopolitical
arrangements neocolonialism, globalization, structural adjustment shifted
relations of power in less unilateral directions, creating multiple nodes of
transnational interrelatedness. In the process, peoples around the world have
aspired to conception of world citizenship while also asserting their
particular social identities.
Locating the thrust of the second generation of African poets within this trajectory is
apposite, as a combination of factors has resulted in the articulation of their African stint
to what has come to be identified as the continual “restless movement of peoples and
cultures” (Venn 2006). Yet it is also for this reason that Venn, like many theorists of
postcolonialism, insists that the contemporary disposition of the world order demands
a development of “a [new] critical postcolonial standpoint that extends the focus and
terrain of postcolonial theory. By so doing, an understanding of the works of these poets
will primarily stem from the contemporary workings of the representation of space and
movement across spaces, a tendency within postcolonial discourse which is otherwise
construed as “nomadism” (Lowe. 1993). However, before yielding to the ideal of the
global expressed in the contention that “the spatial framing of historical arguments and
the ‘visualization’ of events is not simply a neutral process independent of the events…
‘out there’” (Cameron and Ronen, 2004), one must first and foremost rivet on these
“historical arguments” in their African neutrality before considering what possible
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configuration they extract from the “event out there”. Just as the nations and regions on
the continent are different, so too are there different and various challenges which have
in the past two or three decades induced exile. This is so especially in the Africans’
search for better fortunes thought as attainable in the First World, and identified as a
tendency on the part of the “formerly colonized people to turn to migration as an option
to living difficult lives” (Dorkor, 2005).
To start with, what then are the circumstances that produce in these countries of
destination the psyche of hostility? Secondly, what in particular are the realities of exile
as an intimate experience of Africans? It is for this reason, whatever one encounters in
the works of these writers should not be seen as emanating exclusively from the authors’
experiences, but rather should appropriately be gleaned as representative of the much
larger community of African exiles for whom they have become advocates, as
“representations of colonialism, nationhood, postcoloniality, the typology of rulers,
their powers, [and] corruptions” (Ahmad, 1992) on the one hand; and on the other, the
purchase of western neo-liberalism as well as structures of exclusion against immigrants
along race, class, and gender lines in the First World. Therefore, even when the
experience being related can in some cases be interpreted to be personal as in the case
of the Malawian poet Jack Mapanje, it has to be gleaned more substantially as speaking
for many other fellow Africans who have fallen victim to exile. The obligation of
speaking on behalf of others by writers should not come as a surprise once we bracket
them in the category of intellectuals. For the intellectual, according to Said:
is an individual endowed with a faculty for representing, embodying,
articulating a message, a view, an attitude, philosophy or opinion to, as well
as for, a public. [He is also] someone who cannot easily be co-opted by
governments or corporations, and whose raison d’etre is to represent all those
people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug. (Said,
1996)
Describe the poetic experiences of African poets in exile with examples from their
different poems.
4.0 CONCLUSION
In conclusion, writing with specific response to the conditions of exile and the
response of writers to it, Guyer (1997) states that “writers’ fates provide direct
testimony to those conditions, and their capacity to write makes accessible an
experience that they share with many others who are less artistically endowed.” Thus
by virtue of their artistic endowment, these writers are obligated to articulate the
burdens of their contemporary psycho-social circumstances among which is exile. They
all have not however experienced exile the same way; neither have they all responded
to it in the same way. This in itself makes the study all the more exciting and intriguing
at the same time. Nevertheless, the works of African poets dealing with the issue of
exile and migration are united by how across different regions the writers have been
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able to explore those factors and conditions, both internal and external, which have
induced the experience of exile in Africans especially in the past two to three decades.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The concept of exile literature
• The relationship between exile and African experience
• The concept of exile in written African poetry
1) What do you understand by the concept of exile literature?
2) What are relationships between exile and African experience?
3) Discuss the concept of exile in written African poetry
4) Provide some illustrations of African exile poetry

Anyidoho, Kofi. “Prison as Exile/Exile as Prison: Circumstance, Metaphor, and a
Paradox of Modern African Literatures.” In The World Behind Bars and the
Paradox of Exile, ed. K. Anyidoho. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Univeristy
Press, 1997, 1–17.
Dorkor, M. (2005) Marching to the Tune: Colonization, Globalization, Immigration
and Ghanaian Diaspora Africa Today Vol.52:27-44
Echeruo, M. (1999) An African Diaspora: the Ontological Project: The African
Diaspora, African Origins and New World Identities, 1-18
Eldred D. Jones and Margorie Jones’s Exile and African Literature: African Literature
Today 22 (2000)
Home and Exile (2000) is an autobiographical reflection on Achebe’s and Africa’s
literary development. Achebe wrote the book from three lectures that he gave as
the 1998 McMillan-Stewart Lectures at Harvard University on December 9, 10,
and 11, 199
Okpewho, I. (1999) Once Upon a Kingdom: Myth, Hegemony and Identity. Indiana
University Press
One Never Knows: An Anthology of Black South African Women Writers in Exile (1989)
by Lindiwe Mabuza,
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UNIT 6 NEW PROTEST VOICES
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Civil War Poetry
3.2 Alter/Native Poetry
3.3 Niger Delta/Ecopoetry
3.4 Protest Poetry in South Africa
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The civil war poetry in Africa is informed by the several civil wars fought in the
African continent over the years, most notably the Nigerian civil war which was fought
from 1967-1970. Civil wars in Africa are usually caused by socio-political and ethnic
tensions. Corruption, tribalism, nepotism, military incursion and dictatorship usually
serve as background to the outburst of a civil war. Alter/Native Poetry on the other hand
refers to the generation of poets that wrote in the 1970s and 1980s. The poets are
referred to as the younger generation by Okon (2013) and were tutored and influenced
by the poets of the earlier generation. Their poetry was mass-oriented and it employed
the Marxist ideological stand. Niger Delta or Ecopoetry developed mainly in the 1990s.
In this tradition the poets are mainly from Nigeria’s Niger Delta Region. The poets
mostly take it more personal due to the activities of the oil companies which exploit
their crude and destroy their flora and fauna without any succour whatsoever. However,
Protest Poetry in Southern Africa results from the region being open to multi-cultural
contact for the longest period, and this has had far-reaching implications and
ramifications in the shaping of South African literature in general and poetry in
particular. Below are some of the objectives of this unit:
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Discuss the civil war poetry in Africa
• Explain the concept of alter/native poetry
• Examine Niger Delta/Ecopoetry of the Delta region of Nigeria
• Trace the development of protest poetry in South Africa
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Civil War Poetry
According to Orhero (2017), civil war poetry in Africa is informed by the
numerous civil wars fought in the African continent over the years and most notably the
Nigerian civil war which was fought from 1967-1970. Civil wars in Africa usually
91
resulted from socio-political and ethnic tensions. Corruption, tribalism, nepotism,
military incursion and dictatorship usually serve as background to the outburst of civil
wars in the continent. For instance in 1965, Nigeria was torn apart by the widespread
political violence of the general elections which all started in the Western regional
political crisis of 1964. On the African continent, political chaos engulfed the Republic
of Congo (Kinshasa) later Zaire; disagreements between the regional based parties and
the centre and the consequent conflicts that resulted, led to the assassination of the Prime
Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1962; and finally civil war. Others include civil wars in
Liberia and Sierra-Leone.
The Nigerian civil war was fought between the Biafran secessionists who were
mainly Igbo and the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The war was fought to keep Nigeria
as a united federation against the secession and formation of the Biafran Republic. This
secession was informed by ethnic tensions, military incursion and human rights abuses.
Civil war poetry usually thematises pain, the horrors of war, grief, anguish, hunger,
famine, death, etc. It employs techniques which include realism, symbolism, imagery
and satire. Some of the known civil war poets are J.P. Clark, Wole Soyinka, Chinua
Achebe, Mamman Vatsa, Christopher Okigbo, Pol Ndu, among others.
J.P. Clark’s “Dirge” is a written African civil war poem. The poem thematises
grief, pain, loss and destruction. The poet persona says: “Show me a house where
nobody has died, /Death is not what you cannot undo/yet a son is killed and a/Daughter
is given...” (Clark, 1970). In these lines, pain is conveyed by the theme of death. Death
is so pervasive that there is no house where none has died. This is the true image of war.
Iyabode Daniel believes that Clark decries, in this poem, the loss of community and
nationalism among Nigerians “over and above his pain over the loss of his friends”
(152). Eyoh confirms the foregoing when he asserts that the poems in Clark’s
Casualities, in which “Dirge” is found, deal with “violence, pain, loss, and sorrow [...]
with war” (Luke, 2005). In terms of style, the poem is simplistic and it employs vivid
imagery and realism to convey the war experience. (Orhero, 2017)
Give a detail discussion on civil war poetry citing relevant examples from some African
poems.
3.2 Alter/Native Poetry
“Alter-Native” is a term coined to suggest home grown ideas, concepts, theories
which are typically African and which take cognizance of all informing cultural and
sociological imperatives (Dasylva, 1999). The term “alter/native” was employed by
Funso Aiyejina to refer to the generation of poets that wrote in the 1970s and 1980s.
These poets are referred to as the younger generation by Okon (2013). These poets were
tutored and influenced by the poets of the earlier generation. Their poetry was mass-
oriented and it employed the Marxist ideological stand. They wrote against the
background of military dictatorship, corruption, ethnic unrest and mass hysteria. They
also wrote in simple diction and employed oral poetic strategies in the poems. Their
themes were centred largely on corruption, military dictatorship, disillusionment,
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revolution, nepotism, etc. Their techniques include realism, oral aesthetics and satire,
among others. Some of the poets include Tanure Ojaide, Niyi Osundare, Jack Mapanje,
Kofi Anyidoho, Funso Aiyejina, Ossie Enekwe, Harry Garuba, Jared Angira, Steve
Chimombo, among others (Orhero, 2017).
A representative poem of this period is Odia Ofeimun’s “How Can I Sing?” This
poem discusses corruption at its worst manifestation and the role of the poet in treating
societal ills. These themes are laid bare in the lines: “I cannot blind myself/to putrefying
carcasses in the market place/pulling giant vultures/from the sky”. In this verse, the poet
thematises societal ills and refers to them as “putrefying carcasses”. These ills, caused
by the corrupt leaders, attract “giant vultures” which are symbols of war, death and
decay. The poet, however, assures the readers of his commitment to fighting these ills
by saying that he cannot blind himself. Stylistically, this poem uses symbolism as a
form of satire. The poet uses the symbol of “carcasses” and “market place” to represent
the death of the African society and its propensity towards corruption (Orhero, 2017).
Discuss the thematic preoccupation of alter/native poets.
3.3 Niger Delta/Ecopoetry
Orhero, discusses the Niger Delta poetry in his “Trends in Modern African Poetic
Composition: Identifying the Canons” (2017). According to him, this canon of written
African poetry developed mainly in the 1990s. The poets in this tradition are mainly
from Nigeria’s Niger Delta Region. Other poets, who write mainly eco poetry, come
from a wide variety of backgrounds. These poets all have something in common; they
decry the constant destruction of our natural and environmental habitats.
The Niger Delta poets, however, take it more personal due to oil companies
which exploit their crude and destroy their flora and fauna without any succour
whatsoever. Nigeria made a great deal of fortune from the oil boom of the 1980s. This
fortune was made at the cost of the Niger Deltans whose lands/environments have been
desecrated, fishes poisoned, animals killed and human inhabitants sent packing. The
ecopoets decry the destruction of the ecosystem by human activities and writtenisation.
They predict a final decline in the ecology which will be detrimental to all life. The
Niger Delta and Ecopoets write using satire, symbolism and realism. Some of the poets
in these traditions include Tanure Ojaide, Ogaga Ifowodo, Niyi Osundare, Onookome
Okome, Joe Ushie, Bassey Nnimmo, Ibiwari Ikiriko, etc.
Moreover, in Ifowodo’s “Jesse”, we find the themes of pain, bitterness and
environmental devastation. The poet decries the ill maintenance of oil pipelines which
causes oil spillage that kills and destroys the ecology. He describes these oil pipes “as
corroded and cracked/ by the heat of their burden”. The poet also decries the destruction
of forests and natural habitations saying: “The forest quivered as trunk after trunk
snapped/and a nameless rage wagged greenfingered/branches in the air as they fell to
the hungry axe”. All these inform the thematic thrust of Niger Delta and Eco poetry.
Stylistically, the poet employs symbolism to represent some of the factors militating
against the ecology and the Niger Delta at large. An example of such symbol is the
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“hungry axe” which stands for man’s destructive tendencies to his own environment
(Orhero, 2017).
Discuss the environmental concern of the Niger Delta poets.
3.4 Protest Poetry in South Africa
South Africa has been the region in Africa open to multi-cultural contact for the
longest period, and this has had far-reaching implications and ramifications in the
shaping of South African literature in general and poetry in particular.
For written poetry by a person of non-European descent in South Africa, the
earliest attempt was claimed to be a hymn composed by Ntsikana who has been
described by Albert Gerard as “the first African Christian bard” (1971). Ntsikana’s
endeavour offers the first individual composition by a, black writer in Southern Africa
as well as the first attempt at linking “traditional oral techniques with a new cultural
situation” (Jones, 1973). Ntsikana was rivalled by Makana whose brand of poetic hymns
emanated from his distrust of the British. This distrust was evident in his propagation
of a separatist type of Christianity.
Lovedale Mission station, a product of the 1820 settlers, marked the beginning
of what was to be a milestone in South African Black literature in general. The
establishment of the Lovedale Press became very significant as this institution became
the “hub of African intellectual life”. This was clearly “represented in the activities of...
the Lovedale Training Society and the Lovedale Literary Society” (Mphahlele, 1992).
The influence of the two societies became more and more evident when the educated
People also formed the core of the so-called political elite of the day. Proof of this was
the delegation of John Tenio Jabavu (1859-1921) and Walter B Rubusana (1858-1916)
to Britain in 1901. These were highly educated writers and it was hoped that this could
help them influence the British against the enforcement of the colour bar in the Union’s
constitution. These writers continued to show faith in the customs and established
practices of their community with its concomitant traditional poetry and lore. As well
as writing articles of a political nature, Rubusana gathered a number of proverbs and
praise poems and published them in Labanta. Later on he wrote A History of South
Africa from a Native Standpoint (circa 1907) and became one of the founder-members
of the Native Congress in 1912 (Mpha hlele, 1992).
When Vilakazi (1906-1947), a poet and academic, contended that there was a
need for Zulu poetry to follow Western devices such as rhyme and rhythm while
utilizing the African experience as content (Mphahlele, 1992), a fierce debate on
aesthetics ensued. Herbert Dhlomo (1903-1956), a poet whose composition
bakeaseslhaasandallla (1941) is acclaimed as the first sustained attempt by a “black
South African at composing a serious’ long poem in the alien language of a dominant
race” (Gerard, 1971), differed fundamentally from Vilakazi. To Dhlomo a traditional
literary piece had to be seen as an esoteric item that defied academic analysis”. He saw
rhyme as a “cold tyrant” (Mphahlele, 1992). Any preoccupation with it or any poetic
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technique was perceived as undermining the spontaneous nature of poetry by turning it
into a self-conscious creation.
Dhlomo’s assertion that “rhythm is essentially African” (Mphahlele, 1992)
invariably puts him in closer to the negritude views of Senghor and Cesaire who
strongly believed that there was nothing that African poetry could derive or even learn
from European rhyme and rhythm. They believed that within the African context, it was
almost impossible to separate poetry and dance.
The coming to power of the then exclusively Afrikaner Nationalist party in 1948,
the entrance in the 1950’s of the Drum writers into the cultural scene and the political
agitation by mass-based organis:ations had a tremendous impact on the general
population. As a consequence of the National Party’s ascension to power, suppression,
censorship and banning became the order of the day. Nevertheless Drum writers
continued asserting their presence with works imbued with protest and a style which
was both racy and impressionistic. But continued suppression and the piling up of anti-
black legislation, particularly after the Sharpeville massacre, began to suffocate most
writers. After the government
had succeeded in rounding up or driving out virtually everybody capable of
organising effective resistance, they followed this up by banning the writing
of almost an entire generation of black writers.... (Mzamane, 1992).
Subsequently South African protest and resistance literature in English thrived only in
exile. However, the picture began to change towards the end of the nineteen sixties
because of the resurgence of the mood of militancy and cultural revival, catapulted by
the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement. This was helped, in the field of poetry,
by the publication of short poems by Dollar Brand in 1967. As Mbulelo Mzamane puts
it
Africa. Music and Show Business: An Analytical Survey was the first
substantial body of poems by a black to be published in South Africa in the
1960’s (Mzamane, 1992: 352).
From then on a number of poems by black South Africans began to be published in The
Classic and other magazines such as Contrast., 0ohir, Bolt, Tzwi Labantu and eventually
in an anthology compiled by Robert Royston whose tongue-in-cheek title To Whom It
May Concern (1973) is the title of a poem, also in the compilation, which highlights the
indignities suffered by black people in general in the South African cities. Poetry began
to blossom. This poetry was imbued with freshness and energy which gave it a unique
immediacy and vivid intimacy in addressing issues. This can be attributed to the fact
that when the poets of the “new era” began to write, most of their predecessors’ works
had been banned and, therefore, could not be published in South Africa. Thus the poetry
produced in this era was without an established tradition or pattern because of the
alienation. The direct way in which poets approached issues unsettled those in power
and many poets were dragged before the courts to answer charges of instigating
violence. As Mphahlele puts it, one African academic gave evidence to the effect that:
poetry, unless it was utterly bad verse, could not incite anybody to violence. Then one
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would have to give it another name and not poetry (Mphahlele, 1992). The academic
further contended that there were more immediately felt human constraints that led to
violence.
The above is indicative of the anguish suffered by many blacks for daring to
antagonize legislated racism. Nonetheless, black organisations such as the South
African Students’ Organisation (SASO) and the Black People’s Convention (BPC)
continued to agitate for the psychological emancipation of the black person from the
shackles of Apartheid which had virtually emasculated them. These organisations
extolled the poets of the Harlem renaissance, espoused the works of Fanon and Freire
as well as the negritude ideas of Aime Cesaire. It was, therefore, not by chance that
South Africa’s poetic renaissance coincided with the advent of SASO as the major
proponent of Black Consciousness. Poets had to respond to new urban contexts where
almost the whole of Africa was caught in the frenzy and euphoria of Uhuru, South
Africa being the only exception. This then served as a backdrop against which poets
and writers in general had to look at themselves. It also helped in the furtherance of the
dramatic politicisation of creative writing, a movement away from pure entertainment
to revealing the brutality of Apartheid, whose roots can be traced back to the days of
the banning of the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress
(PAC). Consequently this type of writing, which was to be known as protest literature,
received a lot of criticism from the powerful, Eurocentric, liberal establishment which
denounced this literature in general and protest poetry in particular as “unartistic, crude
and too political”, claiming that “there was more politics in it than art” (Ndebele, 1992).
In this new poetry blacks began to talk to themselves as opposed to earlier writers
who directed their work to a predominantly white audience in the hope that somehow
this would bring about change in the heart of the oppressor. As Watts comments:
Now, however, they recognized the need to direct their work at the black
community, and to use it to transform the consciousness of their people, to
reverse the process of alienation (1989: 30).
This change of focus and attitude has had significant implications in so far as the
aesthetics of this poetry is concerned. A further characteristic worth noting is the self-
critical nature and the desire to make a thrust at oneself as opposed to the proclivity to
blame all things and everything on the “system” and whites, while exonerating blacks
on all accounts. This new development is perhaps not far from the attitude adopted by
Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart (1958), wherein the author painstakingly
juxtaposes the merits and demerits of both the African way of life and that of the
coloniser. As already indicated, this self-critical process had as its ideological
background the Black Consciousness Movement’s clarion call for the black community
to rid itself of, and be emancipated from, all forms of psychological and physical slavery
encapsulated in the slogan: “Black man you are on your own”. The publication of
Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali’s Cowhide; am in 1971 took the South African literary
community, starved by years of censorship and banning, by surprise. Through this
anthology Mtshali “confirms the fact of oppression” (Ndebele, 1982) and is an
interpreter without necessarily inflaming the reader into action. Mtshali employs dry
humour as well as satire to bring out circumstances, mental states of being and emotions
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that help in the shaping of life in the township (Ndebele, 1982). Mtshali’s collection
was followed by the publication of Mongane Wally Serote’s Yakhal’inkomo in 1972.
In this volume Serote uses unconventional open-ended poetic forms to bring to the
reader’s attention both the physical and psychological manifestations of apartheid and
how individuals respond to these conditions of existence.
In any attempt to trace the different strains of protest and resistance poetry, the
name of Don Mattera deserves to be mentioned. Mattera’s predecessors include Bloke
Modisane and the intrepid Can Themba. While Mattera’s writing straddles the period
from Sharpeville to the forthrightness characteristic of Soweto poetry, his poetry deals
with the dehumanisation inflicted by Apartheid and the culpability of the white
community that sustained its perpetuity.
There are numerous additional poets whose contribution to the development of
protest and resistance poetry is not any less, but who, because of the limitations imposed
by space and time constraints, cannot be discussed at length. These are poets such as
Dennis Brutus whose collection A Simple Lust (1973) illustrates his deep concern for
the misery of oppression and jail, Sipho Sepamla whose publication Hurry Um to It
(1977) deals with the futility of the fragmentation of the South African society, Jeremy
Cronin with his depiction of the dilemma of ideology, commitment, resistance and
oppression in Jncide (1983), Mafika Pascal Gwala, Stan Motjuwadi, Mazisi Kunene,
Peter Horn, Wopko Jensma and a host of other poets.
After the Soweto uprisings of 1976 a number of poets emerged on the poetic
scene amongst whom were Farouk Asvat, who despite being banned between 1973 and
1978 for his involvement in the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) completed his
medical studies and undertook research into health services amongst blacks which
became the backdrop for his poems such as “Ou China en die AmperIntellectual”. Also
relevant are Dumakude ka Ndlovu and Ingoapele Madingoane. Ndlovu became co-
founder of the Azanian Poets and Writers Association (AZAPOWA) which was later
renamed MEDUPE when members realised that the word “Azania” would attract the
government’s unwanted attention. However, this did not stop the government from
banning MEDUPE together with seventeen other Black Consciousness organisations.
As a consequence of this, most members went into exile. In spite of all hindrances poets
of the seventies, and other writers in general, overcame the disadvantages imposed by
the absence of a “vigorous and continuous black South African literary tradition, an
absence which was seen as a handicap by the inaugurators of the literary revival after
Sharpeville” (Chapman, 1992).
Discuss some protest poems in Africa, examining their aims and effects.
4.0 CONCLUSION
The poetry of civil war in Africa resulted from the numerous civil wars fought
in the African continent. Socio-political and ethnic tensions were the major causes of
civil wars in African. Some of the known civil war poets are J.P. Clark, Wole Soyinka,
Chinua Achebe, Mamman Vatsa, Christopher Okigbo, Pol Ndu, among others. The
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“alter/native” poets are the younger generations poets who were tutored and influenced
by the poets of the earlier generation. They wrote against the background of military
dictatorship, corruption, gloom, ethnic unrest and mass hysteria. The Niger Delta poets
who are mainly from Nigeria’s Niger Delta Region have something in common other
poets who write eco poetry and decry the constant destruction of natural and
environmental habitats. The Protest Poetry in South Africa was informed by the
multicultural contact of the region which generated far reaching implications.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The African civil war poetry
• The concept of alter/native poetry
• Niger Delta/Ecopoetry of the Delta region of Nigeria
• The protest poetry in South Africa
• Discuss the civil war poetry in Africa
• Explain the concept of alter/native poetry
• Examine Niger Delta/Ecopoetry of the Delta region of Nigeria
• Trace the development of protest poetry in South Africa
Adey, A.D. (1976). Themes in South African English Poetry since the second World
War. MA thesis. UNISA.
Alvarez-Pereyre, J. (1984) The Poetry of Commitment in South Africa. London:
Heinemann.
Beier, U. (ed.) 1967. Introduction to African Literature London: Longman.
Chapman, M. (1984). South African English Poetry: A Modern Perspective.
Johannesburg: McGraw-Hill.
Chapman, M. (ed.) (1982) Soweto Poetry. Johannesburg: McGraw-Hill.
Dasylva A. O. (1999). “Wole Soyinka’s Horseman and the Horses of Words: A
Semioitcs of the “Not-1 Bird” song text” RALL 5: 1-13
Mzamame Mbulelo (1992) African Literature on the whole flourished in Exile.
Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies
Okon, F. (2013). “Politics and Development of Written African Poetry”. English
Language and Literature Studies; Vol. 3.No. 1
December, 2017 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321776494.
Accessed on 08/08/2018
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UNIT 7 THE WOMAN’S VOICE
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Gender Issues in Written African Poetry
3.2 The Women Voices in Modern African Poetry
3.3 Some Nigerian Female Poets
3.3.1 Catherine Acholonu
3.3.2 Flora Nwapa
3.3.3 Molara Ogundipe-Leslie
3.4 Male Imaging of Women in African Poetry
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Gender issues in every discourse are usually sensitive; this is because they often
generate controversies. Gender is the space carved out by culture for male and female
to operate in the society. The stratification of spaces is organized in such a way that put
the men at the upper stratum and the women at the lower stratum. These stereotypes,
through which gender inequalities are justified (Lois, 1999), that have tarnished the
image and self-esteem of women and reduced them to insignificant beings assigned
insignificant roles in the order of affairs in society have spurred the women to challenge
the male hegemony and assert their humanity. This is the major preoccupation of
‘feminism’. Omolara Ogundipe-Leslie (2007) submits that feminism can be defined
simplistically as anybody of ideology and social philosophy about women since the
word itself etymologically stems from the Latin word ‘femina’ meaning ‘woman’. To
her, this definition gives us enough leeway to encompass various types of feminisms.
Feminism is a counter-hegemony discourse against patriarchy in order to create space
for women in the male-centred world. Feminism as an ideology that promotes women’s
rights begins in the 19th century in Europe and America as a result of women’s
consciousness of their marginalization, subjugation and oppression; this consciousness
makes them take bold steps in order to right these wrongs done to them (Sotunsa, 2008).
Chidi Maduka (2009) summarizes that feminism as an ideology has a long history; it
develops with the ideas of “provocative female thinkers” such as Simone de Beauvoir,
Kate Millet, Virginia Woolf, Mary Ellmann, Elaine Showalter and Michele Barrett, who
in their own ways question “the phallocentric notion that a woman is but an appendage
to man, having been created from a man’s rib.” This unit will introduce you some gender
issues, particularly women voices in the arena of written African poetry. Below are
some of the objectives of this unit:
2.0 OBJECTIVES
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• Highlight the gender issues in written African poetry
• Discuss the women voices in written African Poetry
• Examine the poetry of some Nigerian Female writers with examples from the
poems of:
o Catherine Acholonu
o Flora Nwapa
o Molara Ogundipe-Leslie
• Discuss the male writers’ imaging of women in African poetry
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Gender Issues in Written African Poetry
There is indeed a great awareness today on gender and the issues it presents in
written African poetry. Different theorists have given voice to new theoretical bases for
approaching this elusive term. Gender is important in the society as well as in literary
discourse. As Alan Wolfe observed “of all the ways that one group has systematically
mistreated another, none is more deeply rooted than the way men have subordinated
women. All other discriminations pale by contrast” (Onarinde, 2013).
According to Onarinde (2013), gender is seen as the variable cultural
interpretation of sex and it is not only a cultural construction imposed on identity as
Butler puts it, but a process of constructing oneself into a particular sex/gender. Gender
in this sense has been turned into a project. Therefore, gender in an important sense
according to Akujobi (2004) is not traceable to any definable origin. This is so because
it is itself an originating activity. Akujobi contends that one must constantly remember
that social existence requires an unambiguous gender affinity. ‘It is not possible for one
to exist outside established gender norms hence one must either be a man or a woman
except that person is a hermaphrodite, in this case, the person is existing outside
established gender norm. To stray outside this norm is to put one’s existence into
question’ Akujobi (2004).
Gender as it were, has changed the shape of literary conversation and is now a
recognised phenomenon; perhaps this is the reason why Showalter (1989) quoting
Rutven considers gender a “crucial determinant in the production, circulation and
consumption of literary discourse”. Gender therefore, is very vital in literary analysis.
For Showalter quoted by Akujobi (2004) gender encompasses speech and in every
language, gender is a grammatical category. It is one of the universal dimensions on
which status differences are based. Unlike sex, which is a biological concept, gender is
a social construct specifying the socially and culturally prescribed roles that men and
women are to follow.
As Akujobi (2004) observes, there is so much social constraints placed on gender
compliance and deviations today because most people feel deeply offended if they are
told that they are not really acting manly or womanly. They are deeply injured when
they are reminded of their failure to execute their manhood or womanhood properly.
She states that there is also the problem of accepting a particular gender and what it
carries, for instance motherhood as an institutional rather than an instinctual reality.
This difficulty or problem of acceptance according to her expresses the same interplay
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of constraint and freedom but to her, that the problem is known gives perhaps the most
credence to the notion that gender identity rests on the unstable bedrock of human
invention (Onarinde, 2013).
Assess the concern on gender issues in written African poetry.
3.2 The Women Voices in Written African Poetry

In the words of Onarinde (2013), “just like every other sphere of the human
society”, written African poetry is an arena of the war of sexes where women contest
male dominance. Though few women write poetry in Africa when compared to the
number of male poets; the few like Finuala Dowling, Malika Ndlovu, Mary Watson,
Fatima Alkali, Lobogang Mashile and Angela Miri, who write through their poems
challenge patriarchal dominance, assert their womanhood and legislate equal right for
men and women in all facets of life.
Gcina Mphophen captures the subjugation of women in her poem “We are at
war”, she emphasises how the South Africa society striped women naked of their rights
and make them second class citizens. She explains that:
Women of my country
Young and old
Black and white
We are at war
The winds are blowing against us
Laws are ruling against us
We are at war
But do not despair
We are the winning type
Let us fight on
Forward ever
Backward never
Mphophem explains no woman is excluded from the struggle against discrimination,
and the firm grip of androgenic subjugation. She explains that women are silenced at
home, discriminated against in school, and perceived to be of no value to the society.
Through the use of patriachal ideologies the society also relegates women to the
background through myths, law and religion:
Women of my country Mothers and daughters
Workers and wives
We are at war
Customs are set against us
Religions are set against us
We are at war
But do not despair
We are bound to win
Let us fight on
Forward ever
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Backward never
However, she stresses that despite all these odds the female bloc shall continue in the
struggle for equality and self-assertion by fighting for equal civil rights, education and
derogatory practices against the girl child. Thus, rejecting the status quo of been baby
machines and supporter of men.
Like Malika Ndlovu’s “Woman Being”, Finuala Dowling in her poem “Doo-
woop Girls of the Universe” eulogise the excellence and greatness of women. She refers
to them as the “doo-woop” girls of the universe who make the world go round.
Dowling’s persona explains that every woman she has met is hardworking not minding
the nature of her job. Finuala explains that:
I know something you don’t know
about the women you know –
those makers of decisions,
physicians, rhetoricians,
amiable stage technicians,
indignant politicians,
formidable statisticians,
quiet dieticians
and the non–icians too,
the lovely –ists:
the linguists,
lyricists,
artists,
activists.
Almost every woman I’ve ever known –
whether she be –ician or she be –ist –
has told me once or shown
she’d really come into her own as
a doo-wop girl.
Not minding the woman’s place in the society(social status and class), Dowling
advocates a revolutionary stance, that all women should abandon their present duty and
step up to the public domain to speak out against male dominance that has made women
dumb, speechless and invisible members of the society.
Give her the mike, Mike
or I’ll call my sisters,
‘cause I got sisters,
and I’ll say: “Sisters,
you hang up those rubber gloves
you freeze that chicken
you unplug that iron
you come with me
we be free
we be threeness
we be supremes
we be the unforced
force of fourness
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not sad, not terse:
doo-wop girls of the universe.
Dowling’s persona stress the fact that if all women could come together irrespective of
class and social boundaries in “threeness” and the use of force “of fourness” they shall
surmount male hegemony and eventually be listened to by my men (Onarinde, 2013).
With relevant examples, examine the place of woman voice in written African poetry.
3.3 Some Nigerian Female Poets
Nigeria has produced few female poets, although some female writers have been
publishing poems in various journals and anthologies. In contrast, female novelists have
been geometrically increasing. The female poets thus deserve attention because they
not only constitute some of the “unheard voices,” but they also possess significant
insights into the realities of contemporary times. Lloyd Brown (1981) feels: “the
women writers of Africa are the other voices, the unheard voices, rarely discussed and
seldom accorded space in the repetitive anthologies and the predictably male-oriented
studies in the field”
3.3.1 Catherine Acholonu
Catherine Acholonu poems in The Spring’s Last Drops draw their subject matter
from the realities of life and contemporary events. The poems are also modulated by
the sensitivity of female mind that reacts to personal experience and incidents through
a consideration of their wider implications. The poems are interestingly divided into
three sections bearing the titles “Cultural Loss,” “Anger of the Gods,” and “A
Celebration of Silence.” In the section “Cultural Loss,” Acholonu explores tradition
through the use of numerous personae. However, the persona that dominates most of
her poems is seen as a creator - one who has been sent to the world to mend some of the
divine and mundane deficiencies in human nature. In the title poem, “The Spring’s Last
Drop,” the poet presents the labour and suffering undertaken by the persona in order to
acquire the truth:
I have laboured up the hill
through toil and sweat
and I cannot spill it
this water so pure
so clear so sweet
the dying spring’s last drop (16).
The poems in “Anger of the Gods” are used also to explore tradition. But in these poems,
Acholonu indicates that tradition should not be discarded recklessly. In the poem, “A
Child’s Plea,” for instance, she writes:
but mama
a tiny hole
by a tiny palm tree
was all I needed
Why did you deny
me tomorrow? (43)
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She used a persona whose after-birth is not buried where it can be recognized but rather
is discarded in a pit latrine to illustrate the manner in which worthwhile customs are
crazily abandoned. In effect, she explores oral tradition as a viable model for the
examination of current social, political, and economic issues disconcerting Nigeria.
The poems in the section “A Celebration of Silence” are mostly symbolic. The
longest poem, “The Message,” which is about seven pages is placed in this section. The
persona in the poem is seen as a seed that will germinate into a useful human being.
This poem codifies (apparently) the poetic view of Acholonu. The last stanza of the
poem is significant for it says:
You have many more
miles to walk
may your midday offering
ripen into evening
and your
evening offering
last till a very long time (57).
The implication is that the persona, perhaps like the writer, has just commenced the
onerous task of acting as conscience, which is one of the unenviable tasks of a poet.
The poems in The Spring’s Last Drop are lyrical. The author has made obvious
efforts to make them chantable especially with the adept use of repetitions and refrains.
A poem like “A Child’s Plea” is particularly lyrical, and in these poems, full of emotion,
Acholonu excels.
One significant feature of the poetry of Acholonu is that she is neither a rabid
feminist nor an unadulterated traditionalist. There is an element of neutrality in her
poetry which generates the impression that she wants to be seen first and foremost as a
poet before she is considered a woman. In the final analysis, something about the poetry
of Acholonu, both technically and thematically, creates a lasting impression in the
minds of the reader. The poems are relevant, alluring, and fairly competently executed.
They are neither obscure nor excessively simple, and the poet manages to strike a
balance between form and matter.
3.3.2 Flora Nwapa
The subject matter that informs Flora Nwapa;s long poem “The Cassava Song
and Rice Song” could be autobiographical in the sense that it is taken from the author’s
experience. In “The Cassava Song,” Nwapa pays tribute to the cassava plant which has
a tradition as one of Nigeria’s staple food. In this song, Nwapa enumerates the various
uses to which cassava is put. It could be made into foo-foo; it could be transformed into
the delicacy garri; and it could be made into cassava pottage. Moreover, she praises the
cassava plant for sustaining people during the Nigerian civil war when almost all other
crops failed. She compares it with cocoa and palm trees and wonders why it has been
neglected despite its invaluable service.
By contrast, in “The Rice Song” Nwapa condemns the society’s penchant for
rice. She acknowledges that rice was not supreme in people’s diet but that dishonest
businessmen surreptitiously introduced it until “our people gradually / Began to have a
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taste for rice.” And like all acquired appetites, rice has managed to lessen the desire for
locally grown food items. Nwapa therefore insists that rice must be banned and that
local growers of other food items should be encouraged.
“The Cassava Song and the Rice Song” are patriotic poems by a sensitive writer
who uses the poetic medium to comment on sundry events. The two songs could be
perceived as symbolic, for while the cassava song symbolizes tradition, the rice song
symbolizes western influence. In the process, Nwapa indicates the subtle manner
through which corrupt and destructive influences could be introduced into the society.
In terms of subject matter, Nwapa has performed a relevant task, but her poetic
talents leave room for improvement. She does not care for such vehicles of poetic
technique as rich imagery. She makes straightforward statements that are prosaic except
that they are placed in stanzas.
3.3.3 Molara Ogundipe-Leslie
Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, in her collection entitled Sew the Old Days and Other
Poems tackles all those feminist issues that Acholonu and Nwapa gloss over. She
therefore produces poems that retain their relevance from people to people and from
country to country. “Sew the Old Days” is divided into two sections: the first part
entitled: “heralding desire” and the second part called “From Our Toes, Roses Grow.”
Quotations from the poetry of the Angolan president, Agostinho Neto, herald these
opening sections. It is clear from the dedications that Ogundipe-Leslie admires several
African poets including Okigbo, Neto, p’Bitek, Okara, Awoonor, Angira, Senghor, and
Diop as well as black Ameri- can writers like Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, and Alice
Walker. More- over, the impression is that Ogundipe-Leslie has synthesized her
admiration into a literary focus for a better understanding of the foibles of man and
woman.
The poems are varied, depicting not only originality eloquence and
innovativeness. However, most of the Ogundipe-Leslie’s commitment to the realities
made it clear in various essays published in diverse hood in Africa is a neglected state.
She blames women for men to exploit them, in the poem “Man to Woman Ogundipe in
Laughter).” The image of a fly says to the eye:
you too, you too
my foolish you!
to lay self-open
for me to rake! (23)
This image is used to illustrate the consequence of that exploitation and the eventual
blame heaped on the unsuspecting woman. Although the poet insists that this poem is
constructed in laughter, it nevertheless portrays her perception of the perennial war of
the sexes. Her concern for honesty is also illustrated in her treatment of the relationship
between men and women. In the poem, “Yoruba Love,” she indicates that when people
smile and whisper words of endearment one should “run for shelter, friend/run for
shelter” (24).
Although feminism is at the root of several poems in Sew the Old Days and Other
Poems, Ogundipe-Leslie extends its tentacles to explore the variegated aspects of
105
human existence. In the poem, “Letter to a Loved Comrade: A Prose Poem,” she asks
fundamental questions about the role of women in the struggle for a just social order.
The contradictions, the paradoxes, and the conflicting desires of revolutionary struggles
are tabulated as the poet points out: “These are the pains we face in Africa today; the
truths we seek in/all the struggling world, from place to place” (27). This poem
apparently codifies Ogundipe-Leslie’s convictions that the nature of women is often
misunderstood, and their peculiar problems are insensitively neglected in the bid to
make them react like men in crisis moments. The poet, therefore, illustrates that quite
often a dividing line cannot be conveniently drawn between altruistic motives and
inevitable actions.
The poems also touch the ever present reality of Africans in the diaspora. The
poet obviously feels that, despite the distances separating peoples of African descent,
they are united by their common historical tribulations. In the poems, “For a Friend, a
Poet of Negritude,” she illustrates the relevance of having a heritage which is capable
of eliciting viable progressive ideas for contemporary times. The hope which emerges
in the poems is illustrated in the poems, “Africa of the Seventies (to a Comrade)” and
“A Harsh Beauty Must Be Today”; and it comes out clearly in a line from the poem
“Tendril Love of Africa,” where the poet hopes “that life does not slaughter our
dreams.”
However, the paradox of the diaspora is not glossed over in the poems. In the
poem, “Song to Black America of the Sixties,” Ogundipe-Leslie reveals that part of
Africa’s problems is lack of self-knowledge. She uses images of Black Americans who
scream: “Yeh man, to survive, man, you need survival skills,/not history, shit and
culture’n stuff/you can get hung up on history, man,/and forget how to survaaaaaive”
(ii) to epitomize the enormity of ignorance.
The virtue of Ogundipe-Leslie’s poetry is that it does not cease at mere
pontification on the travails of women. She rather uses the reality of present times to
symbolize fundamental events. In the poem, “When Fater Experience Hits With His
Hammer (Song for the Middle Class African Women),” she uses instances, of what she
regards as the unwillingness of men to alleviate the suffering of women, to comment on
the nature of Africa. She questions:
But when was the master
ever seduced from power?
When was a system ever broken
by acceptance?
When will the Boss
hand you power with love?
At Jo’Burg, at Cancum or the UN? (33)
The message to be derived from this symbol of power is that power is never given but
taken by all lovers of freedom. Ogundipe-Leslie has successfully slaughtered two birds
with one literary stone, for while she succeeds in condemning the bondage of men, she
has also successfully extended the metaphor to explore the substantial continental issues
of bondage that are important to the dispossessed peoples of the world.
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In terms of style, the poet incorporates the Japanese haiku technique. In these
succinct poems like “Firi: Eye Flash Poems” and “Haiku to Ripening Guava,” the poet
effectively illustrates the art of using few words to make timeless statements. Perhaps
some of the other shorter poems in the collection are influenced by the haiku style for
their brevity does not diminish the appropriateness of the themes. The poem, “Mating
Cry” is particularly significant for it says:
Love, roll a ball of sunlight in your hands
throw it to the minds, and
let its incandescence
melt us (48).
This poem captures the overpowering effects of love and likens it to the sun which
melts, in a captivating illustration of the mingling of bodies and minds which love
generates. Furthermore, this love theme is explored in a highly relevant poem, “The
Errors of Our Rendering,” which explores the relationship between men and women by
using the refrain: “and there are here/the errors of the rendering” - a reference from
Christopher Okigbo’s poem. She uses the idea of love in this poem to comment on the
trepidations of Africa as she asks:
And so many errors that our history
is unrendered and cannot be rendered
by minds mininourished and political children (5 6).
The poet conceives self-deception in Africa as one of its most prominent causes of
disasters. This poem is then not only an individualistic exploration but also a communal
reassessment of the realities of Africa.
Ogundipe-Leslie is not only concerned by the relevant themes but also by
technical competence. The poems have a taut style that portrays a fair control of images
towards a poetic vision of a viable social order. However, the tender poems indicate that
she is championing the battle for the assertion of women’s rights. This tendency to
weave in so many strands in her poetry generates a diffuseness that often jars the clarity
of her vision. It is erroneous for Ogundipe-Leslie to perceive whatever man (male
human beings) represents as fashioned to subjugate women. In the final analysis, the
impression she succeeds in creating in the reader is that the elimination of man would
create a utopian society, which she apparently wants; but this is contrary to any
commonsensical evaluation of reality.
Nevertheless, Ogundipe-Leslie has shown in Sew the Old Days and Other Poems
that poetry is capable of revealing diversities in both themes and technique. The poems
portray the emergence of a female poetic voice that is insisting on a re-evaluation of
poetic connotations, through the depiction of vivid imagery, tight control of syntax,
fresh vision and relevant thematic concerns to reflect the realities of womanhood.
Acholonu, Nwapa, and Ogundipe-Leslie offer us highly illuminating poetic stances.
The ideological convictions of their poetry make the issue of womanhood in
contemporary Nigeria very controversial. While Acholonu and Nwapa seem interested
in making a case for their appreciation as women, Ogundipe-Leslie insists that she must
be heard as a rival who is anxious to “de-ego” men who are stuffed full of numerous
macho ideas. The contrasts in these poetry collections are between radicalism and
conservatism, modernism and traditionalism, and communalism and individualism.
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Acholonu and Nwapa would appear to want to reach a compromise, but Ogundipe-
Leslie would want a confrontation.
Artistically, Nigeria’s female poets still need to be adventurous. How- ever, the
female poets should be commended for as Katherine Frank observes, “there are surely
vast silences to be broken, silences of African women who have ceased to write or who
have never written at all because they have felt there was no audience to hear their words
(1984, 47). Nevertheless, the fact that these faltering early steps are being taken
indicates that this is the planting season of female poets in Nigerian poetry. In the
harvest, we fervently hope to pluck the robust yam tubers and the fledgling seed- lings.
The study of contemporary Nigerian poetry may never be complete without the
assimilation of these feminine poetic impulses.
Discuss the thematic concern of Nigerian female poets, citing as many examples as
possible from different poets.
3.4 Male Imaging of Women in African Poetry
Poetical representation is one of the genres that uncover a significantly different
range of images from the stereotypical image of women as mothers, wives and
marginalized beings. From the anthology of Poems of Black Africa edited by Wole
Soyinka (1975) it is evident that women are given a multi dimensional and broad
perspective. An appraisal of some of the poems project women as community-builders;
their productive and reproductive roles are highlighted and the African woman is
celebrated in negritude poetry. In spite of the fact that African poets underscore the
primordial role of women in their societies, they are also preoccupied with behaviour
and practices that negate women. Some of the themes explored include: prostitution,
poor mothering, barrenness and infertility. Lapin (1995) notes that men in the early
years were usually the first educated, and hence the first authors. They populated their
literature with women but in an idealized mode, woman was mother-nurturer and by
extension symbol of a sweeter, more secure Africa which the educated man left behind.
The community building role of women is brought to the fore in Benin Woman by Odia
Ofeimun. The poet pays tribute to a fallen heroine whose extraordinary powers led to
the liberation of her society. The poet salutes her courage. ‘Emotan, I make my solemn
prostration to your guts!’ Even the bronze statue erected in her honour is not enough
consolation to the poet who is perturbed by the loss ‘And how I wish some woman now
would bear your name anew for my sake’ (52).
Women’s community servitude, reproductive and productive role is emphasized
in Black Mother by Viriato da Cruz. The black voices dotted all over the globe from
“the cane plantains, the paddy fields, the coffee farms, the silk works, the cotton fields”
show appreciation for the relentless efforts of the black mother.
The physical capability of the black mother is x-rayed through her “gleaming
back” as she has to stoop low to till the “world’s richest soils” (81). Her “sustaining
milk” has given several generations a livelihood. In Woman by Valente Malangatana,
the poet eulogizes women for their indispensable role in production and procreation.
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This is illustrated in a vivid description of woman as one “who adorns the fields …
woman who is the fruit of man” (260).
The virtues of the African woman are celebrated in Negritude poetry, a
movement that attempts to recapture Africa’s glorious past. Leopold Sedar Senghor-
one of its principal ideologues is caught in the feeling of nostalgia for a distant
homeland. To ward off the sense of aloofness, Senghor in the poem For Khalam
celebrates the African ancestry and landscape with emphasis on the African woman.
“When shall I see again my country, the pure horizon of your face?”
“When shall I sit down once more at the dark table of your breast”? (270).
According to D’Almeida (1994), the image is one in which Africa is compared to a
nurturing mother and the African mother is given the proportion of the whole continent.
Unfortunately, this notion is far removed from the reality of women’s daily existence
and the negritude author’s seemingly positive portrayal of the African women operated
against the latter’s interest (D’Almeida, 1994: 91 Stratton 1994: 40).
Despite the exaltation accorded the African woman, African poets have
vigorously condemned practices like prostitution, infanticide; poor mothering that
neutralize the virtues of motherhood. In The Roses are Withering, Richard Ntiru frowns
at the vice of prostitution which has eaten deep into the social fabric of his society. The
society is morally debased and women take centre stage in perpetrating the vice: “At
the centre of every woman is a core of a prostitute’. The poet also lashes out at the men
who use ‘cheques as a passport to sex’ (148). This vice is also echoed by Jared Angira
in the poem “Phlora”. The poet presents Phlora who becomes a fortune seeker by
indulging in a series of love affairs that end in a fiasco. After wasting her youthfulness,
it dawns on her that she cannot realize her materialistic dreams. Tibenderama on his
part is concerned with poor parenting in The Bastard. The poet recounts the suffering
and horrendous experiences of orphans due to the absence of motherly love and
affection and irresponsible fathers who shun their responsibilities. The absence of
parental love leads to a lamentable situation where the woman takes to the streets. The
“unlucky creation” (bastards) “never will he know motherly love or feel soft hands”.
They either end up as dumped foetuses in latrines and ditches or abandoned
children for the lucky ones who go through a smooth reproduction. The poet cries out
at his crime-ridden society “O crime! O murder of small flesh that might have grown to
greatness and wisdom” (150). The economic resources the women are purportedly after
does not change their livelihood as “their own meal is a cassava stick with salt” (151).
The poem, To the childless by Kittobe, is a treatise to barren and unfertile women. They
are described as “cold nests” in which “the migrant bird lays no eggs” and as “fruits that
ripen, rot” (155). Such cases represent women as a negation to the virtues of
womanhood.
1. Discuss the portrayal of women in the poems of African male writers
2. Provide a detail discussion on the role of women in written African poetry
4.0 CONCLUSION
109
The insignificant presence of the feminist perspective in the canonisation and
criticism of written African poetry contrasts with the experience in the criticism of the
other literary genres. It reflects the marginalisation of the female voices in anthologies
of African poetry. Stella and Frank Chipasula in the Introduction to African Women’s
Poetry stress the fact that its “exclusive focus on women’s poetry is a necessary first
step towards reversing the objectification of women and rendering visible the invisible
poets themselves” (Chipasula 1995: xvii). However, there are still some female voices
within the written African poetry.
5.0 SUMMARY
• Gender issues in written African poetry
• Women voices in written African Poetry
• The poems of the following Nigerian Female writers:
o Catherine Acholonu
o Flora Nwapa
o Molara Ogundipe-Leslie
• The male writers’ imaging of women in African poetry
1) Highlight gender issues in written African poetry
2) Discuss the women voices in written African Poetry
3) Examine the poetry of the following Nigerian Female writers:
i. Catherine Acholonu
ii. Flora Nwapa
iii. Molara Ogundipe-Leslie
4) Discuss the male writers’ imaging of women in African poetry
Aidoo, A. (2007). To be an African women writer – an overview and a detail. In T.
Olaniyan & A. Quayson (Eds). African literature: an anthology of criticism and
theory (pp. 513-519). Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Akujobi (2004) As Akujobi Observes. Fullerton: California State University
Amadiume, I. (1999). Bitter. In T. Ojaide & T. Sallah (Eds). The new African poetry:
an anthology (pp. 177). Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc.
Amore, K., Bamgbose, G. & Lawani, A. (2011). Gender Politics: Reflection of Inter-
genpolitism in Buchi Emecheta’s Second-Class Citizen. i-Hurage: International
Journal for Human Right and Gender Education 2 (2), 204-215.
Catherine Acholonu (1985) The Spring’s Last Drops. Nigeria: Totan Publishers
“
Charles C. Fonchingong, C. C. (2006). Unbending Gender Narratives in African
Literature” Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 8 #1 November 2006
Clark-Bekederemo, J. (2006). Song. In K. Senanu & T. Vincent (Eds). A selection of
African poetry (pp 198-199). Harlow: Longman Group Ltd.
110
Edewor, K. (2001). Cultural attitude to women’s education and economic
empowerment: a comparative study of men and women in Ijebu-Igbo. In D.
Akintunde (Ed.). African culture and the quest for women’s rights (pp. 35-49).
Ibadan: Sefer Books Ltd.
Maduakor, O. (1989). Female voices in poetry: Catherine Acholonu and Omolara
Ogundipe-Leslie as poets. In H. Otokunefor & O. Nwodo (Eds). Nigerian female
writers: a critical perspective (pp.75-91). Ikeja: Malthouse Press Ltd.
Ohaeto, E. (1988). “The Poetry of Three Nigerian Female Writers” Canadian Journal
of African Studies/Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Vol. 22, No. 3,
Special Issue: Current Research on African Women (1988), pp. 662-668
http://www.jstor.org/stable/485962
Onarinde, F. (2013). “The Nature of Modern African Poetry” Being the title of a paper
presented at Kistrech Theatre International Kisii, Kenya Kistrech Poetry
Festival.
Sotunsa, M. (2008). Feminism and gender discourse: the African experience. Sagamu:
Asaba Publications.
Steady, F. (2002). An investigative framework for gender research in Africa in the new
millennium. CODESRIA.
111
MODULE 3 SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE EARLIER POETS
Unit 1 The Poems of Leopold Senghor

Unit 2 The Poems of Wole Soyinka
Unit 3 The Poems of Christopher Okigbo
Unit 4 The Poems of Okot p’Bitek
Unit 5 The Poems of Kofi Awonoonor
Unit 6 The Poems of Lenrie Peters
UNIT 1 THE POEMS OF LEOPOLD SENGHOR

CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Leopold Sedar Senghor
3.2 Senghor and His Poetry
3.3 Senghor’s Themes
3.3.1 The Longing for Senegal
3.3.2 African Woman in Senghor’s Poetry
3.3.3 The Ancestors in Senghor’s Poems
3.3.4 Attitude to France and Europe
3.4 Poetic Techniques of Leopord Senghor
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Leopard Sedar Senghor, poet, philosopher, scholar and statesman, is one of the
oldest and most prominent living persons associated with African poetry and the
exposition of African culture. He was born in 1906 at Joal, Senegal. Educated in Senegal
and France, he made history as the first West African to graduate from the Sorbonne
and teach in a French University. Among his numerous publications are five volumes
of poetry and many critical and philosophical essays on aspects of African culture. In
this unit, you are going to be introduced to Senghor’s poems which includes those for
the longing of Senegal like “All Day Long” and “For Khalam”, “Black Woman”, which
describe the African woman in Senghor’s poetry, Senghor’s Ancestor Poems like
“Night in Sine”, “Totem” and “Prayer to Masks”, his poems on the attitude to France
and Europe with examples from “The Dead (Martyrs)” and “Paris in the Snow”
(Dathorne, 1975) and finally the poetic techniques of Leopord Senghor will be
discussed.Below are some of the objectives of this unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Discuss the biography of Leopold Sedar Senghor
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• Describe the main features of Senghor’s poetry
• Analyse the following themes in Senghor’s, using citation from at least one poem
for each:
o Longing for Senegal
o African Woman
o The Ancestors
o Attitude to France and Europe
• Discuss Senghor’s poetic techniques
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR
Leopard Sedar Senghor, poet, philosopher, scholar and statesman, is one of the
oldest and most prominent living persons associated with African poetry and the
exposition of African culture. Senghor was born in 1906 at Joal in Senegal. He was the
President of Senegal for many years. He was described as “the greatest of the African
poets to write in a European language” (Zell and Silver 1972). Senghor met in Paris
poets of African origin like Aime Cesaire and Leon Damus of the Negritude movement.
Negritude was a movement that arose among French West Indian colonials as a result
of their desire to create their past imaginatively. The pioneers of the movement were
born and bred in alien lands and had experienced no indigenous culture. The movement
attempted to express “the sum total of the cultural values of the Negro world” (Dathorne
1975). The movement “expressed concern for the predicament of their race and the
legacy of a colonial bondage.” The uniqueness of the movement was that it was not
concerned with individual tribal themes, but expresses “a conscious effort to look back
at wide array of traditional values” with a new “approach to semantics, rhythm and
subject-matter” (Dathorne 1975). Among Senghor’s numerous publications are five
volumes of poetry and many critical and philosophical essays on aspects of African
culture.
Trace the literary biography of Sedar Senghor and explain his role in the formation of
the negritude movement.
3.2 Senghor and His Poetry
Senghor’s poetry is dominated by ancestor image. By this his poems are similar
to other African poems. However, the styles of some of his poems are also like European
poetry. In his poem entitled: “Woman” he uses the word ‘woman’ to refer to both his
country as much as to a real woman. The imagery of “nakedness, blackness” is used in
positive terms. Senghor’s images describe the objects and evoke “emotions and spiritual
realities about the object of praise” (Nwoga 1983).
In this unit, we will embark on thematic and stylistic analyses of a poem by
Leopold Sedar Senghor, the greatest exponent of the philosophy of Negritude. As an
ideology, Negritude was merely developed as a reaction to cultural deprivation that
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African poets experienced in Europe. This led the educated elite to revive, through
literature, cultural values and beauty of Africa by extolling their ancestral glories.
This led to the use of traditional imagery, symbols and rhythm. Negritude has
passed through a number of phases and was at times accused of over sentimentalism.
Nevertheless Senghor’s poetry gained great importance and won many international
prizes for his contribution to African literature as a whole and African poetry in
particular. Let us analyse Senghor’s poem “I Will Pronounce Your Name”.
I will pronounce your name, Naett, I will declaim you, Naett!
Naett, your name is mild like the cinnamon, it is the fragrance in which
the lemon grove sleeps,
Naett, your name is the sugared clarity of blooming coffee trees
And it resembles the savannah, that blooms forth under the
the masculine odour of the midday sun.
Name of dew, fresher shadows of tamarind,
Fresher even than short dusk, when the heat of the dusk is
silenced.
Naett, that is the dry tornado, the hard clap of lightning
Naett, coin of gold, shinning coal, you my night, my sun!---
I am your hero, and now I have become your sorcerer, in order to
pronounce your names. (Vincent and Senanu, 2001: 58)
Though this is a written poem, the word “pronounce” in line 1 and the repetitious
declamation of “Naett” suggest an orality which links the poem to the traditional form
of poetry found in oral literature. The repetition evokes the passion of fondness the poet
has for the subject “Naett”. This passion is reinforced by the poet’s exuberant
comparison of “Naett” with various states in nature: “mild like cinnamon”, “the
fragrance in which the lemon grove sleeps”, “the sugared clarity of blooming coffee
trees” and “the freshness of dew of the “tamarind”. He compares Naett even to a “dry
tornado” and “the hard clap of lightning”. Up to this point we get no clear indication of
who Naett is. But when he likens Naett to “coin of gold”, “shining coal, you my night,
my sun! -- -”, we get the impression that this person who is so precious to the poet could
be a black woman. This impression is reinforced when he refers to her as “Princess of
Elisa” in the last line. The poem is symbolic in nature. In the poem, Senghor expresses
his love and reverence to Black Africa. Naett seems to symbolize everything African.
In an evocative manner, the poet celebrates his love for Africa and gives her the image
of a woman. Using similes and metaphors Senghor praises black Africa in the manner
of Negritude poets. The name “Naett” sounds like “night” which suggests darkness or
blackness.
What are the major preoccupations of Senghor’s poetry? Your answer must include as
much as possible citations.
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3.3 Senghor’s Themes
3.3.1 The Longing for Senegal
All Day Long
All day long, over the long straight rails
Like an inflexible will over the endless sands
Across parched Cayor and Baol where the baobabs twist
their arms in torment
All day long, all along the line
Past the same little stations, past black girls jostling like
birds at the gates of schools

All day long, sorely rattled by the iron train and dusty and
hoarse
Behold me seeking to forget Europe in the pastoral heart
of Sine!
In what Tempestuous Night

What dark tempestuous night has been hiding your face?
And what claps of thunder frighten you from the bed
When the fragile wails of my breast tremble?
I shudder with cold, trapped in the dew of the clearing.
Oi I am lost in the treacherous paths of the forest.
Are these creepers or snakes that entangle my feet?
I sup into the mudhole of fear and my cry is suffocated in a
watery rattle.
But when shall I hear your voice again, happy luminous

morn?
When shall I recognize myself again in the laughing mirror
of eyes, that are large like windows?
And what sacrifice will pacify the white mask of the goddess?
Perhaps the blood of chickens or goats, or the worthless
blood in my veins?
Or the prelude of my song, the ablution of my pride?

Give me propitious words.
For Khalam
I do not know in what age it was, I always confuse Childhood and Eden
As I mingle Life and Death – a bridge of sweetness joins them.
Now I was returning from Fa’oye, having drunk deeply at the solemn tomb
As the manatees drink at the Simal.
I was returning from Fa’oye, and the horror was at its height
And it was the hour when one sees Spirits, when the light is transparent
And one has to shun the footpaths, to avoid their brotherly deathly hand.
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The soul of the village was beating on the horizon.
Where they live or dead?
“May my poem of peace be tranquil water on your feet and on your face
“And may the shade of your courtyard be cool to your heart,” she said to me.
Her smooth hands dressed me in a pagne of silk and esteem
Her speech charmed me every delectable dish – sweetness of the midnight milk
And her smile was more melodious than her poet’s khalam
The morning star came and sat among us, and we wept with pleasure
Most of Senghor’s poetry was written in France, away from the homeland of his
childhood days. In “All Day Long”, Senghor expresses a strong desire (“unbending
will”) as unbending as a rails which pass through his restless land. He seeks to forget
“forget Europe” and find solace and belonging “in the pastoral heart of Sine”. Although
the scene described may not be beautiful: “the dryness of Cayor and Baol” and “arms
of the baobabs twist in anguish”, “through tiny station, each exactly like the last”, “dust
covered, wheezing, antique train”, and even the “chattering little black girls, uncaged
from school”, these images are aspects of the environment which bring memories of
belonging. They are therefore, the objects of his nostalgic feeling.
This longing is seen again and again in the poems. We see it again in his poem
“For Khalam” that starts with “Long, long you have held between your hands the black
face of the warrior”. We see it again in the question “when shall I see you again my
country, the pure horizon of your face”? In this poem, the poet addresses his country as
if she is a woman with whom he is in love. “When shall I sit down once more at the
dark table of your breast”. Thus, the woman and his country fuse together as one object
of his longing:
But every year, when the ruins of spring time set my memories ablaze
I shall be full of regret for my home land and the rains from my eyes on the
Thirsty savannahs
In this poem, the poet has been absent from his home country. This makes him feel as
if he is dead. He is the “warrior” in the poem whose face was “Held as if already there
fell on it a twilight of death”. . (Vincent and Senanu, 2001)
It is from the distance in space and time that the speaker longs for his country.
3.3.2 African Woman in Senghor’s Poetry
Black Woman
Naked woman, black woman
Clothed with your colour which is life,
with your form which is beauty!
In your shadow I have grown up; the

gentleness of your hands was laid over my eyes.
And now, high up on the sun-baked

pass, at the heart of summer, at the heart of noon,
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I come upon you, my Promised Land,
And your beauty strikes me to the heart
like the flash of an eagle.
Naked woman, dark woman
Firm-fleshed ripe fruit, sombre raptures

of black wine, mouth making lyrical my mouth
Savannah stretching to clear horizons,
savannah shuddering beneath the East Wind’s
eager caresses
Carved tom-tom, taut tom-tom, muttering

under the Conqueror’s fingers
Your solemn contralto voice is the

spiritual song of the Beloved.
Naked woman, dark woman
Oil that no breath ruffles, calm oil on the

athlete’s flanks, on the flanks of the Princes of Mali
Gazelle limbed in Paradise, pearls are stars on the
night of your skin
Delights of the mind, the glinting of red

gold against your watered skin
Under the shadow of your hair, my care

is lightened by the neighbouring suns of your eyes.
Naked woman, black woman,

I sing your beauty that passes, the form
that I fix in the Eternal,
Before jealous fate turn you to ashes to

feed the roots of life.
(Vincent and Senanu, 2001)
Black woman is a symbol for Africa. The woman is represented at two levels, as the
mother and as the beloved lover. These two images are idealised as the writer seeks to
immortalise the African woman.
The African woman is presented in her natural qualities. She is always depicted
as “naked woman” or “black woman”. Her natural qualities are immortalised in these
images: “Clothed with your colour which is life, with your form which is beauty!” In
117
Negritude, “black” is the colour of life, while “white” is the colour of death. The first
image is that of a mother who brings up the child: “In your shadow, I have grown up,
the gentleness of your eyes was laid over my eyes”. The woman was associated with
Earth’s figure: “my promised land”, and associated with the poet’s love for his country.
In stanzas two and three, the woman is presented as a lover and projected very
much as a sexual object, described in images of objects of taste, to be eaten, to be drunk
and to be sung: “firm fleshed ripe fruit, sombre raptures of black wine, mouth making
lyrical, my mouth”.
Even at this level, the woman is best appreciated in her association with the earth
and the country: She is “Savannah stretching to clear horizons, savannah shuddering
beneath the East wind’s caresses”.
From all the above, the sexual images are obvious, just as it is obvious in “Carved
tom-tom, taut tom-tom, muttering under the conqueror’s fingers”. The woman is
idolised: “I sing your beauty that passes the form that I fix in the eternal”. In spite of
this idealisation, the impression one has is that the woman exists to be of use to man.
3.3.3 The Ancestors in Senghor’s Poems
Night in Sine
Woman, place your soothing hands upon my brow,
Your hands softer than fur.
Above us balance the palm trees, barely rustling
In the night breeze. Not even a lullaby.
Let the rhythmic silence cradle us.
Listen to its song. Hear the beat of our dark blood,
Hear the deep pulse of Africa in the mist of lost villages.
Now sets the weary moon upon its slack seabed

Now the bursts of laughter quiet down, and even the storyteller
Nods his head like a child on his mother’s back
The dancers’ feet grow heavy, and heavy, too,
Come the alternating voices of singers.
Now the stars appear and the Night dreams

Leaning on that hill of clouds, dressed in its long, milky pagne.
The roofs of the huts shine tenderly. What are they saying
So secretly to the stars? Inside, the fire dies out
In the closeness of sour and sweet smells.
Woman, light the clear-oil lamp. Let the Ancestors

Speak around us as parents do when the children are in bed.
Let us listen to the voices of the Elissa Elders. Exiled like us
They did not want to die, or lose the flow of their semen in the sands.
Let me hear, a gleam of friendly souls visits the smoke-filled hut,
My head upon your breast as warm as tasty dang streaming from the fire,
118
Let me breathe the odor of our Dead, let me gather
And speak with their living voices, let me learn to live
Before plunging deeper than the diver
Into the great depths of sleep.
Totem
I must hide him in my innermost veins
The Ancestor whose stormy hide is shot with lightning and
thunder
My animal protector, I must hide him
That I may not break the barriers of scandal:
He is my faithful blood that demands fidelity
Protecting my naked pride against
Myself and the scorn of luckier races.
Prayer to Masks
Masks ! Oh Masks !
Black mask, red mask, you black and white masks.
Rectangular masks through whom the spirit breathes,
I greet you in silence !
And you too, my pantherheaded ancestor.
You guard this place, that is closed to any feminine laugh-
ter, to any mortal smile.
You purify the air of eternity, here where I breathe the air
of my fathers.
Masks of maskless faces, free from dimples and wrinkles.
You have composed this image, this my face that bends
over the altar of white paper.
In the name of your image, listen to me!
Now while the Africa of despotism is dying - it is the agony
of a pitiable princess
Just like Europe to whom she is connected through the navel.
Now turn your immobile eyes towards your children who
have been called
And who sacrifice their lives like the poor man his last garment
So that hereafter we may cry ‘here’ at the rebirth of the
world being the leaven that the white flour needs.
For who else would teach rhythm to the world that has
died of machines and cannons?
For who else should ejaculate the cry of joy, that arouses
the dead and the wise in a new dawn?
Say, who else could return the memory of life to men with
a torn hope?
. (Vincent and Senanu, 2001)
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The ancestors are never far from the surface of Senghor’s poetry. The ancestors are
represented by many things. In “Totem”, totem is an object, animal or tree that is sacred
to the ancestral culture of the group and revered as such. The totem can also be seen as
the guardian animal: “Protecting any naked pride against/myself and all the insistence
of lucky races.” The lucky races are those that colonised Africa. Against their evils, it
is only the ancestor’s culture (represented by other totem) that offer protection.
In “Prayer to Masks”, the carved masks collectively represent the culture of the
Fathers: “You distil this air of eternity in which I breathe the air of my Fathers”. The
living is connected to the past by the masks. It is these masks and the glorious culture
that represent the poet’s appeals in the face of colonialism and the death of
contemporary Africa and Europe.
The Africa of the empires is dying, see the agony of a pitiful princess.
And Europe too where we are joined by the navel.
The masks and the African culture represent the resources from which Africa
can save Europe, “teach rhythm to the dead world of machines and guns”, “provide
yeast which white flour (white world) needs”. Though despised by the world, the
African past provides life that is close to Earth. “We are men of the dance/whose feet
draw new strength pounding the hardened earth.
In “Nuit de Sine”, which is a very explicit and accessible poem, the ancestors
are shown to be alive, not dead, and are able to communicate with the living. The poem
is interesting in the visionary way it depicts a typical African moonlit night. The typical
scenes showing the dead of the night when the ancestors speak to the living are vividly
described.
3.3.4 Attitude to France and Europe
The Dead (Martyrs)
They are lying out there beside the captured roads, all along the roads of disaster
Elegant poplars, statues of sombre gods draped in their long cloaks of gold,
Senegalese prisoners darkly stretched on the soil of France.
In vain they have cut off your laughter, in vain the darker flower of your flesh.
You are the flower in its first beauty amid a naked absence of flowers
Black flower with its grave smile, diamond of immemorial ages.
You are the slime and plasma of the green spring of the world
Of the first couple you are the flesh, the ripe belly the milkiness
You are the sacred increase of the bright gardens of paradise
And the invincible forest, victorious over fire and thunderbolt.

The great song of your blood will vanquish machines and cannons
Your throbbing speech evasions and lies.
No hate in your soul void of hatred, no cunning in your soul void of cunning.
Black Martyrs immortal race, let me speak the words of pardon.
Paris in the Snow
Lord, you visited Paris on the day of your birth
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Because it had become paltry and bad.
You purified it with incorruptible cold,
The white death.
This morning even the factory funnels hoisted in harmony
The white flags.
‘Peace to all men of good will.’
Lord, you have offered the divided world, divided Europe,
The snow of peace.
And the rebels fired their fourteen hundred cannons
Against the mountains of your peace.
Lord, I have accepted your white cold that burns worse than salt.
And now my heart melts like snow in the sun.
And I forget
The white hands that loaded the guns that destroyed the kingdoms.
The hands that whipped the slaves and that whipped you
The dusty hands that slapped you, the white powdered hands that slapped me
The sure hands that pushed me into solitude and hatred
The white hands that felled the high forest that dominated Africa,
That felled the Sara, erect and firm in the heart of Africa,
beautiful like the first men that were created by your brown hands.
They felled the virgin forest to turn into railway sleepers.
They felled Africa’s forest in order to save civilization that was lacking in men.
Lord, I can still not abandon this last hate, I know it, the
hatred of diplomats who show their long teeth
And who will barter with black flesh tomorrow.
My heart, oh lord, has melted like the snow on the roofs of Paris
In the sun of your Goodness,
It is kind to my enemies, my brothers with the snowless white hands.
Also because of the hands of dew that lie on my burning cheeks at night.
(Vincent and Senanu, 2001)
There are poems of better experiences in Senghor’s collections. Among these are poems
which describe the experiences of Senegalese soldiers who fought in Europe to defend
France and freedom. They sacrificed their lives but were not appreciated. Rather, they
suffered discrimination in the hands of the French. Poems of this nature include the five
part poem: “Prayer for the Tirailleurs of Senegal” and “Camp 1940” which describes
the experiences of prisoners of war and death on the battle field. “Martyrs” is also of
this category of poems. It describes the wasted deaths of Senegalese volunteers:
They are lying there among the captured roads, along the roads of disaster
Slender poplars, statues of the sombre gods wrapped in long golden cloaks
The prisoners from Senegal lie like lengthened shadows across the soil of France.
In spite of this and instead of being bitter like the poems of David Diop such as “Africa”,
“One who has Lost Everything”, “Defiance Against Force” – the poems of Senghor
preach forgiveness and reconciliation with the oppressor. This is the obvious theme of
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“Snow Upon Paris”. The poem must have been written to celebrate Christmas. It is
addressed to the Lord, “on this day of your birth” in which everything is singing “Peace
to men of goodwill”. This is an allusion to the song the angels and shepherds sang to
celebrate the birth of Jesus. Snow in this poem symbolises purity and peace, “the snow
of your peace” which suggests healing power for the divisions of the world. The long
second stanza catalogues the crimes and sins of Europe against Africa – the sins of
colonialism:
And I forget.
White hands that fired the shots that brought the empires crumbling,
Hands that flogged the slaves that flogged you.
Against men that destroyed the material and human resources of Africa, he has
forgiveness: “My heart, Lord, is melted like the snow on the roofs of Paris”. He forgives
and forgets all, as the Lord has forgiven and forgotten.
Examine the theme of ancestors in Senghor’s poems.
3.4 Poetic Techniques of Leopord Senghor
The poems are written from the “I” personal narrative voice of the poet, who
speaks as a representative of Africa. The poems project African view of existence. They
criticise Europe and her civilisation and celebrate African culture. Often these two
cultures are put side by side for comparison. The poems draw a lot of images from
African myths, legends, and beliefs. They use materials from African fauna and flora
for images. On the surface, the poems look and sound like prose because of the long
lines, but there is a lot of symbolism in them that make them more poetic than prose.
There are frequent references to African and French history.
Discuss other themes and style of some Senghor’s poems that were not captured here.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Senghor is one of the oldest and most prominent persons associated with African
poetry and the exposition of African culture. Among his numerous publications are five
volumes of poetry and many critical and philosophical essays on aspects of African
culture. Some of the themes discussed in Senghor’s poetry incude those of longing for
Senegal, African woman, ancestors and attitude to France and Europe.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The biography of Leopold Sedar Senghor
• The major characteristics of Senghor’s poetry
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• The major themes in Senghor’s poems
• Senghor’s poetic techniques
1) Discuss the biography of Leopold Sedar Senghor
2) Describe the main features of Senghor’s poetry
3) Analyse the following themes in Senghor’s, using citation from at least one poem
for each:
i. Longing for Senegal
ii. African Woman in
iii. The Ancestors
iv. Attitude to France and Europe
4) Discuss Senghor’s poetic techniques
Brooks, Cleanth (1975). The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. New
York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
Dathorne, O.R (1975) African Literature in the Twentieth Century. London: Heinemann
Press
Nwoga I Donatus, Book Review: Poetic Heritage; Igbo Traditional Verse, Enugu,
Nigeria: Nwankwo – Ifejika and co. (1998)
Senanu K.E and Vincent T. (2001) A Selection of African Poetry. Uko Longman
Group Limited
Senghor, Leopold. (2009) “Negritude: Humanism of Twentieth Century”. African
Literature: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory. Austria. Blackwell Publishing
Zell, Hans and Helene Silver (eds.) A Reader’s Guide to African Literature. London:
Heinemann.
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UNIT 2 THE POEMS OF WOLE SOYINKA
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Wole Soyinka’s Biography
3.2 Wole Soyinka’s Poetry
3.2.1 The Influences on the Poetry of Wole Soyinka
3.2.2 Whole Soyinka and the Poetry of Isolation
3.2.3 Themes and Techniques of “Abiku” by Wole Soyinka
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
In 1986, Wole Soyinka became the first black writer to win the Nobel Prize for
Literature. He has published major works in practically every genre of contemporary
writing: drama, poetry, fiction, autobiography, and the critical essay. Soyinka has an
elaborately developed perspective on art, history, and the place of the artist in the
society. In his works, he seeks to synthesize his dual heritage as an African and as
someone who has not only been exposed to European civilization, but also appreciates
many aspects of that culture and its values. He seeks to make the worldview of his native
Yoruba culture relevant to his work as an artist who uses Western forms. His success in
doing this is testified to by the fact that the citation that accompanied the award of the
Nobel Prize to him remarked the creativity with which his work explores traditional
Yoruba culture to fashion a “universal drama of existence.” In this unit you will be
introduced to the poetry of Wole Soyinka with particular illustration from his “Abiku”.
(Theresia, 2013) Below are some of the objectives of this unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Discuss the Biography of Wole Soyinka
• Discuss the influences on the poetry of Wole Soyinka
• Explain the unique features of Wole Soyinka’s Poetry
• Analyse the themes and Techniques employed by Wole Soyinka in some of his
poems.
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Wole Soyinka’s Biography
Soyinka was born in Abeokuta, South-western Nigeria, to parents who were
practicing Christians and closely associated with Christian missions and institutions of
education. His father was a school teacher, and as his autobiography Aké (1981) shows,
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his upbringing in that environment has had a crucial impact on his career as a writer.
He attended Government College and later, University College, both in Ibadan. His
training at these institutions made him part of an elite class within his generation, and
prepared him to play an important role in the Nigerian nation-state that was then in the
process of attaining its independence from Britain. Soyinka subsequently attended the
University of Leeds, where he acquired a BA honors degree in English. After his degree,
he stayed on in the United Kingdom, working as playreader at the Royal Court Theatre.
He had started writing in his days at University College in Nigeria, but it was during his
time in the United Kingdom that he began writing dramatic pieces that revealed his
dedication to being a serious writer. He returned to Nigeria in 1960, the year that Nigeria
became independent from Britain. He formed a theater group that performed many of
his plays. This period can be said to mark the first major phase in Soyinka’s artistic
career. Although they probably date from his days in the United Kingdom, The Swamp
Dwellers (1964) and The Lion and the Jewel (1963), a comedy, can be identified with
this period. Other plays like A Dance of the Forests (1963), a poetic drama written for
Nigeria’s independence celebrations, Camwood on the Leaves (1973), a radio play, and
The Trials of Brother Jero (1964), a satire, can also be identified with this period.
From about the mid-1960s, the freshly independent Nigeria became mired in a
series of political upheavals and violence. Soyinka’s readiness to voice or act on his
convictions made him a prominent participant in the political controversies and
developments of the period. In October 1965, he was arrested and charged with holding
up a radio station at gunpoint and replacing the tape of a speech by the premier of
Western Nigeria, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, with a different one accusing the
premier of election malpractice. Soyinka was acquitted of the charges, but the very fact
that he was thus charged speaks to his actively visible role in the affairs of his country.
As a consequence of the controversies of the period, a brutal civil war broke out in 1967
in the country. The war (1967–70) pitted the federal government against the
southeastern region which had seceded and declared itself as the independent nation of
Biafra. Soyinka was arrested and incarcerated by the federal military government,
allegedly for activities sympathetic to the Biafran secessionists. He spent a substantial
part of his imprisonment in solitary confinement. Many writers from the West
condemned the incarceration and called for his release, but it was not until 1969 that he
was released. He addresses this experience in his prison memoir, entitled The Man Died
(1972). As one might expect, Soyinka uses the opportunity of this prison memoir not
simply to criticize his jailers, but also to reflect on the role of the artist in society.
The role Soyinka ascribes to vocational writers in the midst of political unrest
accounts for the form and substance of his major works from this period. To this phase
belong Kongi’s Harvest (1967), a critique of authoritarian rule; The Road (1965), an
exploration of a hubristic character’s search for the meaning of death amid the
corruption and cultural complexities of urban Nigeria; “Idanre” (1967), a long poem in
which Soyinka first presents a sustained literary treatment of Ogun, the Yoruba god of
iron, as metaphor for societal collapse and regeneration; and A Shuttle in the Crypt
(1972), a collection of poetry that deals with his imprisonment. He also wrote Jero’s
Metamorphosis (1973) as a sequel to The Trials of Brother Jero. In this sequel, the main
character, a fraudulent, self-proclaimed “prophet” named Brother Jero, adopts symbolic
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features like the military uniform and the marching band for his church. A thorough
scoundrel and opportunist, Brother Jero transforms the image of his church so as to
blend in with the prevailing militarized dispensation of the day. In this way, Soyinka
makes fun of the hypocrisy and shallowness of the military rulers of the period, just as
The Trials of Brother Jero had satirized the opportunistic politicians of the previous era
in Nigerian politics. His brooding play Madmen and Specialists (1970) and his novels
The Interpreters (1965), and Season of Anomy (1973) should also be interpreted in light
of the moral demands and intellectual pressures that Soyinka must have felt as he
contemplated his society’s degeneration into sectarian violence, crass materialism, and
collective disorientation.
In 1973 Soyinka accepted a position as Fellow at Churchill College in
Cambridge University. During his stint at Cambridge, he wrote Death and the King’s
Horseman (1975), seen by many as his greatest achievement in the genre of poetic
drama. He also wrote The Bacchae of Euripides (1973), a commissioned adaptation and
rewriting of Euripides’ play. A series of lectures on drama that he delivered at
Cambridge became the book Myth, Literature and the African World (1976). This book
includes as appendix an essay that Soyinka had written earlier, entitled “The Fourth
Stage: Through the Mysteries of Ogun to the Origins of Yoruba Tragedy.” The book
encapsulates Soyinka’s central ideas and constitutes a watershed in the writer’s career.
In it, he surveys modern African literature by setting out the diverse philosophical
sensibilities of a number of prominent African writers. He also links what was going in
African literature to artistic trends and productions in the African diaspora. And
characteristically, he sought to account for these trends within an overarching
framework that is based on traditional Yoruba mythology and ritual.
From the late 1970s on, Soyinka has continued to address black Africa’s
problems as the last vestiges of colonialism were being contested and defeated, even as
independent African countries floundered or came under the mismanagement of
politicians and tyrants. For instance, Soyinka turned to avenues other than the printed
word by releasing a record album, Unlimited Liability Company (1983), and a film,
Blues for a Prodigal (1984), to criticize the depredations of the civilian government that
ruled Nigeria between 1979 and 1983. In the long poem Ogun Abibiman (1976), and
the lead poems of the collection Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems (1989), he addresses
the apartheid situation in South Africa, then still under the racist regime of the Afrikaner
Nationalist Party. (Theresia, 2013)
Assess the biography of Wole Soyinka giving special emphasis on his contributions to
development of African poetry.
3.2 Wole Soyinka’s Poetry
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Myth, Literature and the African World constitutes Soyinka’s most sustained
elaboration of his theory of art, culture, and the individual in society. Consequently, a
full apprehension of Soyinka’s work to date requires proper understanding of the vision
set out in this book. For Soyinka, the lessons of history and individual or collective
struggle are often encoded in mythology. He set out to demonstrate that African peoples
have rich cultural traditions and systems of knowledge that should be seen as
alternatives to Euro-American traditions. As in his use of Western literary forms to
explore the particularity of Africa’s problems, Soyinka’s theory shows his debt to two
cultures—traditional Yoruba and Western European. From Yoruba mythology, he
chooses the god of iron and metallurgy, Ogun, as the metaphor for artistic and
technological creativity. By this choice, he makes Ogun a symbol of the kind of spirit
that black Africa, like all other cultures in the modern world, requires to ensure spiritual
health and social prosperity.
Soyinka identifies a commonality between Ogun and such classical archetypes
as Orpheus and Prometheus, who stand for unwavering resolve and the capacity to act
in the service of one’s vision. Soyinka believes that the inevitable fate of the visionary
archetype is punishment and suffering. But the suffering is not altogether bad, because
it often accompanies a socially redemptive act of will. In this way, Ogun symbolizes
visionary creativity and leadership. In the Yoruba mythological narrative that Soyinka
adapts, all the spheres of existence, all of humanity’s potentiality, were once
concentrated in the figure of the deity Obatala, or Orisha-nla (arch divinity). According
to Soyinka, Obatala embodies social order as well as what humankind is capable of
within that conventional order. Obatala reigns over an inherited, pre-constituted
cosmic/social situation and human destiny. To serve him in this dispensation is a slave,
another mythic figure named Atunda or Atooda. This slave initiated a transformative
rupture by rolling a huge boulder over Obatala, shattering the god into a thousand and
one fragments. These fragments stand for the one thousand and one gods in the Yoruba
pantheon, as well as the sphere of life with which each god is associated. Because of
Atunda’s action, the gods were separated from human beings and yearned to be reunited
with us, even as we desire to get closer to them.
Ogun’s sphere—his specialty, so to speak—is iron and metallurgy. His attribute
as worker of iron makes him the one who among the gods undertook the original journey
to reunite the realm of the gods with the world of mortals. He forged the first weapon,
cleared the path separating gods from humankind, and led the way as the gods journeyed
to be reunited with humans. For Soyinka, Ogun’s journey symbolically promises a
reunion of “self” with “essence,” what we are in reality with what we can be. Ogun is
able to achieve this restoration in Yoruba mythology, thereby offering symbolic
enactment of its possibility in the secular world, because he embodies a fusion of artistic
and technological creativity. Thus, the artist and the scientist become for Soyinka
members of society who should combine their creative gifts to ensure social progress.
The years 1995 through 1998 witnessed the consolidation of a particularly
repressive military regime in Nigerian politics. Once again, Soyinka denounced the
authoritarian and divisive tendencies of the nation’s rulers, tendencies that brought the
nation to the brink of another civil war. He was at the forefront of an international
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movement that agitated for a return to a democratically elected government. He
published The Open Sore of a Continent (1996), in which he retraced the country’s
history and analysed the roots of its political crisis. Soyinka’s creative and political
writings clearly put him in the company of the more explicitly politicized writers in
African letters. It is perhaps to be expected that his work has sometimes generated
intense critical debate. But there is no doubt as to the value of his work for various kinds
of critical methodology or socio-political vision. In prose, poetry, or drama, Soyinka’s
contribution to African literature has been intensive and permanent. Alongside any
other purposes it may serve, his writing holds our attention because of the combination,
within it, of philosophical depth and stylistic grace. (Ojaide, 1988)
3.2.1 The Influences on the Poetry of Wole Soyinka
A survey of Wole Soyinka’s influences reveals the admixture of indigenous and
foreign qualities in the poems. These influences affect the poet’s materials, concepts,
language, and technique. The poet combines traditional African and Western influences
so dexterously that he creates a personal authenticity (Ojaide, 1988).
In addition to growing up and living within the Yoruba culture, Soyinka has
shown special interest in the culture of his people. Based at Ibadan between 1960 and
1962, he used a Rockefeller Foundation research fellowship to collect and study Yoruba
folk drama. Even though the study had primary relevance to his plays, the dialogue,
chant-like rhythms, proverbs, and praise name epithets used in Yoruba folk drama also
enriched his poetry. Soyinka’s translation of D. O. Fagunwa’s Ogbo ju Ode Ninu Igbo
Irunmale from Yoruba into English as The Forest of a Thousand Daemons also
enhanced Soyinka’s verbal facility and his knowledge of Yoruba literature, which
directly and indirectly affects his own writing. Myth, Literature and the African World,
for example, demonstrates Soyinka’s profound knowledge of Yoruba myths and world
view. To Soyinka, “the African world” is synonymous with the Yoruba world; hence,
his traditional African influences are essentially Yoruba. He admits that the Yoruba
“aesthetic matrix is the fount of my own creative inspiration; it influences my critical
responses to other cultures and validates selective eclecticism” (Gibbs 4).
Soyinka makes use of Yoruba myths, superstitions, and beliefs in his poetry.
There are references to Yoruba gods and what they represent, beliefs about the presence
of ancestors who receive offerings from the living to protect them, and “the same child
who dies and returns again and again to plague the mother” (ldanre 28).
Soyinka copiously exploits the Ogun myth. The dual-natured god, who manifests
himself in seven ways, is “God of Iron and metallurgy, Explorer, Artisan, Hunter, God
of war, Guardian of the Road, the Creative Essence. His season is harvest and the rains”
(86). The qualities of Ogun, a war monger and yet a shield to orphans, destructive and
creative, form the background to “Idanre” and Ogun Abibimaii.. Sometimes, as in
“Dawn,” the myth is subtly used. In addition to Ogun, many gods, including Orunmila,
$ango, Orisa-nla, and Esu, are alluded to in “Idanre.” Soyinka chooses not Orunmila,
principle of order, wisdom, and authority, as his divine mentor, but Ogun, the creative
but destructive god; for to the poet, creation is paramount. Not only is Ogun a selfless
explorer, but he possesses qualities relevant to a Third World country in this
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technological age. Yoruba myths enrich “Dawn,” “Death in the Dawn,” “In Memory of
Segun Awolowo,” “Abiku,” “Dedication,” “ldanre,” “Hunt of the stone,” and Ogun
Abibimaii.
Interwoven with the myths and culture are the value system, the love of
ceremonies, and the agrarian preoccupations of the people. Soyinka expresses the
Yoruba value system of a successful life as combining wealth, children, and long life in
“Dedication.” The poem is based on isomoloruko, the naming ceremony, which is a
Yoruba household celebration. “Koko Oloro” is a rendition of a “children’s propitiation
chant” (23). The agrarian and religious society provides the poet materials for his poems
in the form of food and sacrifices to the gods. There is emphasis on fertility and increase,
and images of farming are abundant in “Idanre.” Harvest in “Idanre” becomes a
synthesis of social and religious activities.
Yoruba myths could prove obscure to the reader not conversant with the poet’s
native world picture-a possible problem Soyinka seems aware of in “Idanre,” where he
appends notes to help the uninitiated reader. In some other poems for which the author
provides no notes, the reader may lose the profundity of the expressions. M. J. Salt’s
explication of “Dawn” explains allusions and offers suggestions which are obvious to
the reader knowledgeable in Yoruba myths but indiscernible to the non-Yoruba novice.
It is only the initiate who will link “Death the scrap-iron dealer/Breeds a glut on trade.
The fault/Is His of seven paths whose whim/Gave Death his agency” (14) from “In
Memory of Segun Awolowo” to the demanding Ogun, who destroys human beings on
the very roads he is meant to guard. In fact, not every Yoruba-speaking person will
detect these allusions, only persons versed in Yoruba myths, who might also be
outsiders. These allusions give a traditional African character to the voice and viewpoint
of the poet.
Soyinka is also much influenced by Yoruba poetic forms, which enrich his
poetry. There are qualities of Ila, etiyeri, ijala, and oriki poetic forms in Idanre, A
Shuttle in the Crypt, and Ogun Abibimaii. Ila, divination, is conducted by a medicine
man called babalawo, who usually recommends that the patient perform sacrifices to
counter the evil forces affecting him. Ila has its own poetry, which is usually chanted.
The etiyeri is a masquerader who performs in the evening and satirically attacks anti-
social attitudes in the society. Ijala is poetry of hunters and blacksmiths, and it is usually
in the form of chants. Oriki is a praise chant. These latter two forms involve a kind of
praise, and the chant could also be termed an oriki.
According to Wande Abimbola, “Two of the most important and characteristic
features of Ifa style are repetition and word-play” (31). Puzzles, obscurity, and
personification are also common in Ifa divination poetry. These features abound in
Soyinka’s poems. Repetitions of words, phrases, or lines occur in, among other works,
“Idanre,” “O, Roots!” and Ogun Abibimaii. There is a certain exuberance in Soyinka’s
use of words comparable to Ifa’s. And the density of his poetry is in the tradition of Ifa,
in which prophetic words are not to be taken literally.
Soyinka seems also to be influenced by the etiyeri tradition of Yoruba satire, in
which the poet is a masquerader who wants to maintain the social and moral ideals of
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his environment. In that pursuit, he ridicules and accuses violators. Soyinka’s early
poems- some of the October 1966 poems of Idanre and many poems in A Shuttle in the
Crypt- are perhaps indebted to this Yoruba tradition of satire. The poet’s use of sarcasm,
metaphors, repetitions, and refrains is also part of this poetic form. His use of abuse and
curse, especially in “Malediction,” might be related to the etiyeri.
The poet is also indebted to the ijala poetry of hunters and to the oriki praise
tradition. Oriki involves descriptions, eulogy, oblique references to events, appellation,
epithets, hyperbole, and apostrophe (Olajubu 4-12). These qualities are common in
Soyinka’s poetry, especially “Idanre” and Ogun Abibimafi. Ogun, “of seven paths”
(Idanre 14), is variously “the silent blacksmith” (62), “the lone one” (70), and “the
Creative Essence,” who has a “large creative hand” (61). These oriki features give
dignity to the protagonists of Soyinka’s poems, who are heroes in the Yoruba epic
tradition. Homage and prayers, as in “Dawn” and “O, Roots!” respectively, are in the
oriki tradition. In ijala poetry, there are invocations and salutations to powerful gods
such as Ogun and $ango. Following this convention in Ogun Abibimafi, the poet calls
on Ogun to assume generalship of the black freedom fighters and lead them to victory
against a racist minority establishment. The poem’s incantatory rhythm, repetitions, and
Yoruba “figures” are influenced by ijala and oriki poetic forms.
Some of these possible influences on Soyinka from Yoruba poetic forms involve
properties common to oral poetry in particular. Examples of hyperbole, metaphors,
repetitions, and refrains abound not only in Yoruba poetry but in Ewe, Urhobo, and
Zulu literatures, which are also oral. In the case of praise poetry, Soyinka absorbs both
the Yoruba and Zulu praise conventions in Ogun Abibimafi, where he appropriately
seeks the combined efforts of Ogun and Shaka to assert black independence. Some of
these Yoruba techniques are therefore universal, and might have been acquired from
any oral literature. Even in a poem like “Dedication,” which is an undisguised model of
the Yoruba naming ceremony, Soyinka does not always stick to the traditional meaning
of symbols. He writes:
... and leave this taste
Long on your lips, of salt, that you
may seek None from tears. (26)
Salt here is meant to forestall tears, which have salt as part of their chemical content.
This is a different, more scientific, meaning of salt than that which the Yoruba people
traditionally take it to be.
Abimbola, expressing the traditional belief on salt, says it could be regarded as
the commodity which one must have in order to have the secret and important
knowledge which can affect the choice of one’s destiny in life. In other words, salt is
synonymous with good, orderly and civilised life while Jack of it represents primitive
useless life. This is probably why salt is used during the christening ceremony of Yoruba
children. Salt is synonymous with good, happy and sweet life. (180)
Soyinka gives a personal touch to the traditional symbol. The Yoruba tradition
gives Soyinka an African identity, since the poetry shows a sense of cultural roots. The
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use of Yoruba materials is a nostalgic act which makes the African reader identify more
readily with the poems. To the Western reader, Soyinka’s poetry is an exotic medley.
The Yoruba mythical allusions give profundity to the poetry; furthermore, the particular
is made universal and the universal made particular in the Yoruba gods, who are local
manifestations of classical gods. The local influences affect his technique in the use of
repetitions, metaphors, and epithets, and partly fashion his viewpoint. I have already
mentioned the Yoruba concept of a successful life expressed in “Dedication.” Soyinka’s
attitude toward women seems to me traditionally African. His women are basically
sources of sex and increase, and, consequently, he uses images of farming for sex. He
is agrarian and ambivalent towards technology, looking back to an idyllic state. He
perceives life in terms of farming, and there are many references to seeds, growth, and
harvest. The poet is critical of technology, which to him is a shallow conception of life
when compared to the profounder truths and power of nature.
Soyinka is, however, not influenced by Yoruba culture alone. His “book”
education inevitably brought him into contact with Judeo- Christian and Western
literary traditions. He was bound to come into contact with the Bible and Christianity
in his elementary and secondary schools, since Religious Knowledge was a common
subject. In Ake he recalls being taught the Bible (54). Soyinka may no longer be a
practicing Christian (Spear Interview 19), but the Biblical influence on him is strong.
“The Dreamer” and “Idanre” refer to Christ, and Joseph and Potiphar’s wife of Genesis
are the subject of “Joseph” in A Shuttle in the Crypt. “Easter” in ldanre is based on a
Christian concept. In “the lone figure” poems of Idanre, Christ is the archetype of the
lonely and prophetic individual unacknowledged until after his death. The poet himself
is a Christ figure in “Journey.” The many references to bread, as in “Ikeja, Friday, Four
O’Clock” (ldanre) and “Relier’ (A Shuttle in the Crypt), are related to Christ’s feeding
multitudes with a few loaves of bread. He uses wine in “Journey” with a Biblical
undertone. Besides, “Usurpers hand my cup at every / Feast a last supper” (Shuttle 85)
has Christ’s last supper with his apostles as its source. “Space” subtly alludes to Noah’s
ark, and Lazarus is mentioned in “Seed.” The poet also alludes to Herod and Elijah in
A Shuttle in the Crypt. Lamenting the destruction in his country, the poet says
“tares/Withhold possession of our mangled lawns” (63), an apparent reference to one
of Christ’s parables.
Soyinka has doses of both traditional African and Judeo-Christian religions
which come out in his work now and then. Judeo- Christianity affords him materials for
allusions and metaphors, and does not appear as a force against which he struggles,
unlike Okigbo, Awoonor, and Okot p’Bitek; he does not satirize Christianity. His
absorptive personality blends the Christian tradition into his being. Religious words
such as canonization, martyr, saint, and baptism appear in the poems to broaden and
universalize the experiences the poet attempts to convey.
The curriculum of the English departments at the Universities of Ibadan and
Leeds in Soyinka’s undergraduate days would have included Shakespeare and the
Elizabethans, the metaphysical poets, Jacobean dramatists, and twentieth-century
writers such as W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and James Joyce.
If my own studies in the English department at Ibadan some dozen years later are a
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reflection, a bachelor’s program in English would have made Soyinka intimate with
major British and a few American writers. Soyinka has also taught literature at Lagos,
Ibadan, and lle- Ife, and this would have exposed him to many literary figures and
schools.
The poet’s knowledge of Western literatures filters into his poetry, affecting his
technique, allusions, and literary concepts. His preface to Idanre is a variation of a
speech in Shakespeare’s Tempest. One of his archetypes is Hamlet, and in his poem
“Hamlet,” he makes reference to one of Macbeth’s speeches. Soyinka’s obsession with
death and violence seems Jacobean. Apart from the Yoruba tradition of satire, he may
have borrowed a leaf from the nee-classical tradition of Swift, Pope, and Dryden. He
has a poem, “Gulliver,” in which he likens his mistreatment by the Nigerian
establishment in the crisis years to Gulliver’s in Lilliput. And there is a Miltonian echo
in “ldanre.” Soyinka’s practice is that of the epic poet inspired by the muse-with him,
Ogun. He is spokesman for the black race in Ogun Abibima.ii. The elegies on Fajuyi,
Banjo, and Okigbo are reminiscent of Milton’s Lycidas.
“Every young man’s heart,” Malraux says, “is a graveyard in which are inscribed
the names of a thousand dead artists but whose only actual denizens are a few mighty,
often antagonistic, ghosts” (Bloom). Soyinka shares characteristics of the modernist
tradition, such as fragmentation and allusiveness, with Yeats, Pound, Eliot, and Joyce.
The early poems of Yeats were chants, and he makes use of Celtic myths and legends
of the Irish people. Soyinka himself has absorbed Yoruba incantatory rhythms. Two of
Yeats’s poems, “On a Political Prisoner” and “Prayer for My Daughter,” have a bearing
on Soyinka’s “Prisoner” and “Dedication.” Soyinka quotes Yeats in the third part of
Ogun Abibiman to convey his contradictory attitude toward violence. To Yeats violence
is negative; not so to Soyinka if it is the only means to defeat repression and racial
indignity. Soyinka’s difficulty, use of the objective correlative and persona, and
advocation of non-narcissism on the part of the poet are comparable to the modem
conventions of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. He is familiar enough with Pound apparently
to accuse Okigbo of regrouping Pound’s images around the oilbean and the nude spear
(“From a Common” 389). In “Flowers for my land,” where there is a waste land motif,
his “I do not/Dare to think these bones will bloom tomorrow” (62) echoes Eliot. There
is a subtle allusion to the Holy Grail legend in “Vault centre.” His density and use of
compound words appear Joycean. He wrote a poem, “Ulysses,” for his Joyce class, an
indication that he taught Ulysses and is familiar with Horner. He explores the quest
theme, alludes to Circe’s transformation of Ulysses’ companions to swine, and alludes
to Scylla and Charybdis. Soyinka’s “wine-centred waves” (29) and “swine-scented”
(28) in that poem are light variations of Homer’s description of the sea as “wine-dark
waves.” His “By Little Loving” is modelled on Thomas Blackburn and reveals an
awareness of contemporary British poetic trends.
Soyinka’s essays and creative work reveal a voracious reader of Western
literatures. Soyinka is an exception to the typical African intellectual whom Chinua
Achebe describes as reading a few uninspiring British novels (61-66). His passion for
drama brought him into contact with Greek and European dramatists. References to
Antigone, the Stygian mysteries, and Lethe are part of the classical culture underlying
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his work. The Greek dramatists (Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus) would
particularly have appealed to the Yoruba-raised poet because of their similar attitude
toward gods and tragedy. Hence his equating Yoruba gods to Greek gods and his
references to Dionysus and Prometheus are not surprising. Here is a ready synthesis of
African and European cultures in which the local is universalized and the universal
simultaneously localized.
The poet’s study, work, and travels have broadened his awareness. He uses
foreign seasons to express himself. He talks of “Sudden winter” in “Death in the Dawn”
and refers to autumn in “Massacre October ‘66.” These references give variation and
universal dimension to the poetry. His social observations in Britain inspired some of
his early poems: “Telephone Conversation,” “My Next-Door Neighbor,” “The
Immigrant,” and “And the Other Immigrant.” He has been to Holland, the United States,
West Germany, and Ghana, among other countries. During his sojourn in Ghana in the
mid-1970s he wrote Ogun Abibimaii, abibimaii being an Akan word for the land of
Black peoples. “Around Us, Dawning” and “Luo Plains” are travel poems. The travels
have given him fresh experiences and enriched his sensibility.
Two other possible influences on Soyinka’s poetry are his work in the theatre
and his relationship with his Nigerian literary colleagues J. P. Clark and Christopher
Okigbo. He spent eighteen months with the Royal Court Theatre as a play reader. He
founded the 1960 Masks in Nigeria. In addition to writing plays, he has directed and
taken part in many productions of his plays and in those of other writers. His practical
interest in the theatre may thus be responsible for the dramatic dialogue in “Telephone
Conversation,” the boasting of “Abiku,” and the stage comments in the early poems. He
describes the behaviour of government and prison officers in theatrical terms in
“Purgatory.”
Okigbo, Clark, and Soyinka were close colleagues at Ibadan and read poems to
each other. Soyinka’s “Abiku” seems to be in deliberate opposition to Clark’s “Abiku.”
Soyinka has a love-hate attitude toward Okigbo: He is not impressed by Okigbo’s
Heavensgate and Limits, as his sarcastic comments in The American Scholar (1963)
reveal. However, he praised him after his death. Some of the poems of A Shuttle in the
Crypt, especially “O, Roots!”, have the incantatory rhythm which characterizes
Okigbo’s poetry. Okigbo’s egocentricism may have driven Soyinka into distancing
himself from his subject. If these speculations on Soyinka’s relations to Clark and
Okigbo are valid, it means the poet’s contemporary colleagues inclined him to go in a
different direction in ideas and poetic concepts. In his opposite positions in relation to
Clark’s “Abiku” and Okigbo’s narcissism, Soyinka projects virile and valid alternatives.
The degrees of explicit Yoruba and Western influence vary in Soyinka’s poetry.
Apart from “Koko Oloro” and “Dedication,” which are based on Yoruba tradition, and
“the lone figure” poems and “Journey,” based on Western concepts, most other poems
combine African and Western features more subtly and unevenly. The Yoruba
influences help create the poet’s celebratory and critical voices. The Western influences
seem to be stronger in the contemplative poems. The Western poetic tradition is behind
the poet’s use of formal stanzas and rhymes. The special appeal of compound words,
epithets, possessives, metaphors, personifications, alliterations, and repetitions can be
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attributed to a combination of Yoruba and European modernist influences. The Western
influences give his voice and viewpoint an intellectual accent.
But there is another aspect to Soyinka’s poetry. History, especially Nigerian, has
dictated the direction of Soyinka’s writing. Independence brought with it a sense of
nationalism which influenced the poet’s use of materials from his culture as he had not
done before in Britain. The Nigerian crisis and the poet’s imprisonment have also
affected his voice and viewpoint. The killings he describes in “Massacre October ‘66”
convinced him of the bestiality of maR. He describes the then military leader as selfish,
tyrannical, bloodthirsty, and hypocritical. The anti-Gowon poems are mainly satirical.
The voice of the poet in A Shuttle in the Crypt is somber due to the reality of experience.
In A Shuttle in the Crypt the poet is no longer an observer and witness who is sometimes
distant, as in the early poems and in Idanre, but is a victim. As he says in “Ulysses,”
practical experience is shocking, unlike toying with concepts:
It was a crystal cover on the world
A rake of thunders showered its
fragments To a slow dissolve in
hailstones, and I was
Held awhile to its truthfulness of transcience. (28)
It is out of this devastating experience that the poet gains insight. The increasingly dark
vision of the poet which develops up through A Shuttle in the Crypt does not preclude
positive lessons. The poet’s sense of history also gave birth to Ogun Abibiman, which
was inspired by Samora Machel’s declaration of war against the then minority-ruled
Rhodesia.
For Wole Soyinka, the Yoruba, Nigerian, and African as well as the Judeo-
Christian, Western literary and social influences are integrated into one confident
personality. There is no conflict in his use of indigenous and foreign materials and
techniques. Though the Western reader may be uneasy about the Yoruba myths and the
African may be tasked by the range of Soyinka’s allusions and modernist techniques,
the poems are an expression of an individual’s complex sensibility. The two main
sourcE3s of influences give variety and vitality to the poetry. The variety is not
indiscriminate but a unity-in-variety. There is tension between the unity and the variety,
a quality which gives vigour to the poetry. Like the Ogun he reveres, Soyinka in his
poetry is a fusion of polar qualities. He is at once modern and conservative. His
influences are blended into a new authenticity consonant with a native-culture-
conscious Nigerian intellectual who is Western-educated and widely travelled. Soyinka
acknowledges the “limited amount of originality in the creative ideas. Innovations have
a slightly larger scope but ultimately what we all do mostly is the renovation and
development of existing ideas” (qtd. in Omole 4). Soyinka’s influences do not make
him a less original poet; he is as original as any poet can be in the totality of his work.
3.2.2 Whole Soyinka and the Poetry of Isolation
Wole Soyinka’s reputation as a poet rests on two slender but highly organized
volumes, ldanre and Other Poems, a collection of poems written over eight years, and
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A Shuttle in the Crypt, consisting mostly of poems which Soyinka wrote in prison
(Ogungbesan, 1977). Both volumes bring out his preoccupation, familiar to readers of
his plays, especially The Strong Breed (1963), The Road (1965), Madmen and
Specialists (1971), and Death and the King’s Horseman (1975), with the meaning of
death and his anguish of the general lack of awareness within his society.
ldanre has perhaps done more than any play or novel to sustain the charge of “
obscurity” and “difficulty” usually levelled against Soyinka. In A Shuttle, the most
important artistic product of the Nigerian Civil War, Soyinka attempted a more direct
idiom and thereby produced poems of remarkable power and intensity. His subjects
have remained essentially unchanged, but in A Shuttle physical imprisonment adds a
new note of urgency and deeper anguish to Soyinka’s personal predicament and his
treatment of his themes, all of which are filtered through the sensibility of a poet in
confinement. “The landscape of the poems,” Soyinka himself says of his prison poems,
hinting at the most obvious-physical-type of isolation, “is not uncommon; physical
details differ, but finally the landscape of the loss of human contact is the same.” But
even before physical imprisonment made isolation an obvious denomination of his
poems, a deep sense of personal isolation had haunted Soyinka’s poetry.
Isolation as a motif is not peculiar to Soyinka’s poetry. Indeed, the sense of
personal isolation is one of the most obvious impressions conveyed by modern African
writing. To a large extent this derives from the general dilemma of the writer in modern
African society. Christopher Okigbo’s unforgettable lines seem to have permanently
established the writer’s dissociation from his milieu:
Then we must sing
Tongue-tied without name
or audience Making harmony
among the branches.
Wole Soyinka who, more than any other African writer, has been preoccupied with the
necessity for the writer to make an appropriate response to the politic al moment of his
society is well aware of this motif (Ogungbesan, 1977). In an address to other African
writers in 1967 he attempted to place the isolation of the contemporary African writer
in its historical perspective, tracing the development of modern African writing from
the united opposition during the colonial era to the present mood of disillusionment.
But Soyinka’s poetry demonstrates a unique response to the preoccupation with
alienation in modern African literature. After all, every artist has only himself to give
to his work. Soyink a, the poet, is more than the delegate of an era; he not only voices
the general dilemma of the modern African artist, but registers his own response to this
dilemma. “To be a poet,” he has written, “is presumably to be persuaded not only of the
inexhaustible poetry of the self, but to presume the even more transcendentalist view
that the poetic self is in itself inexhaustible.”
According to Ogungbesan (1977) view, Soyinka’s poetic self, especially his
sensitivity to the frustrations and tragedies of human life, isolates him from his fellow
men; furthermore, isolation is indispensable to the exploration of his life-theme, death.
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In words written from prison he has confirmed his own awareness of a disposition which
has influenced his poetry right from the beginning:
Thought is hallowed in
the lean Oil of solitude.
An examination of Soyinka’s poetry risks becoming a chronicle of the political crises
of his society. Soyinka’s belief that a poet fulfils himself fully only in action has meant
that he has been constantly forced to define the poet’s role within the changing
circumstances of his society. For example, his preoccu-pation with the reality of
everyday death reflects Soyinka’s gloom at the direction his society has taken
immediately after independence in 1960.
The first group of poems in ldanre, entitled “Of The Road,” supplements
Soyinka’s symbol of the Nigerian road in his play The Road as a death trap, over which
presides Ogun, the insatiable god of iron. Death is “the scrap-iron dealer.” The
relationship between life and death as an inexplicable irony is the theme of “Death in
the Dawn.” Soyinka, employing the dramatist’s technique, has set the desolate scene,
in a prefatorial note to the poem, a device he seldom uses in his poetry:
Driving to Lagos one morning a white cockerel flew out of the dusk and
smashed itself against my windscreen. A mile further I came across a motor
accident and a freshly dead man in the smash.
In spite of the sacrifice of the cockerel, “dawn’s lone trumpeter,” and the woman’s
prayer that her son “never walk/ When the road waits, famished,” Ogun claims “the
heavier meat” in the accident that follows. The grim irony, evinced by the title of the
poem, that dawn may be both the beginning and end of life, takes on a peculiarly grim
overtone when the poet transmutes the fate of the freshly dead man into the predicament
of the modern Man - victim of his own invention:
...such another Wraith!
Brother, Silenced in the
startled hug of
Your invention - is this
mocked grimace This closed
contortion - I?
Soyinka’s anguish, resulting from his self-identification with this lone victim, would
become deeper as the political crisis in Nigeria increased the number of victims. But it
was there right from the beginning, the latter harrowing tone suggested in the early
stages by such a “personal” poem as “In Memory of Segun Awolowo,” where Soyinka
mourns the death of a friend and age-mate. His feeling of personal loss, conveyed by
the phrase “my youth,” is matched by his personification of the death-dealing road:
The road, the aged
road Retched on this
fresh plunder Of my
youth.
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Death is a bad reaper: it plucks the unripe fruits first; “plunder” evokes the ravage that
has taken place. The whole of society, including the poet, is bewildered as it confronts
the plunder of this youth.
Soyinka deepens the mystery further in the group of poems entitled “Of Birth
and Death,” most of which portray the death of infants. Here he makes use of his
society’s belief in reincarnation to bring out his awareness of the cyclical pattern of
existence. “A First Deathday,” whose subject is the death of a child at about the time of
its first birthday, reaffirms the truth that in the midst of life we are in death: life and
death are knotted inextricably.
In “Abiku,” the most important of this group of poems, Soyinka, unlike J.P.
Clark in a poem of the same name, does not consider the abiku (literally “child-born-
to-die”) as belonging in the human world, and so does not try to reach it through human
emotions, not even pity; his creation casts a cold and mocking eye on human
endeavours. It is ageless, and a thing forever apart. Soyinka uses the abiku concept to
restate some of his basic ideas on life and death:
The ripest fruit was saddest;
Where I crept, the warmth was
cloying In silence of webs,
Abiku moans, shaping
Mounds from the yolk.
“The ripest fruit was saddest” most graphically conveys the idea that life, at its fullest,
is closest to death, as in the case of abiku who keeps the cycle going endlessly by
preparing for death and rebirth simultaneously. Abiku converts the egg-yolk, the
universal symbol of regeneration, to burial mounds.
Soyinka gives this idea natural reference in “Season” by likening human beings
to reapers waiting for the fruits of life to ripen, so that they can garner them and move
on to death, the fruit of life at its most mature. “Rust is ripeness” the poem opens, in
what must certainly be one of the most economical statements in poetry, and concludes
with what should be our attitude to this harvest of life:
Now, garnerers we
Awaiting rust on tassels, draw
Long shadows from the dusk,
wreath Dry thatch in wood-
smoke. Laden stalks Ride the
germ’s decay- we await
The promise of the rust.
The poet posits our fear of death as the best evidence of our fear to live fully, and bids
us to accept the fact of death, indeed to earn our death by confronting with passion the
enigma of life. We are asked to accept the fact of corruption and decay as a part of life,
and from there live fully in order to justify our death. We are responsible to life; it is a
road we should negotiate as nobly as possible in order to deserve fully “the promise of
the rust”:
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Let us love all things of grey;
grey slabs grey scalpel, one
grey sleep and form grey
images.
Grey is the dominant colour in Idanre, showing Soyinka’s abiding interest in that
transitional period between life and dissolution. The group of poems entitled “grey
seasons” details the poet’s anguish at the wave of political violence that has engulfed
his society. In the title poem, Soyinka uses the myth of Ogun’s pilgrimage to Ireto warn
his countrymen of the dire consequences of this self-inflicted violence. Ogun had been
persuaded against his will by the elders of Ire to forsake his abode in the heights and
lead their people in war; but “drunk with wine and blinded by gore,” he devoured his
own men. The poet, Ogun’s devotee, anticipates the trend of violence in contemporary
Nigeria and warns:
To bring a god to supper is devout, yet
A wise host keeps his distance till
The Spirit One has dined his full. What mortal
Brands a platter with an awesome name,
Or feeds him morsels choice without
Gauntlets of iron. A human feast
Is indifferent morsel to a god.
Soyinka’s warning is addressed to the people of Nigeria who, by so casually unleashing
violence on their land, have let loose a weapon which they would not be able to control.
At Ire when Ogun finally stayed his own hand, it was “to late for joy”; for mortals, truth
always dawns too late.
Too late came warning that a god
Is still a god to men, and men
are one When knowledge
comes, of death.
The depth of Soyinka’s emotion in this season of violent death in his society badly flaws
most of the poems in “Grey Seasons.” The simple titles of such poems as “Night” and
“Fado Singer” reveal very little of the depth of anguish which they attempt to plumb,
laying the poet open to the charge of deliberately courting obscurity. “Malediction” is
perhaps the worst example, but Soyinka’s heap of curses on a woman who rejoices at
these wanton killings reaches the height of absurdity, resulting in an ineffective poem
in spite of its gargantuan emotions, shrill to the point of incoherence:
a sky of scab-blacked tears glut but
never slake
Those lips
crossed in curse corrugations thin
slit in spittle silting
and bile-blown tongue
pain plagued, a mock man plug wedged
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in waste womb-ways
a slime slug slewed in sewage.
Soyinka’s grief for the Ibos massacred in Northern Nigeria alienates him from his
society; his deep sensitivity makes him indignant to the lack of awareness which enables
most Nigerians to ease through the crisis without being disturbed by their fellow
countrymen’s suffering. In a poem significantly - and, in the light of later events,
prophetically - entitled “Prisoner,” Soyinka seems to have accepted this isolation as the
inevitable consequence of his tragic sensitivity:
He knew only
Sudden seizure. And time conquest Bound
him helpless to each grey essence. Nothing
remained if pains and longings Once, once set
the walls; sadness
Closed him, rootless, lacking cause.
All the poems written at this period show Soyinka’s hurt that his way of looking at the
situation is unshared by the vast majority of his countrymen. In “Ikeja, Friday, Four
O’clock,” for example, he pities as mere fodder Federal troops bound for the war front,
extends the imagery of the harvest, so pervasive in his works, to portray the impending
death of these soldiers as the harvest of anger, a feast devoid of rejoicing:
Unbidden offering on the lie of altars
A crop of wrath when hands retract and reason falters.
This is a wasteful sacrifice, for their death would have no meaning, like the death of the
thousands of Ibos who had been murdered in the North. “Now the sun moves to die at
mid-morning,” Soyinka laments in another poem, “Harvest of Hate,” where he
compares the purposelessness of death in Nigeria with what might have been, in a true
harvest:
There has been such a crop in time of growing
Such tuneless noises when we longed for sighs
Alone of petals, for muted swell of wine•buds In
august rains, and singing in green spaces.
That sensitivity to the frustrations and tragedy of human life which inescapably
alienated Soyinka from most of his countrymen also produced some of his best poems.
When in 1966, his mind reeling under the horror of the killing of the Ibos Soyinka
sought refuge outside Nigeria, he turned to poetry for its therapeutic effect, in an attempt
to exorcise despair by the rigorous discipline of art. This impulse produced “Massacre:
October ‘66,” the best poem in ldanre, certainly the most closely textured and best
integrated. Composed in Tegel, a residential area of Berlin, it was an attempt to gauge
the depth of the poet’s anguish by recording his awareness of external nature:
Shards of sunlight touch me here
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Shredded in willows. Through stained-glass
Fragments on the lake I sought to reach
A mind at silt-bed
The lake stayed cold
I swam in an October flush of dying leaves The
gardener’s labour flew in seasoned scrolls
Lettering the wind
Swept from painted craft
A mockery of waves remarked this idyll sham I
trod on acorns; each shell’s detonation Aped the
skull’s uniqueness.
However, even thousands of miles from Nigeria, the poet remained at loggerheads with
his environment, the persistent reiteration of “I” pointing out his subtraction from the
landscape. His German haven was no haven at all, for everything around reminded
Soyinka of that disaster from which he had sought to escape: the dying but
uncontrollable leaves which mock the gardener’s labours, the wavelets on the lake
which “remarked this idyll sham,” the acorns which responded like shells to the poet’s
tread and reminded him of death, and, finally, the Nazi pogrom against the Jews, so
similar to the Hausa massacre of Ibos. With his deep sensitivity Soyinka could not find
succour anywhere.
I borrow seasons of an alien land
In brotherhood of ill, pride of race around me
Strewn in sunlit shards. I borrowed alien lands
To stay the season of a mind.
Neither voluntary exile in Germany not subsequent imprisonment by the Nigerian
Government provided Soyinka with any safeguard against the anguish of death as civil
war raged in Nigeria. In prison Soyinka identified with the collective tragedy of his
society and produced movingly powerful poems whose austere clarity reflected not only
the barren landscape of gaol but represented the poet’s deep-seated need to establish
rapport with his society. In “Flowers for my Land,” he used the title of a protest song
against American involvement in Vietnam to condemn wastage all over the world, and
conveyed the pain of loss, national and personal, by suggesting what was needed and
then following with what had happened:
Seeking:
Voices of rain in sunshine Blue
kites on ivory-cloud Towers
Smell of passing hands on mountain flowers
I saw:
Four steel kites, riders On
shrouded towers Do you
think
Their arms are spread to scatter mountain flowers?
This is verbal economy at its most fruitful. Soyinka has made use of the same words in
the two stanzas, yet the effects are totally different, in fact opposite. Nature sows
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flowers, human beings sow death; rain, the work of nature, nourishes the flowers, but
man-made bombs kill human beings. The kites have become bombers, and death is all
over Nigeria, even within the prison walls.
In the group of poems entitled “Chimes of Silence,” which Soyinka claims forms
the core of A Shuttle, the atmosphere reeks of death. “Wailing Wall,” according to the
poet, was so named, “because it overlooks the yard where a voice cried out in agony all
of one night and died at dawn, unattended.” The constant hymns and prayers of the
inmates are “matched only by the vigil of crows and vultures,” birds of ill-omen whose
presence the poet turns into a frightening picture of doomsday. All the prisoners are
“the living dead” in this “link of all bereaved.” The grey colours return anew, in fact
have visibly darkened, and more poignantly foretell of death.
Pale bats at twilight
Rank incense to
efface the sun A
dark of shifting
shadows Vapours of
the purple paste Of
sunset.
Soyinka returns with a new urgency to his exploration of the meaning of death when he
examines the fate of the five prisoners condemned to death. “Procession,” which opens
with the ominous words: “Hanging day,” records the journey of the men as they walk
with their manacled feet, with a rhythm most harrowingly conveyed by a skilful use of
onomatopoeia: “Tread. Drop. Dead. Drop. Dead” The poet alone of his fellow prisoners
claims kindred with them; like them he “had journeyed far from the present.” Yet,
although he empathizes totally with these victims, Soyinka postulates, in what has since
become the kernel of another play, Death and the King’s Horse man, that the final
recognition in the face of death must be that of the self, to be achieved alone. “This is
the last turning on the road,” he repeats in “Last Turning,” a poem dedicated to “the last
among the five” condemned men:
This is the last turning of
the road Around this rock
face, self-Encounters self,
turn pilgrim now Into
soul’s kingdom.
The image of the road, an obvious link with Soyinka’s play of that name, symbolizes
his continuing recognition (as in the case of the Professor’s quest in the play) of
mankind’s longing for intimations of immortality. What lies beyond the veil of death?
“Recession,” like The Road, provides an answer, of a sort. In the poem Soyinka attempts
to register “the consoling experience of man in the moment of death, the freeing of his
being from the death of the world.” When a man dies to this world and wakes into the
“black dawn” of the next, “to a dark of insight,” he discovers alone the secret of death:
a spring is touched by
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appointed fingers and
whirlwinds fold into the dark
a glacier mind of all-
being slows to a last
enduring thought
a deadweight seal of
silence sways upon the
secret - at this wake
none keeps vigil. none.
The hurt of loneliness pervades Soyinka’s poetry. At the beginning of his poetic career,
he sometimes shows this hurt by open statements, as in “Song: Deserted Markets” and
“By Little Loving” where he dwells on the dangers of physical and emotional
estrangement, portraying himself as a seed which does not come to fruition because it
lacks the nourishment that comes from contact with a kindred soul. These are really
poor poems. Even “By Little Loving” the most successful in this group of poems,
demands attention mainly for its autobiographical information: as an account in the
poet’s life when, acting from a nihilistic impulse, he attempted to flee from the pains of
life by shunning companionship. Yet, as he himself is forced to admit, isolation does
not provide a refuge from pain:
By little spending once I had built
A hoard of peace, yet wondered at the hurt.
At the end, the instinctive outflow of his passion, “Bursting from within,” redeemed
him from the spiritual prison where he had been slowly dying, “phoenix of each pyre
forestalled.”
Soyinka is even less successful when, through the use of inverted emphasis, he
attempts to show the burden of isolation. Perhaps because the pain of isolation is so
palpable to him, he fails to prove that the best way to portray the paralysing effects of
solitude is to show the boundless joy and fruitfulness of communion. “Psalm,” “Her Joy
is Wild,” and “Bringer of Peace” are songs of joy which examine the theme of mutual
affection between man and woman, the frustrations where affection is missing, and the
joy and potentialities where the two hearts are allowed to reach out to each other without
restrictions.
Yet, in spite of their unconvincing emotions, these poems demonstrate Soyinka’s
gift for vivid imagery. “Psalm” proclaims the fruition that has taken place between two
lovers, by drawing an analogy between the woman and nature:
the seeds have ripened fast
my love and the milk is
straining at the pods the
ever-eager thought is
chaste
at the ruin of your corn-
stalk waist swaddling’s of
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my gratitude
sit within your plenitude.
The suggestion of a bursting ripeness finds an apt image in the comparison of the
woman’s shape to the cornstalk. Soyinka evokes surprise by extending a stock poetic
image – mother nature: pregnancy has disfigured the woman just as the cornstalk is bent
by the weight of the fruit. Because the union between the poet and his mistress has come
to fruition, the two lovers have lost their individualities, and now exist in each other:
they represent the continuum of life, “threads of ever linking rings” which are rooted in
earth and yet “yield” to light.
Soyinka, so deeply aware of the hurt of isolation, was particularly endangered
by imprisonment. “Among so many other things,” he has testified in The Man Died,
the anguish of being in prison is also a deep need to communicate with one’s
fellow human beings. It is a need that suffocates one at times.
Such poems as “To the Madmen over the Wall” and “Procession” show Soyinka casting
about for communion with his kind. Even in “Vault Centre,” “Space” and “Seed” where
he dramatizes the freedom and gregariousness of birds, “standard bearers of twilight”
and “pride of sky-order,” he is commenting on his own situation - earthbound, alone,
inactive and devoid of belief. “I testify,” he has affirmed, “to the strange, sinister,
byways of the mind in solitary confinement, to the strange monsters it begets.” Forced
to acknowledge his vulnerability to succumb to all sorts of corruption and temptation
Soyinka pleads for strength in “O Roots !” an invocation to “earth” the poet’s being in
the elements. The poem ends with Soyinka cursing himself in case his will fails and he
succumbs to these failings.
In spite of his political awareness Soyinka in his earliest poems did not
demonstrate any particular ideological commitment. The belief in socialism which
became marked in the works he produced after his release from detention. especially in
“Poems of Bread and Earth” and in his second novel. Season of Anomy (1973), was
originally expressed in poetry simply as sympathy for the rejects of the earth, who were
usually portrayed as solitary beings over-burdened with anguish and yet lacking support
from their fellow human beings.
The hunchback of Dugbe, in the poem of that name, is completely isolated from
his countrymen, and wanders alone around the city of Ibadan, the poet being the only
person to bother about him.
I wondered always
where He walked
at night, or lay
Where earth might
seem
Suddenly in labour when he sighed.
When the hunchback is fatally run over by a cement mixer and becomes another victim
of man’s progress, the poet is not only relieved that the latter’s mad wanderings are
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over, but sees the hunchback as transfigured at death beyond the concerns of this world.
Instead of his physical ugliness, the hunchback is now “beyond ugliness or beauty”; no
more his tattered existence, he now walks in ghostly “motley,” nakedness. Yet, he
remains a lonely wanderer, and as a ghost haunts his old scenes.
Soyinka’s sympathy is even more highlighted by the preponderance of women
among his outcast s (“The Last Lamp,” “A Cry in the Night,” “Black Singer” and “To
One in Labour”) and the dramatic power with which he conveys their anguish. In “A
Cry in the Night,” the most visually rendered of these poems, a bereaved mother acts
out her inconsolable grief within a completely antagonistic universe.
As who would
break Earth,
grief
In savage pounding,
moulds Her forehead
where she kneel s. No
stars caress her
keening The sky
recedes from pain
Nor will this night dark
Shield her.
The poet here obeys the first rule in art - tact. The woman’s anguish is all the more
powerfully dramatized by its not being verbalized; she merely beats her forehead
against the ground, without uttering a word. Her isolation is total; she has been deprived
of her baby and even of comfort from the elements: the sky recedes from her, and there
are no stars. Finally she alone has to bury the child.
The political figures whom Soyinka celebrates are also lone sufferers, men of
vision who had lived largely in their dreams, although they invariably dreamt of a grand
design that would benefit the whole society and lift the people from their spiritual
morass. A visionary is inevitably an isolated figure, for the process of dreaming is
perforce personal. The visionary lives, as he dreams, alone. President Julius Nyerere of
Tanzania is singled out among African leaders for his socialist policies, which the poet
extols. Like the poet, Nyerere is intent on the “trade of living,” for his policy is aimed
at rejuvenating the whole earth.
Your black earth hands
unchain Hope from death
messengers, from In-bred
dogmanoids that prove
Grimmer than the Grim
Reaper, insatiate Predators on
humanity, their fodder.
Sweat is leaven, bread,
Ujamaa Bread of the
earth, by the earth
For the earth. Earth is all people.
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By contrast Soyinka condemns Nigerian leaders and their foreign capitalist backers, for
their lack of social conscience. His celebration of Adekunle Fajuyi, Victor Banjo and
Christopher Okigbo - all of them dead - was meant to point out the dearth of men of
vision in his own country. Fajuyi, the first Military Governor of Western Nigeria, was
a soldier and thus a man of action whose sterling qualities were not fully revealed until
“the stress of storms.” He was a sacrifice - for Nigerian unity - so someone set apart, as
were Okigbo, Banjo, George Jackson, “And All, All, All,” all men of vision. Soyinka
compares his own fate with that of Okigbo, friend and fellow-poet, who died on the war
front:
Yet kinder this, than a spirit seared
In violated visions and truths immured
Eternal provender for Time
Whose wings his boundless thoughts would climb.
Soyinka would have preferred to die like Okigbo, satisfied that his self could confront
self without shame, than live to see his vision tarnished by disillusionment and having
to endure the corroding disappointment of seeing his sacrifice violated. Unlike J. P.
Clark who in his tribute, “Death of a Weaverbird,” saw Okigbo’s death as Nemesis, to
Soyinka it was a heaven-sent act of mercy which saved the dead poet from a worse fate.
The death of this man of vision is a national loss, leaving his society “as blank a slate/As
eyelids on the wall of fate.” Similarly, instead of sharing the prevalent opinion in
Nigeria that Banjo’s death was a just retribution for the part he played in the January
1966 coup and the subsequent civil war, Soyinka considers Banjo’s death a tragedy,
because be too had attempted to rejuvenate the earth.
He wondered in a
treasure-house Of
inward prizes, strove to
bring Fleeting messages
of time
To tall expressions, to granite
arches Spanned across
landslides of the past
Even in the blind spoliation,
amidst Even the harrying of
flames, he wished To
regulate the turn of hours
He lit the torch to a summons
Of the great procession - and, what of it?
What of it if thus he died
Burnt offering on the altar of fears?
Soyinka’s feeling of isolation has its deepest roots in his conception of the poet as
possessing sources of inspiration and insight lacking in the generality of his society.
The artist figure, a common protagonist in his major works, invariably appears as the
Messianic figure who suffers for his vision. “The Dreamer,” the first in a group of
poems called “Lone Figure” opens:
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Higher than trees a
cryptic crown Lord of the
rebel three
Thorns lay on a sleep
of down And myrrh;
a mesh
Of nails, of flesh
And words that flowered free.
In spite of the hint in the last line that the visionary’s suffering will not be in vain,
emphasised later in the poem by “bitter pods gave voices birth,” it is the suffering that
is most palpably felt and conveyed.
In “Easter,” another exploration of the theme of poetic isolation, the messianic
artist, a “god-apparent,” is rejected by his society, in spite of his self-appointed task to
heal its wounds. The poet as sacrifice, the “One bough to slake the millions,” forsakes
society’s preoccupation with the trivia of life, doggedly pursues his chosen path,
although he remains unrecognized by his society. Within the pattern of the poem’s
metaphor society celebrates Easter but does not feel concerned about rebirth, because
the people are afraid of suffering:
Do we not truly fear to bleed?
We hunt Pale tissues of the
palm, fingers groping Ever
cautious on the crown.
The belief that the poet should suffer, if necessary, to bring awareness to his society
informs Soyinka’s longest poem, “Idanre,” cast in the form of a quest, in the familiar
pattern of the cycle of the heroic monomyth - Departure, Initiation, and Return. In his
quest for the true poetic essence, Soyinka, “the lonely seeker,” follows in the footsteps
of Ogun, the Yoruba creative god, and becomes simultaneously a companion to and
devotee of the “Outcast Deity.” Ogun was the only god until Atunda his slave rolled a
boulder on the godhead and “shred the kernel to a million lights.” The assertive act of
Atunda is glorified as leading to the diversity which is the essence of living, rather than
the uniformity of death:
It will be time enough, and space,
when we are dead To be a spoonful of
the protoplasmic broth
Cold in wind-tunnels, lava flow of
nether worlds Deaf to thunder
blind to light, comatose
In one omni-sentient cauldron
Time enough to abdicate to astral tidiness
The all in one, superior
annihilation of the poet’s
Diversity...
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By reaffirming the poet’s diversity Soyinka is simultaneously warning every artist and
his society not to annihilate the poetic essence by subduing the artist’s individuality.
The celebration of Atunda lifts his action from betrayal to a divine creation:
All hail Saint Atunda, first
revolutionary Grand
iconoclast at genesis.
Thus Soyinka exalts the individual who singly sets out to redeem his society. Analogous
to Atunda, the former slave who becomes a god, the poet, the lonely visionary, ceases
to be an outcast and becomes a divine, the conscience of his society.
Let each seek wisdom where
he can, life’s Puppetry creaks
round me hourly
Trunks and motions in
masquerades grotesques Post-
mortem is for quacks and
chroniclers Who failed at
divination.
Soyinka, as a visionary poet, opts for that journey into himself instead of into the past,
in his quest for the truth that will redeem his society. His obsessive assertion of the
superiority of vision provides Soyinka’s main dramatization of the subjective isolation
of the individual. The belief that one possesses an inner light inevitably leads to
isolation. In the nineteenth century Romantic poets the same conviction caused joy
rather than uneasiness. But in Soyinka, faced with “the very collapse of humanity” in
the twentieth century, the perennial sense of difference seems to have created the exact
opposite of “joyous optimism.”
Is Soyinka a pessimist? This familiar charge, first made with the publication of
his first major play, A Dance of the Forests (1963), and constantly repeated since, would
be difficult to sustain on the basis of his poetry alone - until the monotonous life in
prison, “yielding nothing but past and future evidence of the unchanging nature of
humanity,” infused into his poetry the awareness, evident in his plays, of the
unbreakable cycle of tyranny. Soyinka was very alert to the corrosive dangers of
pessimism in his physical isolation in prison, yet he found it difficult to avoid
pessimistic conclusions when in two key poems, “Conversation at Night with a
Cockroach” and “When Seasons Change,” he attempted to fit the happenings in his own
country within the general historical pattern of mankind.
In “Conversation” the poet, dogged in his quest for truth, pits his wit against that
of the cockroach, an insect symbolizing the destructive principle. In spite of Soyinka’s
spirited condemnation, as “stale deception” and “blasphemer’s consolation,” the
cockroach’s attempt to justify the killing of the Ibos as a necessary sacrifice, an
indispensable rite of regeneration, it is the cockroach that triumphs at the end:
A little stone
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Disgorged its tenant. The
cockroach Spread his wings
in a feeble sun
And rasped his saw-
teeth. A song Of
triumph rose on
deadened air A feeler
probed the awful silence
Withdrew in foreknowing contentment -
All was well. All
was even As it was
in the beginning.
This conclusion, which is the kernel of Soyinka’s play, Madmen and Specialists (1971),
is his admission that events in Nigeria fit into the universal cyclic pattern of destruction.
It is not possible [he said after his release from prison], to look at the event s
which surround one’s life without constantly seeing in the background the
mocking grin of history. There is something depressing about the
repetitiousness of history.
Soyinka takes this awareness a stage further in “When Seasons Change” where, by
posing the seasonal variations against his own unchanging status in prison and the
permanence of history, he admits that the great truths of life never change.
...it is an old earth
Stirring to fresh touch of old
pretensions Throbs of dead
passion, chilled rebounds
From sensations of the past, old hands and voices
The blows of battle and the scars,
old fences And cold betrayal, old
sacrifices
The little victories and the
greater loss Thus, purity of
ideals, clarity of vision,
And oh, let innocence have brief
mourning - Old compromises.
The monotonous reiteration of “old” in a poem about changes in seasons points
the poet on the road to despair. But although he asks us to grieve - “Shed your hard
tears” - he counsels against despair, by insisting:
Yet this progression has been
source For great truths in spite
of stammering Planes for
great building in spite
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Of crooked sights, for plastic
strength Despite corrosive
fumes of treachery and spirits
grow despite the midwifery
Of dwarfs; spires, rooted in
quagmires Of the human mind
rise to purer lights And wing
aloft a salvaged essence
Transcending death, legacy of seasons...
This resolution is understandable, is even necessary, if the imprisoned poet is to
overcome the worst rigours of isolation and continue living. Yet it is not this somewhat
belated note of affirmation that lingers after reading A Shuttle, nor even the brief
optimism of “Seed,” a poem about growth and a new beginning, where Soyinka
reaffirms the poet’s “trade of living” by invoking the miracle of Lazarus who rose from
the dead. Unlike the old prophets, however, Soyinka claims to have come, not to spread
a message of doom, but the word for a new beginning, of growth not destruction; he is
the spirit of the harvest:
I speak in the voice of gentle rain
In whispers of growth
In the sleight of light...
I wait on the
winnowing run. Of
breezes, on songs
gathered
To green ears
in a field of sap
I wait on footpads of the rain.
Soyinka himself considered the charge of pessimism serious enough to merit a
rejoinder. In an interview after his release from detention he said:
Expressions of pessimism where they crop up are simply a statement of truth
which grows from a particular situation, but they do not mean acceptance of
that situation. They do not preclude challenge.
However, there is more to it than this. Soyinka himself realizes the painfulness of his
viewpoint; and his feeling of alienation, besides leading to anxieties and self-doubt,
creates in him an urgent desire to find some palliative for tragic sensitivity. Soyinka,
because of his deep sensitivity, rejects resignation as a possible way out of his isolation,
yet because of his unflinching honesty to his experience, he cannot, like the Romantic
poets, sing of the joy of vision. His belief in the superiority of the visionary imagination
is severely tested by the dangers to the man of vision himself, dangers which Soyinka
knows from personal experience and the fate of such visionaries as Okigbo, Fajuyi and
Banjo. Soyinka never tries to escape from the fact that fidelity to the dream leads the
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visionary to danger and disaster; rather he accepts the suffering and even disaster
inherent in his exalted position.
In his examination of the fate of revolutionaries through the ages, using such
archetypes as Joseph, Hamlet, Gulliver and Ulysses, Soyinka attempts to define his own
role within his society. All visionaries draw their ancestry from Joseph, for they pursue
truth, interpret dreams and put their faith in the future. Yet Soyinka rejects Joseph’s
saintly halo; instead of waiting for “time’s slow unfolding,” he feels he must take a
direct hand in changing conditions. Caged and powerless, Soyinka would rather be “a
cursing martyr” than time’s eunuch, like Joseph. He also rejects the role of Hamlet,
another Ione dreamer whose determination was racked by doubt, the fear of committing
a greater error than the one he was attempting to right. During Hamlet’s long anguish,
“Justice despaired,” and it took the enormity of treachery upon treachery to force him
to act in the end.
The poem entitled “Gulliver” is both an explanation of and a justification for the
role Soyinka had played in the Nigerian crisis, portraying himself, the man of vision, as
truly a giant among the Nigerian Lilliputians. Having consented to operate in the world
of little men, not for favour or reward, but “content in civic duty done,” Soyinka now
laments that the result has been a dimming of his own original vision. Ironically, the
leaders of Nigeria plotted to reward him for his services by depriving him of his eyes,
his vision.
The fault is not in ill-will but
in seeing ill The drab-horse
labours best with blinkers We
pardon him to lose his sight to
a cure Of heated needles, that
proven cure for all
Abnormalies of view –
foresight, insight
Second sight and all solecisms of
seeing-called vision.
The poet finds satisfaction in the role of Ulysses. The poem, “Ulysses,” subtitled “notes
from here to my Joyce class,” contains the lesson Soyinka would want to pass on to
future generations. The poet must remain the eternal voyager, in spite of the dangers
inherent in the quest; the poetic spirit must forever be restless and questioning, should
never accept resignation. “Journey,” a much shorter poem, makes the point more
economically:
I never feel I have arrived,
though I come To journey’s
end. I took the road
That loses crest to questions, yet
bears me Down the other
homeward earth. I know My
flesh is nibbled clean, lost
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To fretful fish among the
rusted hulls - I passed them
on my way
And so with bread and wine
I lack the sharing with defeat and dearth
I passed them on my way.
I never feel I have arrived
Though love and welcome
snare me home Usurpers hand
my cup at every
Feast a last supper.
Soyinka does not find any consolation in the personal world of the dream into which
the beacons of the quest constantly takes him, away from the present. He is too honest,
too faithful to his own experience, to idealize the dream world over the world of reality.
Rather, he postulates in “Ulysses” that as visionary he has found a way out of his tragic
isolation by establishing moral and spiritual communion with the rest of mankind on
behalf of whom he dares and suffers so much:
We embrace,
The world and I in great infinitudes.
I grow into that portion of the
world Lapping my feet, yet
bear the rain of nails That drill
within to the archetypal heart
Of all Ione wanderers. (Ogungbesan, 1977)
3.2.3 Themes and Techniques of “Abiku” by Wole Soyinka
The thematic and stylistic forms deployed in a poem by Nigeria’s foremost poet,
Wole Soyinka, will be considered. By the end of the lecture you should be able to
discuss the use of tradition in the poem and identify the traditional techniques used in
the poem.
Wole Soyinka is one of Black Africa’s most distinguished writers. A foremost
dramatist, actor, producer, poet and author of a number of satirical reviews, is also a
bitter critic of the Nigerian society. A prolific writer he has published fifteen plays and
a number of skits. He has also published three volumes of poetry, Idanre and Other
Poems, A Shuttle in the Cryptand Ogun Abibima and an anthology Poems of Black
Africa. Like Okigbo, he too was educated at University College Ibadan before he left
for Leeds. Soyinka often explores human themes in his poems through his cultural
milieu. He has won many international prizes including the Nobel Prize for Literature
in 1986. Abiku is both interesting and intriguing. The poet, among other things,
expresses his culture consciousness in the poem. Now read his poem “Abiku” below:
In vain your bangles cast
Charmed circles at my feet;
I am Abiku, calling for the first
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And the repeated time.
Must I weep for goats and cowries

For palm oil and the sprinkled ash?
Yams do not sprout in amulets
To earth Abiku’s limb’s
So when the snail is burnt in his shell

Whet the heated fragment, brand me
Deeply on the breast. You must know him
When Abiku calls again.
I am the squirrel teeth, cracked

The riddle of the palm. Remember
This, and dig me deeper still into
The god’s swollen foot.
Once and the repeated time ageless

Though I puke. And when you pour
Libations, each finger points me near
The way I came, where
The ground is wet with mourning

White dew suckles flesh – birds
Evening befriends the spider, trapping
Flies in wind- froth;
Night, and Abiku sucks the oil

From lamps. Mothers! I’ll be the
Suppliant snake coiled on the doorstep
Yours the killing cry.
The ripest fruit was saddest;

Where I crept, the warmth was cloying.
In the silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping
Mounds from the yolk.
(Senanu and Vincent, 2001)
Soyinka’s Abiku seems to enjoy the anguish of the parents who are desperate to make
him live. In their desperation, they engage the services of various medicine men and
diviners who put “bangles” round his ankles, a kind of amulet “in vain”, useless, of no
consequence. He enjoys his status as Abiku: “I am Abiku, calling for the first/And the
repeated time”. In stanza 2 he makes the various rituals they perform to hold him down:
the goats they slaughter, the cowries they throw at crossroads, the palm oil they pour
and the ashes they sprinkle as part of the ritual. He wonders if they are supposed to
evoke his pity or make him weep. In stanza 3 he taunts the practice of cutting up the
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bodies of suspected Abiku. He urges them to sharpen their knives “And the repeated
time, brand me/Deeply on the breast”. When he is reborn they will know him by the
marks their knives have left on his body from the cuts they gave him from his early life.
He stresses the futility of their efforts “And when you pour libations, each finger points
me near/The way I came,” and reinforces it in the next stanza where he casts himself in
the image of a “Suppliant snake coiled on the doorstep” In that context the only option
a mother has is “the killing cry.” This means that the desperate efforts of the mother to
save her child will ironically amount to killing him. In the last stanza, he states that the
older he gets the more devastating is his departure. “The ripest fruit was saddest.” He
finds the love the parents show him to be “cloying” – sickeningly annoying. He
complaints silently while all the time devising how to convert life to death or a grave”…
shaping/Mounds from the yolk”. The “mounds” are the graves or death and “the yolk”
is the life-giving part of the egg. Abiku here is implacable; no effort of the parents can
alter his tragic destiny.
Abiku is the Yoruba word for a child that dies young to be reborn by the same
woman over and over again. Soyinka explores the myth and essence of the capricious,
elusive and tyrannical qualities of Abiku. The poem speaks of the uncontrollable cycle
of birth end early death, until the two ideas of birth and death unite in the paradox of
destruction of life only to beget life. The images are all drawn from Yoruba beliefs and
practices about abiku. The real meaning of the poem cannot be fully understood if one
is not conversant with the beliefs and practices of the Yoruba’s. Soyinka’s great quality
as a poet is his ability to distance an immediate experience through the selection and
deployment of expressive images.
Attempt a detailed analysis of some Soyinka’s poems other than “Abiku” that is
discussed here.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Soyinka’s elaboration of his theory of art, culture, and the individual in society
are the major features of his Myth, Literature and the African World. For Soyinka, the
lessons of history and individual or collective struggle are often encoded in mythology.
He demonstrated that African peoples have rich cultural traditions and systems of
knowledge that should be seen as alternatives to Euro-American traditions. As in his
use of Western literary forms to explore the particularity of Africa’s problems,
Soyinka’s theory shows his debt to two cultures—traditional Yoruba and Western
European. From Yoruba mythology, he chooses the god of iron and metallurgy, Ogun,
as the metaphor for artistic and technological creativity. By this choice, he makes Ogun
a symbol of the kind of spirit that black Africa, like all other cultures in the modern
world, requires to ensure spiritual health and social prosperity.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The rich Biography of Wole Soyinka
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• The unique features of Wole Soyinka’s Poetry
• Influences on Wole Soyinka’s poetry
• An analysis of the themes and Techniques employed in Wole Soyinka’s
“Abiku”
1) Discuss the Biography of Wole Soyinka.
2) What are the unique features of Wole Soyinka’s Poetry?
3) Discuss the influences on Wole Soyinka’s Poetry
4) With adequate citations from the poem analyse the themes and techniques of
“Abiku”.
Abimbola, W. (1973). Sixteen Great Poems of !fa. New York: UNESCO, 1971. Achebe,
Chinua. Morning Yet on Creation Day. Garden City: Anchor, 1975.
Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence. New York: Oxford UP.
Gibbs, J, (ed.) (1980). Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka. Washington DC: Three
Continents Press.
Jones, Eldred D. (1973) The Writing of Wole Soyinka, London: Heinemann.
Katrak, K. H. (1986). Wole Soyinka and Modern Tragedy, New York: Greenwood
Press.
Press
Nwankwo, C.(1990). “The Oral Foundations of Nigerian Written Poetry”. Literature
and Black Aesthetic, Ibadan: Heinemann.
Obasi, U. (1998). “Teaching of Poetry in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions”, Ganga,
Journal of Language & Literature, Unimaid, Vol.4, pp.37-48.
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Journal of African Studies/Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Vol. 11,
No. 2 (1977), pp. 295-312
Ojaide, T. (1988). “Two Worlds: Influences on the Poetry of Wole Soyinka”. Black
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1988), pp. 767-776.
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African Literature Conference. Ibadan, 11-15 July 1977.
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UNIT 3 THE POEMS OF CHRISTOPHER OKIGBO
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo
3.2 The Poetry of Christopher Okigbo
3.2.1 Themes and Techniques of “Come Thunder” by Christopher Okigbo
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Christopher Okigbo is recognized as one of the leading poets of the generation
of Nigerian writers, influenced by modernism, who came into prominence in the early
1960s. Okigbo’s ten-year writing career (1957–67) coincided with the last few years of
colonialism in Nigeria and the immediate post-independence period, which was brought
to an abrupt end by the civil war (1967–70), in which he was killed. His poetry thus
occupies a significant period in Nigerian history and captures the exhilarating times
associated with independence and nationalism by mirroring the new horizons opened
up by political freedom and the innovative and experimental cultural energies it
unleashed. The distinctive mark of Okigbo’s poetry is his ability to link personal
experiences to public themes in a highly sophisticated manner, to achieve a creative
synthesis of the inner, spiritual, and aesthetic realm and the outer, phenomenological,
and social domain. His poems are characterized by the search for a poetic idiom flexible
enough to contain the complex cultural forces that shaped those times and at the same
time prove an adequate medium for plumbing the subtle depths of personal experience.
By the time Heavensgate was published in 1962, it was clear that he had found the
solution in the artistic form of ritual, which allowed him ample scope for the interlinking
of diverse and fragmentary experiences and the objectification of subjective states and
feelings. Below are some of the objectives of this unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Discuss Christopher Okigbo’s bioghraphy.
• Explain the unique features of Okigbo’s poetry
• Examine the themes and techniques in Okigbo’s “Come Thunder”
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3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo
Christopher Okigbo was born in Ojoto, Anambra State, in 1932 and died in 1967.
He was a Nigerian Poet who died for the independence of Biafra. He is acknowledged
today as one of the outstanding postcolonial poets in the country. Within his short
lifetime, he established himself as a central figure in the development of written poetry
in Africa and as one of the most important African poets in English. He saw poetry as
a profession and was dedicated to this profession. Okigbo excelled more in sports than
in academics during his youth. He attended Government College, Umuahia, in the late
1940s, then went on to study Western classics at the University of Ibadan, where he
received his B.A. degree in 1956. After graduation from the university Okigbo held
various jobs in business and government. He taught in a secondary school from 1958 to
1960, and then worked in the library at the University of Nsukka, from 1960 to 1962
before becoming a representative for Cambridge University Press in West Africa.
Okigbo published his early poems in the University of Ibadan student publication
The Horn and the literary journals Black Orpheus and Transition. Some of these early
poems, later brought together as the “Four Canzones,” are regarded as apprentice pieces
which he was to exclude from his more mature poems collected in the volume
Labyrinths (1971). Nevertheless, these poems set the style, tone, and direction of his
later poetry. The predisposition to lyricism and lament, his endless ritualization of
experience, his predilection for musical accompaniment, and his striving to capture the
rhythms and cadences of specific musical instruments in his poems are all evident in
these early poems. In his introduction to Labyrinths (1971: London), Okigbo insisted
that though the “poems were written and published separately, they are, in fact,
organically related.” Indeed, the whole corpus of his poetry, beginning with the earlier
canzones to the unfinished “Path of Thunder,” sequence, can be read as one long poem
in which the central character, a poet-protagonist, journeys through a series of discrete
but inter-related experiences. This journey achieves episodic unity through the use of
the quest motif and the recurrence of particular images and symbols that give the entire
body of poems a mythic coherence. Though his entire poetic output is limited to the
poems collected in Labyrinths and a more inclusive edition Collected Poems, issued in
1986 by Heinemann, Christopher Okigbo is still regarded as Nigeria’s foremost poet.
(King, 1975)
With particular reference to his poetic compositions, provide a detail assessment of the
life of Christopher Okigbo.
3.2 The Poetry of Christopher Okigbo
The two collections of verse that appeared during Okigbo’s lifetime established
him as an innovative and controversial poet, although his poetry also appeared in the
important West African cultural magazines Black Orpheus and Transition. The two
collections—Heavensgate (1962) and Limits (1964)—reveal a personal, introspective
poetry informed by a familiarity with Western myths and filled with rich, startling
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images. In one of his poems, he sees Idoto as a goddess like the Muse who inspires him.
He returns to the goddess for poetic inspirations and his nakedness shows his total
surrender. Water is also a source of inspiration but the Christian religion and education
separates him from the goddess. The poem is in the African personality mode. He
intermingles Christianity and traditional images and feels that he needs to go back to
his traditional religion. As a writer he wears a mask which separates the artist in him
and his true person. Some critics refer to him as an obscure poet, his poetry is demanding
and allusive. It draws freely from the Roman Catholic religion of his family in Ojoto.
Okigbo maintained that his poetry should be viewed as an organic whole as it expressed
his coming of age as a poet.
Okigbo moved to the city of Enugu on the eve of the Nigerian civil war (1967-
1970), he set up a publishing house, Citadel Press with Nigerian novelist Chinua
Achebe. When war broke out Okigbo joined the Biafran forces, who sought to secede
from Nigeria and was commissioned as a major. In August 1967 he was killed in action
at Ekwegbe, near Nsukka. His last poems, published posthumously with much of his
earlier work in Labyrinths; with Path of Thunder (1971), shows a new focus on the
impending civil disturbance in his country.
An outstanding personality, Christopher Okigbo tells everyone not to be
Sconfined by their cultural, political, artistic, creative and humane limits. Chinua
Achebe refers to him as “the finest Nigerian poet of his generation as his work becomes
better and more in the world, he will be recognized as one of the most remarkable
anywhere in our time”. (Achebe ix).
Christopher Okigbo’s poetic career was short lived. His first publication was in
1962 and the last one in 1966. Within this very short period he composed and published
poems the poems though presented as separate entities, they are linked as they chronicle
the historical events in the country from the colonial period to the civil war.
In the poems, he presents his peoples cultural and historical experiences.
Romanus Egudu, opine that Okigbo’s poetry is distinct. It is characterized by an “artistic
excellence that is firmly rooted in his own indigenous cultural tradition” (60).
“Heavensgate” (1962) and “Limits” (1964) present the estrangement which the people
suffered as a result of their contact with the Europeans. However, Abdul Yesufu views
these collections from the ritualistic perspectives. He observes that they are
“…essentially ceremonial poems that celebrate, in turns, the fragmentation and
restoration of a psyche and the cultural matrixes within which it operates” These poems
are replete with “ritual utterances, symbols and movements” which present a picture of
“…a great preparation for and an engagement in a life journey undertaken in order to
recover the fragments of a person, of his people and of his culture” (236) The dilemma
of some people who could not reconcile their alliance to the traditional religion and
Christianity is therefore highlighted.
He presented the Christian foreign missionaries as birds of prey that swooped on
the traditional gods and destroyed them. He presents his return to his cultural roots in
an attempt to fuse his dismembered identity together. He sees himself as a prodigal son
who returns to seek fogginess and reunification with his family and community. In the
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traditional society, such return is steeped in a ritual that is expected to cleanse him and
set him free from the taints of the foreign culture. He therefore announces:
BEFORE YOU, Mother Idoto,
naked I stand;
before your watery presence,
a prodigal”( 3)
In “Silences” (1963 – 1965) he presents the politics of the post independent Nigeria that
was characterized with rigging, confusion and purposelessness which led to the
disillusionment of the people. His poem “The Path of Thunder” depicts the military
coup of 1966 in Nigeria which he applauded and foretells the civil war and consequence
of the coup. His prophesy became a reality as the crisis after the coup culminated in the
civil war of 1967 in Nigeria. Unfortunately, he was killed in that coup.
3.2.1 Themes and Techniques of “Come Thunder” by Christopher Okigbo
Christopher Okigbo is an erudite Nigerian poet. The theme and poetic techniques
used in his poem “Come Thunder” will be analysed. This is done to enable you discuss
the theme as expressed in the poem and to enumerate and discuss the use of traditional
poetic devices by the poet. Christopher Okigbo can be considered as one of the most
enigmatic of written African Poets. Born in the Eastern part of Nigeria, Okigbo was
greatly involved in the development of literary culture in Nigeria. His form and style
influenced many younger African poets. His long sequence entitled Labyrinths has
many fine pieces especially in the sequence Heavensgate and Path of Thunder. He
participated fully in the Nigerian Civil War and was one of the causalities of war. There
is a great deal of musicality in his poems for Okigbo strongly believed that music is an
essential ingredient of the art of poetry. The poem titled: “Come Thunder” is contained
in the sequence “Path of Thunder”:
“Come Thunder”
Now that the triumphant march has entered the last street corners,
Remember, O dancers, the thunder among the clouds…
Now that the laughter, broken in two, hangs tremulous between the teeth,
Remember, O dancers, the lightning beyond the earth….
The smell of blood already floats in the lavender – mist of the afternoon.
The death sentence lies in ambush along the corridors of power;
And a great fearful thing already tugs at the cables of the open air,
A nebula immense and immeasurable, at night of deep waters-
An iron dream unnamed and unprintable, a path of stone.
The drowsy heads of the pods in barren farmlands witness it,

The homesteads abandoned in this century’s brush fire witness it:
The myriad eyes of deserted corn cobs in burning barns witness it:
Magic birds with the miracle of lightning flash on their feathers….
The arrows of god tremble at the gates of light,

The drums of curfew pander to a dance of death;
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And the secrets thing in its heaving
Threatens with iron mask
The last lighted torch of the century…..(Senanu and Vincent, 2001)
This poem was written during the Nigerian civil war. It was also the period of the first
military coup d’etat and its aftermath. In the poem, the poet warns his opponents that
their victory and celebration is premature as there are strong major terrible destructions
which seem to be eminent. He foresees a lurking sinister force threatening to destroy
the country totally. He seems to sound a warning when he writes “Now that the laughter,
broken in two, hangs tremulous between the teeth”… and cautions the jubilating victors
to “Remember, O dancers, the lightning beyond the earth….” that might strike them
when they are least prepared.
The poet-employs a number of images and metaphors such as “thunder”,
“lightening”, “blood”, “iron”, “stone”, “night”, “waters” and “death” to warn the
impending doom and destruction that Nigeria might face. The rhyme and rhythm gives
the poem an original and fresh form. (King, 1975)
What are the recurrent techniques employed by Okigbo in his poetry?
4.0 CONCLUSION
A leading poet among the generation of Nigerian poets, Christopher Okigbo was
influenced by modernism, which came into prominence in the early 1960s. His ten-year
writing career (1957–67) coincided with the last few years of colonialism in Nigeria
and the immediate post-independence period. Okigbo’s poetry occupies a significant
period in Nigerian history and captures the exhilarating times associated with
independence and nationalism by mirroring the new horizons opened up by political
freedom and the innovative and experimental cultural energies it unleashed. Okigbo’s
two collections of poems (Heavensgate, 1962 and Limits, 1964) reveal a personal,
introspective poetry informed by a familiarity with Western myths and filled with rich,
startling images.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The biography of Christopher Okigbo
• The characteristic features of Okigbo’s poetry
• The themes and techniques in Okigbo’s “Come Thunder
1) Discuss Christopher Okigbo’s bioghraphy.
2) What are the distinctive features of Okigbo’s poetry?
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3) Explain the themes and techniques employed by Okigbo in his poem, “Come
Thunder”, citing relevant examples from the poem.
Aiyejina, F. (1988). “Resent Nigerian Poetry in English: An Alter-Native Tradition” in
Perspectives on Nigerian Literature 1700 to the Present. Vol. One Lagos:
Guardian Books Nigeria (Ltd).
Gogura, S. M. & Agukwe, E. L. (ed) (2000). Issues and Trends in Language and
Literature Teaching for Nigerian Colleges Yola, Paraclete.
Jones, O. Eldred & Narjorie, J. (ed) (1996). New Trends and Generations in African
Literature, No.20, London: James Curry Ltd.
Press
King, B. (1975). A Celebration of Black and African Writing: London: Oxford
University Press.
Longman Group Ltd.
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UNIT 4 THE POEMS OF OKOT P. BITEK
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Okot p’Bitek’s Biography
3.2 The Poetry of Okot P’bitek
3.2.1 Okot P’bitek’s Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol
3.3 Techniques of Presentation Used by Okot P’bitek
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Born in Gulu, Uganda, p’Bitek studied law at Aberystwyth, Wales, and social
anthropology at Oxford. In 1966 he returned to Uganda as Director of the Uganda
Cultural Centre and later founded arts festivals at Gulu and Kisumu. p’Bitek’s early
Acoli-language novel Lak Tar Miyo Kinyero Wi Lobo (1953; White Teeth, 1989) was
followed by the long poem Song of Lawino, first composed in Acoli rhyming couplets
in 1956 and published in English in 1966. One of the most influential African poems of
the 1960s, not only in Uganda but throughout Africa, Song of Lawino comprises a series
of complaints by Lawino, an Acoli wife whose husband Ocol rejects her for a younger,
more Westernized woman. This unit will take you through the biography Okot p’Bitek,
the Poetry of Okot P’bitek with illustrations from his Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol
and finally some techniques of Presentation Used by Okot P’bitek were discussed.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Outline Okot p’Bitek’s Biography
• Discuss the Poetry of Okot P’bitek
• Give a detail analysis of Okot P’bitek’s Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol
• Explain the techniques of presentation in the poems of by Okot P’bitek
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Okot p’Bitek’s Biography
Ugandan poet, born in Gulu, Uganda, and attended Gulu High School and King’s
College, Budo. He studied law at Aberystwyth, Wales, and social anthropology at
Oxford, completing a bachelor’s thesis on the traditional songs of the Acoli and Lango.
In 1966 he returned to Uganda as Director of the Uganda Cultural Centre and later
founded arts festivals at Gulu and Kisumu. Dismissed from his position for writing
critically of the Amin government, he lived in exile in Kenya, where he was a faculty
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member of the literature department in the University of Nairobi. He was a Fellow in
the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1969–70 and a Visiting
Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Ife in Nigeria in
1978. In 1979, after Idi Amin was overthrown, he returned to Uganda, where he was
appointed a Professor of Creative Writing in the Department of Literature at Makerere
University.
Okot p’Bitek’s early Acoli-language novel Lak Tar Miyo Kinyero Wi Lobo
(1953; White Teeth, 1989) was followed by the long poem Song of Lawino, first
composed in Acoli rhyming couplets in 1956 and published in English in 1966. One of
the most influential African poems of the 1960s, not only in Uganda but throughout
Africa, Song of Lawino comprises a series of complaints by Lawino, an Acoli wife
whose husband Ocol rejects her for a younger, more Westernized woman. Song of Ocal
(1970) is the sophisticated, self-serving response of the unrepentant Ocol, who
embraces the new culture as fervently as he does his new spouse. Another set of paired
poems, Two Songs, was published in 1971: “Song of Prisoner” and “Song of Malaya”
are dedicated to the memory of Patrice Lumumba, the prime minister of Congo who
was murdered in 1961. These poems use the voices of a murderer and a street prostitute
to reassert Okot’s uncompromising position as a social critic. Africa’s Cultural
Revolution (1973) and Artist, the Ruler: Essays on Art, Culture and Values (1986) are
collections of essays; Horn of My Love (1974) is a collection of oral verse translated
from Acoli; Hare and Hornbill (1978) is a collection of folktales; and Acholi Proverbs
(1985) is a collection of sayings. He also produced two scholarly works: African
Religions in Western Scholarship (1971) and Religion of the Central Luo (1971). In
2001 Sudanese writer Taban Lo Liyong published a new translation of The Defence of
Lawino from the Acholi, and other posthumous republications include White Teeth: A
Novel (2000, 1996, 1989) and Hare and Hornbill (1999, 1978).
(Senanu and Vincent, 2001)`
Outline the biography of Okot p’Bitek.
3.2 The Poetry of Okot P’bitek
In “Oral Techniques and Commitment in The Poetry of Okot P’bitek and Kofi
Anyidoho: Their Contributions to Modern African Poetry” Okon (2013), performed
an indepth examination of the poetry of Okot p’Bitek. According to him, in his Song
of Lawino, Song of Ocol, Song of Prisoner, and Song of Malaya, Okot p’Bitek makes
a definite impression on written African poetry. In all these poems, (except Song of
Ocol to some extent), he makes use of oral tradition as a basic foundation or launching
pad. p’Bitek himself, justifies this approach which he says:
…the vast majority of our people in the countryside have a full-blooded literary
culture so deep, so vivid and alive that for the moment the very little written stuff
appears almost irrelevant (quotd in Roscoe, 10)
What are p’Bitek’s concerns in these “Songs”, especially Song of Lawino? It is to make
Africans aware of the richness and diversity of their African heritage. By this self-
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imposed crusade, he hopes to make meaning out of African traditions to written-day
Africans hemmed in on all sides by the destabilizing effects of written western-oriented
lifestyles. Commenting on this perspective, Roscoe (32) says:
Okot’s whole career as poet, singer…. has been concerned with the problem of
making tradition meaningful to writtenity and avoiding Western solutions to
African problems.
3.2.1 Okot P’bitek’s Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol
Okon (2013) also analyse p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino, which depicts a heroine
who laments the rejection of African tradition for western ways by the educated elite.
By using the song style, the poem is not just a lament, but a series of songs meant to
celebrate African culture. (Cook, 1977: 231) implies this trend when he says that
Lawino’s: Urge (is) to celebrate in (her) own right the positive qualities of a threatened
tradition.
Celebration in poetry is an aspect of African traditional oral culture. Lewis Nkosi
confirms this when he asserts:
…In this community the poet or the artist in general is there to “celebrate”
his own or his society’s sense of being ….and not there to subvert its social
values or moral order. (Cook, 1977: 231)
What are the African values that Lawino celebrates? These are: African aesthetics
(or beauty), African concepts of religion, death, education and medicine, among
others. These are contrasted with their European counterparts, and the verdict is
that the former are superior. For these reasons, the poet-persona keeps repeating
the refrain: “Let no one uproot the pumpkin from the old homestead” – meaning
that one’s traditional culture should not be destroyed or abandoned recklessly. The
“pumpkin” and the “homestead” are symbolic of African traditional culture.
Lawino, who also symbolizes African tradition, adopts as the butt of her attacks,
her husband Ocol. Ocol is symbolic of the written educated African, who has adopted
wholesale, European cultural and mental attitudes. Ocol is artistically presented as
rejecting African tradition, when Lawino says in the opening lines:
Husband, now you despise me
Now you treat me with spite
And say I have inherited the stupidity of my aunt;
Son of the Chief Now you compare me
With rubbish in the rubbish pit,
You say you no longer want me
Because I am like the thing left behind
In the deserted homestead. (p.34)
It is this rejection of the old for the written that bestows Lawino’s song the quality of
lament: “My clansmen, I cry” (p. 35).
164
She soon picks on her husband’s mistress, Clementine. In this instance, she
portrays the European idea of aesthetics as it relates to women’s beauty. The satiric
comments Lawino makes about Clementine are sharp and sultry:
Brother, when you see
Clementine!
The beautiful one aspires to look like a white woman;
……………………………….
She dusts the ash-dirt over her face
And when little sweat
Begins to appear on her body
She looks like the guinea fowl!
………………………………….
And she believes
That this is beautiful (p. 37)
To this, she juxtaposes the African concept of beauty:
Ask me what beauty is
To the Acoli And I will tell you;
………………..
Young girls
Whose breasts are just emerging
Smear shea butter on their bodies
The beautiful oil from Labworomor,
You adorn yourself for the dance
If your string-skirt
Is ochre-red/you do your hair
With ochre ….. (pp. 51 - 52).
She also picks up European religion and compares it with African traditional religions.
Her verdict is that the latter is more real to the African than Christianity:
Ocol laughs at me
Because I cannot
Cross myself properly
In the name of the Father
And of the Son
And of the Clean Ghost (p.74)
The above is a reference to Christian catechism. Next, she picks up the church catechists
for bashing. The catechist she says, makes only meaningless sounds:
The teacher was an Acoli
But he spoke the same language
As the white priests
His nose was blocked
And he tried
To force his words
165
Through his blocked nose,
……………………. ……….
Then you look at the teacher
Barking meaninglessly
Like the yellow monkey, (p.76)
Contrasted with this, is her traditional religion, which is partly symbolized by the
traditional healer, whom Ocol condemns:
Ocol condemns diviner-priests
And Acoli herbalists.… (p.93)
Aside from the role of the traditional healer as a symbol of traditional religion, he also
represents the African notion of medicine. Of course, Ocol as an educated man and a
Christian would not allow African medicine or juju into his house. But Lawino goes on
to give few examples of herbal medicines as illustrated by this traditional cough
medicine.
The shoots of “lapena”
For coughs and sore throats –
You put some salt in it
And chew it! The shoots “lapena” and “olim”
Are chewed when they have
Removed the blockage in the throat (p.96)
She contrasts this with Ocol’s predilection for Western medicine:
He says
I do not know/ the rules of health,
And I mix up/matters of health and superstitions….(p.101)
In spite of this, she affirms the potency of African traditional medicine:
It is true
White man’s medicines are
Strong/ but Acoli medicines
Are also strong (p. 101)
Western education also comes in for attack. And in this case, Western education is
epitomized by her husband’s house which she describes as a “forest of books”.
According to Lawino, the books have made Ocol to lose his head:
Western education also comes in for attack. And in this case, Western education
is epitomized by her husband’s house which she describes as a “forest of books”.
According to Lawino, the books have made Ocol to lose his head:
Listen, my clansmen,
I cry over my husband
Whose head is lost
Ocol has lost his head
166
In the forest of books
…………………..
My husband’s house
Is a dark forest of books (p.113)
Her lament here is strident because her woes arise from the fact of her husband’s
education which results in his abandonment of “the old one” (Lawino)
Lawino also portrays the African conception of death as being a phenomenon
that is all-powerful, and no earthly force could resist it:
White diviner-priests
Acoli herbalists,
All medicine men and medicine women
Are good, are brilliant
When the day has not yet/dawned
For the great journey/the last safari
To Pagak (p. 103).
Finally, she makes commentaries about the lot of the common man, and the mercenary
activities of the political elite. She criticizes the political elite’s mercenary motives:
The stomach seems to be
A powerful force
For joining political parties (p.108)
And against this mercenary motive, what is the lot of the common man? It is deplorable:
And while the pythons of /sickness
Swallow the children
And the buffaloes of poverty
Knock the people down
And ignorance stands there
Like an elephant
The war leaders
Are tightly locked in bloody
Feuds/Eating each other’s liver (p.111)
To Lawino, therefore, modernity has not brought as much benefits as Ocol would want
her to believe. She sums up by calling for Ocol’s purification and re-admittance into
tribal norms:
The blindness that you got in the library
Will be removed by the diviner!
…………………….
Son of the Bull
Let no one uproot
The pumpkin (pp. 118-120)
167
This statement or refrain is a re-iteration of African values. Ocol’s reply in Song of Ocol
lacks the cogency of Lawino’s arguments. He prefers to dwell on insults:
Woman
Your song
Is the rotting buffalo
Left behind by
Fleeing poachers
Its nose blocked (p.122)
Ocol who symbolically represents the modern, educated African enamoured of
European tradition, presents himself by denigrating African culture:
I see an
Old Homestead
In the valley below
Huts, granaries…
All in ruins.
He is unapologetic and seems to be saying that old things must pass away so that Africa
may move along with the times. Africa, to him is too backward:
Africa,
Idle giant
Basking in the sun
Sleeping, snoring
Twitching in dreams …… (p. 125)
He therefore calls for a reconstruction, through demolition:
We will uproot granaries
Break up the cooking pots
And water pots …. (p. 127)
…………………
We shall build
A new city on the hill (Okon, 2013)
1. Discuss the major themes in Okot p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol.
2. Explain the difference between African and European cultures as shown in
p’Bitek’s Songs of Lawino and Song of Ocol citing relevant lines from the poems.
3.3 Techniques of Presentation Used by Okot P’bitek
What are some of the techniques that Okot p’Bitek uses in realizing his message?
Some of these are as follows:
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The Use of Monologue: In this case, the monologue is a song: a solo. There is a built-
in audience in almost all of his poems. For example, in Song of Lawino we find that
Lawino is addressing not only Ocol, but also her clansmen:
Husband, now you despise me
Now you treat me with spite…. (p.34).
In Song of Ocol, Ocol addresses Lawino:
Woman,
Shut up!
Pack your things Go! (p.121)
In Song of Malaya, the persona is a prostitute. She addresses an in-built audience
comprising fellow prostitutes, sailors, workers, and even wives of men who patronize
her:
And you
My married sister
You whose husband
I also love dearly
(quotd in Moore, 189)
Similarly, the prisoner in Song of Prisoner addresses himself to his captors:
Open the door,
Man
I want to dance…
(quotd in Moore, 186)
The Use of the Dirge Style: The poem Song of Lawino is a lamentation, and true to its
type, it adopts the African dirge format:
My clansmen,
I cry
Listen to my voice… (p.35)
……………………
Listen my clansmen
I cry over my husband ….(p. 113)
The Song-style: That Okot p’Bitek’s poems are songs, are proven by their titles: Song
of Ocol, Song of Malaya, Song of Prisoner, among others. And within the poems
themselves, there are references to song, as in Song of Lawino:
And they sang silently: Song
Father prepare the kraal
The cattle are coming (p.48)
Use of Praise Names: In Song of Lawino, for example, Lawino makes use of praise
names in addressing Ocol. This is partly to demonstrate the deep love and respect she
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still has for her husband. But at a deeper level, it is symptomatic of an African heroic
tradition normally present in panegyrics. Some of the praise names she uses are:
(a) Son of the Bull (p.119)
(b) Son of a Chief (p.34)
Heron remarks that
Lawino’s use of oblique respectful titles reflects the fact that she is
…living within a peasant community in which the titles and praise names
are still meaningful. (Moore,183)
The Use of Exaggeration: Okot p’Bitek frequently uses exaggeration to make his points,
in most of his poems. In Song of Lawino, Lawino exaggerates the ugliness of
Clementine, with particular attention to the breasts:
They have made nests of cotton/wool
And she folds the bits of cow-hide
In the nests/And calls them breasts
Describing the charade that was political independence, Ocol in Song of Ocol says:
The lamb
Uhuru/Dead as stone,
The shimmering flies
Giving false life
To its open eyes! (p.143)
Similarly, in Song of Prisoner, the prisoner in an attempt to describe the vigorousness
of the dance he would like to take part in, uses exaggeration as follows:
I want to join/the funeral dances
I want to tread the earth
With a vengeance/ and shake in bones
of my father in his grave:
( Moore,186).
The Use of Language: Okot p’Bitek makes use of language in a unique way. Since his
poems are derived from the traditional oral folklore of the Acoli people, his imagery is
Acoli, and at once African. His diction is also simple, transliterating the diction and
nuances of popular rendition in the African Oral arts. Commenting on this phenomenon,
Roscoe (44) says:
Just as Okot’s lines are largely free of inert language, so his actual choice
of diction shows a preference for the plain and common core… we must
see it within the realms of “orature”.
He uses the language of local imagery. To underscore the use of local imagery, Lawino
characterizes Clementine as a guinea-fowl; her husband’s library is likened to “a forest”.
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She brings in other images drawn from the locale, like monkey, giraffe, bee, scorpion:
and even typically Acoli words like “Pollok, Jok, Malakwang, Oju, lajanawara bird,
Lapena and Olim, among others. Ocol also makes references to “moran, shuka, olam,
shenzi, etc.
Aside from these, Ocol, in Song of Ocol uses a much more sophisticated and
dense language, thus:
A large arc
Of semi desert land
Strewn with human skeletons (p.136)
The reason for such sophisticated language is to reflect correctly, Ocol’s
substantial Western education. These are just few of the techniques used by Okot
p’Bitek. His intention, as earlier stated, was to make tradition real to the modern
African. In this regard, we can see him as holding a vision similar to that held by the
Negritude writers - to re-establish the respect and pride of Africa and the Black world
(Okon, 2013).
Outline the poetic techniques employed by Okot p’Bitek in song of Lawino and Song of
Ocol.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Okot p’Bitek has used the style in song of Lawino and Song of Ocol to identify
his poetry closely with traditional African oral poetry. Therefore, his poetry is a
continuity of African traditional oral poetry in written form. Besides, his use of language
is outstanding in that he makes use of traditional African imagery. By this, p’Bitek is
recommending Oral tradition as the source of inspiration for future and present African
poets (Cook, 1977: 55). Before p’ Bitek’s time, poetry was characterised by a single
persona who in most cases represented not the masses and their yearnings, but the
yearnings and private concerns of its creator, e.g the poems of Soyinka or Okigbo. But
with the advent of p’Bitek, the communal protagonist, who was the voice of the
community was born in accordance with the role of the oral performer in traditional
African society. In terms of themes and subject, Okot p’ Bitek has contributed to the
theme of the clash of cultures; a key theme in modern African writings. This is
demonstrated in Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol. Finally, Okot p’Bitek has made
contributions to the theme of Negritude. Even though he may not have subscribed to
Negritude as a literary philosophy; his achievements in poetry have put him ahead of
this class of writers. He has put into practice what the Negritude writers mainly
preached. His subject, his images and symbols are drawn from his local African
environment.
5.0 SUMMARY
171
• The biography Okot p’Bitek
• A discussion of Okot P’bitek’s poetry with specific illustrations from his Song
of Lawino and Song of Ocol
• The techniques of presentation in the poems of by Okot P’bitek.
1) Outline Okot p’Bitek’s Biography
2) Discuss the Poetry of Okot P’bitek
3) Provide a detail analysis of Okot P’bitek’s Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol
citing relevant examples from the poems
4) Explain the techniques of presentation in Okot P’bitek’s poetry.
Agye Za-Ayem., (1986). Towards a people’s literature of socio-political awareness.
Literature and Society: Selected Essays on African Literature (Emenyonu. Ed).
Oguta: Zim Pam.
Angmor Charles., (1984). “Literature and politics in Ghana”. A paper presented at the
Fourth International Conference on Literature and the English Language.
Angmor Charles. (1992). Is African literature a tributary? Journal of Research in
Education and the Humanities 56-67.
Chinweizu Jemie. and Ihechukwu Madubuike., 1980. Toward the decolonization of
African literature.
Cook David., (1977). African literature: A critical view. London: Longman.
Friday A. Okon, (2013). Politics and the Development of Modern African Poetry.
Nigeria: Journal of English Language and Literaty Studies. Vol.3, No.1
Heron., (1984). “Introduction” Song of Lawino and song of Ocol. London: Heinemann.
Imbo, Samuel Oluoch. Oral Traditions as Philosophy: Okot p’Bitek’s Legacy for
African Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.
Press
Moore, G. (1980). Twelve African writers. London: Hutchison & int. African inst.
Ngara Emmanuel., 1985. Art and ideology in the African novel. London: Heinemann.
p Bitek Okot., 1984. Song of lawino and song of ocol. London: Heinemann.
Schatteman, Renee, and Sara Talis O’Brien. Voices from the Continent, Vol. 2: A
Curriculum Guide to Selected North and East African Literature. Trenton, NJ:
Africa World Press, 2004.
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UNIT 5 THE POEMS OF KOFI AWOONOR
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Kofi Awoonor
3.2 Kofi Awoonor and his Poetry
3.3 Images of Colonialism in Kofi Awoonor’s poetry
3.4 An analysis of “The Anvil and The Hammer” by Kofi Awonoor
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Kofi Awoonor who was born in the Volta Region of Ghana is a prominent
Ghanaian scholar and poet. He had his early education in Ghana and later studied in
London and at the State University of New York where he gained his PhD in
Comparative Literature in 1972. Awoonor chaired the Department of Comparative
Literature at Stony Brook University, New York after the completion of his doctoral
degree. He also taught at the University of Texas. He returned to Ghana in 1975 to teach
at the University of Cape Coast in the same English Department. In A Selection of
African Poetry, (Senanu and Vincent, 2001) write that Awoonor is “very conscious of
his roots in traditional Ewe poetry and folk songs and among Ghanaians writing poetry,
he is perhaps the most successful in attempting to recover the rhetorical vehemence and
the metaphorical intensity of vernacular poetry” (209). This unit will introduce you to
the poetry of Kofi Awonoor with particular references to his employment of images of
colonialism together with illustration from his poem, “The Anvil and the Hammer”
(Senanu and Vincent, 2001). Below are some of the objectives of this unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Outline the biography of Kofi Awoonor
• Give a description of characteristics of Kofi Awoonor’s poetry
• Discuss the images of colonialism as potrayed in Kofi Awonoor’s poetry
• Analysis of “The Anvil and The Hammer” by Kofi Awonoor
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Kofi Awoonor
Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor (also known as George Awoonor Williams) was born
on March 13, 1935 at Wheta, a rural town in the Volta Region of Ghana. Wheta is also
the birthplace of his “twin brother,” Kofi Anyidoho, another prominent Ghanaian
scholar and poet. Awoonor had his early education in the then Gold Coast at Achimota
Secondary School, from where he proceeded to the University of Ghana, Legon. He
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also studied in London and at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA
where he gained his PhD in Comparative Literature in 1972. Awoonor chaired the
Department of Comparative Literature at Stony Brook University after the completion
of his doctoral degree. He also taught at the University of Texas. It was because of his
extended stay abroad that Kofi Anyidoho in his collection Earthchild dedicated a poem
titled “The Song of a Twin Brother” to him in which he insistently reminds Awoonor
“not to forget the back without which there is no front” (54). Before Awoonor left Ghana
to study and teach abroad, he worked as a Research Fellow at the Institute of African
Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. He also became the Managing Director of the
Ghana Film Corporation.
Awoonor returned to Ghana in 1975 to teach at the University of Cape Coast in
the same English Department as Ama Ata Aidoo, another prominent Ghanaian writer.
The English poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, strongly argues in his essay in “Defence of
Poetry” that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” In Kofi
Awoonor’s creative book of essays, The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History,
Culture and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara, he has a variation on Shelley’s
position. Awoonor writes: “[i]n Africa where despair deepens in the practice of politics
and in the lives of the ordinary people, the writers must represent the vanguard of the
armies that will liberate the masses from cultural strangulation and restore for them their
earlier attachment to life” (Awoonor, 1975: 355). In an insightful essay on Christopher
Okigbo, Dan Izevbaye writes that Okigbo “created and lived his myth” (13). It can be
argued that Kofi Awoonor also created and lived his myth. The irony of his death
through a terrorist attack at the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, on
September 21, 2013 sharply reminds us of this. Awoonor was imprisoned not long after
his return to Ghana by the Kutu Acheampong military regime for sedition. He became
the General Secretary of Colonel Frank Bernasko’s People’s Action Party when the
party was formed. From 1984–88, Awoonor was Ghana’s Ambassador to Brazil, and
from 1990–94 he was Ghana’s UN Permanent Representative, where he also headed the
committee against apartheid. During the government of the late President John Atta
Mills, Awoonor was the Chairman of Ghana’s Council of State.
Examine the literary biography of Kofi Awonoor.
3.2 Kofi Awoonor and his Poetry
In A Selection of African Poetry, (Senanu and Vincent, 2001) opine that
Awoonor is “very conscious of his roots in traditional Ewe poetry and folk songs and
among Ghanaians writing poetry, he is perhaps the most successful in attempting to
recover the rhetorical vehemence and the metaphorical intensity of vernacular poetry”
(209).
Kofi Awoonor’s immortality is through his poetry. It is through his poetry that
the world knew him and it is through his poetry that the world will remember him.
Among his many collections are Rediscovery and Other Poems (1964), which he wrote
while a student of the University of Ghana, Legon, Night of My Blood (1971), Ride Me,
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Memory (1973), Guardians of the Sacred Word: Ewe Poetry (1974), The House by the
Sea (1978), Until the Morning After: Collected Poems, 1963–1985 (1987), Latin
American and Caribbean Notebook (1992), Praise Song for the Land: Poems of Hope
& Love & Care (2002 with Kofi Anyidoho), and a posthumous collection with Kofi
Anyidoho and Kwame Dawes, The Promise of Hope: New and Selected Poems, 1964–
2013. This collection is due to come out on March 1, 2014. In addition to his poetry,
Awoonor has two novels, This Earth, My Brother …. (1971) and Comes the Voyager at
Last (1992). Awoonor was also a critic, scholar and commentator. In Contemporary
Literature in Ghana 1911–1978: A Critical Evaluation, Charles Angmor suggests that
the “subject dominant in [Awoonor’s] writing is Africa’s cultural transformation under
Western influence” (103). Angmor is right, but Awoonor goes further: Awoonor also
laments the trauma that the colonial experience has been for Africans. This is evident
not just in a poem like “Sew the Old Days” but in his critically acclaimed The Breast of
the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara
(1975), in which he describes in the preface as his “personal testament of and salutation
to that spirit of Africa that continues through strife, tribulations, and dramatic upheavals
to seek her own true self” (xiv). Further in The Breast of the Earth, Awoonor writes that
in traditional African society “[l]ife and death exist in an indistinguishable continuum”
(50). Perhaps Awoonor has already asked the ancestors “while they idle[d] there”
(“Songs of Sorrow”) as he so tragically died in the dramatic upheaval at the Westgate
Shopping Mall. Some of Awoonor’s other writings are The Ghana Revolution: A
Background Account from A Personal Perspective (1984), Ghana: A Political History
from Pre-European to Written Times (1990) and Africa: The Marginalized Continent
(1995), and The African Predicament: A Collection of Essays (2006).
In one of the epigraphs used for his tribute, Awoonor speaks of the artist as seer.
He was indeed a seer. Kofi Anyidoho, Ato Quayson, and others have so eloquently
spoken of Kofi Awoonor’s integrity as a human being. Perhaps it was because he saw
what others were too blind to see, too preoccupied with the acquisition of power just
for its sake. His life was a commitment and dedication to a country and continent to
which he felt deeply attached. That he died educating others in the service of his
continent reminds us all of the life we too often take for granted, and the service we too
often forget to render to the continent that continues to be marginalized and exploited.
Awoonor, through his works and life, bequeathed us Africans a legacy, a legacy to
remember the past in order to forge a better future. No legacy could have been greater.
What are the major preoccupations of Awonoor’s poetry?
3.3 Images of Colonialism in Kofi Awonoor’s Poetry
In Kofi Awoonor’s poetry, we find that the psychological and spiritual harm
done to Africa is much more disturbing. For the ‘psychological destruction of the
African and his mode of being’ was part of the white man’s design. He imposed ‘his
own customs, religion and values on the black man’ and ‘native tradition and way of
life were interrupted by proselytizers’. ‘The Weaver Bird’ (p. 37) is a central poem in
this connection. The bird-imagery in Okigbo’s poetry is present here also, but the bird-
agent is different in both cases. Here it is the weaver bird. Awoonor ‘uses imagery of
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the weaver bird and its notorious colonizing habits, which often kill the chosen tree, to
unfold a vision of the whole colonial period in Ghana’. One factor which gives this
poem the tragic intensity with which it is imbued is the contrast between the friendliness
of the Africans and the callous ingratitude of the white man whom the weaver bird
symbolises:
The weaver bird built in our house.
And laid its eggs on our only tree.
We did not want to send it away.
……………
And the weaver returned in the guise of the owner.
Preaching salvation to us that owned the house.
This theme of tenant turned landlord is also the basis of the poetic reaction in South
Africa. The ‘weaver bird’ has not settled down to supervise its newly acquired domain,
for that would have presented it as humane, which it is not. It rather embarked upon
fouling ‘trees, totems, and shrines so that the contemporary African has to build anew’:
For new altars we strive to re-build
The old shrines defiled by the weaver’s excrement.
Commenting on the word ‘excrement’, Gerald Moore said that the poem distils ‘its
arrested bitterness into the single word “excrement’”. This word expresses the poet’s
picture of the weaver bird and what it symbolises, and not his emotion of anger of
bitterness. ‘Excrement’, being that of the weaver bird, is used to show how insensitive
to human values the bird is - it deposits faeces on shrines; and to show how oppressive
the colonial attitudes to the indigenous African religion were, for the bird exercises no
control over the distribution of its own dirt. The word therefore sums up, not the poet’s
bitterness, but the contempt with which he holds the weaver bird and all it represents.
In Awoonor’s poetry the gods with their shrines are victims not only of
oppression by the whites, but also neglect by their own ‘children’ who happen to be
converted into the new religion. Gerald Moore was conscious of this fact when he said
that Awoonor’s ‘poetry abounds in laments for the neglected shrines and forgotten gods,
ignored by a society now intent upon individual status and materialsim’. That the
‘shrines’ and the ‘gods’ were neglected, ignored and forgotten is a correct observation;
but that the cause of this was the society’s quest for ‘individual status and materialism’
is far from the truth. The true cause according to Awoonor was the foreigners who by
preaching other kinds of shrines and gods distracted some members of the society from
discharging their duties to their own gods. Even in the same poem, ‘The Years Behind’
(p. 59), lines 8-11 of which Moore quoted to illustrate the fact of neglect, Awoonor
hints at the cause of this neglect: ‘My life’s song falls low among alien peoples.’ That
is to say that his entire life - song, culture, religion - was looked down upon by these
‘alien peoples’ who condemned his culture and set up a foreign one for his adoption.
This desertion is very dramatically presented in another of Awoonor’s poems,
‘Easter Dawn’. In this poem we learn that
the gods are crying, my father’s gods are crying
for a burial - for a final ritual -
but they that should build the fallen shrines
have joined the dawn marchers
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singing their way towards Gethsemane...
This is not all, for, a few lines later, we see the tragedy clinched by the priest of the gods
deserting them himself:
the gods cried, shedding
clayey tears on the calico
the drink offering had dried up in the harmattan
the cola-nut is shrivelled
the yam feast has been eaten by mice
and the fetish priest is dressing for the
Easter service.
And at this point the desertion is complete; but the deserters are not pursuing individual
status or material wealth - they are drawn into another religion, Christianity. This is
natural, for every act of conversion is counterpoised by another of aversion. And as
Taban Lo Liyong would put it, they are withdrawn from one type of superstition and
planted into another (if superstition means ‘credulity regarding the supernatural’). In
one of his Haiku-like poems Liyong says:
id have loved god more
had Christian missionaries confirmed my superstitions
its hard to believe
after being undeceived
The absence of punctuation is the poet’s making; and so is the use of the lower case g
for the Christians’ ‘God’. The argument of this short poem is of religious and historical
significance. It is believed by many that Christianity has not been effective in African
societies because the early missionaries did not base their religion on the Africans’
religious consciousness which they (Africans) developed even before their contact with
the Europeans. The rather belated realisation of this ‘sin’ of omission has recently led
to frantic, sometimes haphazard, efforts at using indigenous African musical
instruments during the Christian service (especially the Mass). But the substance of the
service remains unchanged. And many people are waiting, rather cynically, for the time
when the indigenous wooden and clay vessels will also replace the imported golden
chalice and ciborium on the altars.
The African is a victim of historical determinism. He has lost something of his
religious inheritance and, according to another poem by Awoonor, he is threatened with
loss of identity. The imagery this time is no less terrifying. The scene now shifts to the
smithy in ‘The Anvil and the Hammer’ (p. 29). The African now becomes the crude
iron in the hands of the smith, goldsmith not blacksmith, since his colour must be other
than black. Thus the African is ‘caught between the anvil and the hammer/In the forging
house of a new life’. In this ‘forging’ there is a lot of confusion: ‘The trappings of the
past, tender and tenuous’ are ‘laced with the flimsy glories’ of the present symbolised
by ‘paved/streets’; and in an attempt to resist the new formation, the Africans endeavour
to remain pure and original when they sing, but find themselves spontaneously using
‘snatches/from their [whites’] tunes’.
The smith’s job is therefore wrong from the beginning. Indeed the word ‘forging’
in the poem becomes pleasantly ambiguous, for ‘forgery’, ‘counterfeiting’, ‘falsifying’
are all equally implied. For complete transformation would mean dehumanisation of the
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African. But in the circumstances change, that is modification, is inevitable; and the
poet himself concedes this. That is why he pleads for a kind of admixture, which is no
synthesis, for synthesis is impossible:
The Whirlpool of the many rivers’ estuary.
It is significant that the two kinds of garment are to be made from different materials -
the old and the new. Thus the African retains his old self but adds on to it something
borrowed from the imported culture. Furthermore, it is remarkable that the ‘garment’
made up of the ‘old days’ is to be worn close to the skin, for that is nearest to his heart,
and it is, as it were, protected by the borrowed garment.
The protagonist of this poem has therefore achieved a measure of success in his
bid for ‘cultural salvation’ in the face of ‘cultural turmoil’. He has not yielded to a total
change of himself as the enemies of his culture aimed at in their ‘forging house’; but he
has not come out unscathed from it either. For it was through fire he went, and washing
‘ourselves in/The Whirlpool of the many rivers’ estuary’ can only be a euphemism for
the pangs of purification experienced in the ‘whirlpool’.(Fraser, 1986)
With adequate elaboration, assess the images of colonialism in Awonoor’s poetry.
3.4 An Analysis of “The Anvil and the Hammer” by Kofi Awonoor
The poem The Anvil and The Hammer was written by Kofi Awonoor, an
acclaimed literary icon and poet from Ghana. Born George Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor-
Williams in Wheta, Ghana in 1953, he studied in Ghana, England and the United States
of America. He worked as a university lecturer and also represented his country on the
international scene in various capacities. He authored the controversial novel, This
Earth, my brother. Kofi Awonoor was among those killed by terrorists during an attack
at the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi in 2013.
Caught between the anvil and the hammer
In the forging house of a new life
Transforming the pangs that delivered me
Into the joy of new songs
The trapping of the past, tender and tenuous
Woven with fibre of sisal and
Washed in the blood of the goat in the fetish hut
Are laced with the flimsy glories of paved streets
The jargon of a new dialectic comes with the
Charisma of the perpetual search on the outlaw’s hill.
The whirlpool of the many rivers’ estuary
178
We hear their songs and rumours everyday
Determined to ignore these we use snatches
From their tunes
Make ourselves new flags and anthems
While we lift high the banner of the land
And listen to the reverberation of our songs
In the splash and moan of the sea
Literally, an anvil is a tool with a hard surface used mostly by blacksmiths to
work iron. The blacksmith often strikes the surface of the anvil with a hammer. The
poem The Anvil and the Hammer derives its title from this activity. The poem is about
the clash of cultures especially the Western and African cultures influenced mainly by
the many years of colonisation by the West. The result is a cultural twist leading to a
change in norms, values, ethos and the general way of life of the African people:
Caught between the anvil and the hammer/In the forging house of a new life.
Just as the anvil and the hammer work to shape a new piece of metal, the poet believes
that rather than discard the African culture, Western ideas could be used to shape and
refine African traditions to create a new Africa. The poet portrays the old African way
of life and traditional practices in the following words: The trapping of the past, tender
and tenuous/ Woven with fibre of sisal and/Washed in the blood of the goat in the fetish
hut. He compares these with the Western culture foisted on Africans through religion
and a new system of government. He laments that African values and traditions have
been largely eroded –Are laced with the flimsy glories of paved streets/The jargon of a
new dialectic comes with the/ Charisma of the perpetual search on the outlaw’s hill.
Note the use of the word “flimsy” which he employs to portray the attractions of the
Western culture.
In the second stanza, he appeals to his ancestors to help restore the old African
ways. Sew the old days for us, our fathers/That we can wear them under our new
garment. While he admits that Western culture has indeed come to stay and would
continuously influence African culture, he pleads for a synergy of both cultures for a
better Africa: Determined to ignore these we use snatches/From their tunes/Make
ourselves new flags and anthems/While we lift high the banner of the land.
Structurally, the poem has two contrasting stanzas. While the first stanza
describes the conflict between African traditions and western civilisation, the second
stanza offers solution to the conflict- Sew the old days for us, our fathers,/That we may
wear them under our new garment. The solution lies in creating a balance of both
cultures. The Anvil and the Hammer is a free verse poem. It has no consistent meter
pattern or rhythm.
Mood and Tone: The mood is nostalgic- The trapping of the past, tender and tenuous/
Woven with fibre of sisal and Washed in the blood of goat in the fetish hut/. The tone
reflects hope: Sew the old days for us, our fathers,/ That we can wear them under our
new garment,
Themes:
179
1. Clash of cultures
2. Resolution of the clash through cultural synergy
3. Revival of the African culture
Poetic Devices
1. Metaphor: “Caught between the anvil and the hammer”; “the forging house of a new
life” and the word “pangs” (like birth pangs) in the third line represents our cultural
values.
2. Imagery: The poet uses many symbols beginning from the use of the words “anvil”
and “hammer” which represent clash of cultures. The old African ways are described as
follows: The trapping of the past, tender and tenuous/woven with fibre of sisal
and/Washed in the blood of the goat in the fetish hut/Western civilisation is described
as follows: “…flimsy glories of paved streets/The jargon of a new dialectic comes with
the/Charisma of the perpetual search on the outlaw’s hill”.
3. Oxymoron: “flimsy glories “.
4. Antithesis: Sew the old days for us, our fathers,/That we can wear them under our
new garment,
5. Alliteration: The trapping of the past, tender and tenuous
What are the most recurrent poetic devices employed by Awonoor in his poetry?
4.0 CONCLUSION
Kofi Awoonor sees the artist as a seer and he was indeed a seer. Kofi Anyidoho,
Ato Quayson, and others have so eloquently spoken of Kofi Awoonor’s integrity as a
human being. It may be due to the fact that he saw what others were too blind to see,
too preoccupied with the acquisition of power just for its sake. His life was a
commitment and dedication to a country and continent to which he felt deeply attached.
That he died educating others in the service of his continent reminds us all of the life
we too often take for granted, and the service we too often forget to render to the
continent that continues to be marginalized and exploited. Through his works and life,
Awoonor bequeathed Africans a legacy to remember the past in order to forge a better
future.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The biography of Kofi Awoonor
• The features of Kofi Awoonor’s poetry
180
• The images of colonialism potrayed in Kofi Awonoor’s poetry
• An analysis of Kofi Awonoor’s “The Anvil and The Hammer”.
1) Give a brief biography of Kofi Awoonor.
2) What are the characteristic features of Kofi Awoonor’s poetry?
3) Discuss the images of colonialism as potrayed in Kofi Awonoor’s poetry.
4) Analyse of “The Anvil and the Hammer” by Kofi Awonoor.
Awoonor, K. (2004). “In Conversation with Hein Willemse.” Tydskrif vir Letterkunde
40.2 Pp. 186–97.
Awoonor, K. (1975) “Songs of Sorrow.” Poems of Black Africa. Ed. Wole Soyinka.
Oxford: Heinemann.
Awoonor, K. (1975). The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture and
Literature of Africa South of the Sahara. Garden City, N. Y.: Anchor Press.
Fraser, R. (1986) West African Poetry, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Press
Senanu, K. E. and T. Vincent. (1988). A Selection of African Poetry. Harlow: Longman.
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UNIT 6 THE POEMS OF LENRIE PETERS
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Lenrie Peters
3.2 The Poetry of Lenrie Peters
3.3 An analysis of The Panic of Growing Older by Lenrie Peters
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
A Gambian poet and novelist, Peters was born in Banjul and educated at the
universities of Cambridge and London. He is a qualified surgeon and has practiced in
England, Sierra Leone, and later in his native Gambia. Peters’ poetry, first published as
Poems (1964), owes little to the oral tradition and makes no use of indigenous
mythology. He is a cosmopolitan poet whose themes are aging and death, the risks of
love, and the loneliness of exile. In Satellites (1967), the poet’s surgical detachment is
a metaphor for the uprooted individual’s painful existential isolation. Intellectual ideas
about politics, evolution, science, and music orchestrate Peters’s images in the form of
debates. The new poems in Selected Poetry (1981) castigate the corrupt greed of
tribalized leadership elites and balance nostalgia for a pastoral past with cautious
assertions of hope for a future built on that past (Peters: 1981). Below are some of the
objectives of this unit:
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Discuss the biograpgy of Lenrie Peters
• Explain the unique features of the poetry of Lenrie Peters
• Analyse “The Panic of Growing Older” by Lenrie Peters
3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Lenrie Peters
Gambian poet and novelist, Lenrie Peters was born in Bathurst (now Banjul) and
educated at the universities of Cambridge and London, UK. He qualified as a surgeon
in 1959 and has practiced in England, Sierra Leone, and since 1969 in his native
Gambia. Peters currently works in the Westfield Clinic in Gambia, is Chairman of the
Gambia Medical and Dental Association, writes for The Gambia, and has served as
president of the Union of African Students in England.
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Peters’ poetry, first published as Poems (1964), owes little to the oral tradition
and makes no use of indigenous mythology. Peters is a cosmopolitan poet whose themes
are aging and death, the risks of love, and the loneliness of exile. In Satellites (1967),
the poet-doctor’s surgical detachment is a metaphor for the uprooted individual’s
painful existential isolation. Intellectual ideas about politics, evolution, science, and
music orchestrate Peters’s images in the form of debates. In his only novel, The Second
Round (1965), a British-trained African physician, a victim of the “massacre of the soul”
wrought by Westernization, returns to the capital city of his native land full of “noble
ideas about progress in Africa.” He ends by taking a post in a remote bush hospital, thus
immersing himself deeper in the traditional experience. The new poems in Selected
Poetry (1981) castigate the corrupt greed of tribalized leadership elites and balance
nostalgia for a pastoral past with cautious assertions of hope for a future built on that
past. Most recently Peters has published The Way Through (2005) ( Peters, 1981)
Write a detailed biography of Lenrie Peters.
3.2 The Poetry of Lenrie Peters
Poems, published by Mbari Publications of Ibadan, is a slim volume of thirty-
three poems. These are early works, written for the most part when Peters was still in
his twenties. Collectively they communicate an excessive youthful melancholy
unrestrained, for the most part, by the irony and anger that give bite to the later
collections. They are marked by expressions of grief, loneliness, suffering,
hopelessness, and futility – emotions which are presented as responses to specifically
African problems, the most important of which are the disconnectedness between the
present and the past in Africa 1 the cultural clash between traditional Africa and the
West, and the disoriented psyche of the westernized African. Those poems Peters
considered the best in this initial volume were incorporated into Satellites, the first of
the three major collections.
In Satellites Peters is the poet standing in the harsh African present reacting to
nature, to history, and to the contemporary human- condition, especially in Africa. Most
of the nature images are violent or decadent. For instance, the poet sees a “skyf lood of
locusts.” When it descends,
A bleeding earth
ferments in agony
success goes up in smoke,
returns a deluge of ruin.
Elsewhere the destructive violence below the surface of nature is revealed as “a sabre
shark/lifts and plunges/cutting the emerald/sea.” In the poet’s response to such a world
the affirmations are infrequent, and they come as a demand for faith in a faithless world.
“I believe/ shout; I believe.”
In this natural setting the images of human life are bleak. Futile youth “burns out
its fuel”; maturation brings “the panic/ of growing older.” Hands fumble and shake.
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Thus as one reads through Satellites and through it again, one senses an attitude toward
the human condition more akin to the despair of the existential pessimists than to the
aggressively confident rhetoric of the political leaders of newly independent Africa. In
Peters this attitude is made specifically African because it is linked tropologically to
experience that is specifically African--to cold hearthstones and crumbling huts--and
that grows out of the history of Africa.
In some of the best poems in the collection Peters portrays the African as the
victim of history, bereft and adrift.
Bartered birthrite
Like the chaste membrane
Is lost for good
……………………
Early strength never returns
to oppose the grinding artificialities.
In several densely structured ironic poems the persona is located in a shattered present
from which he contemplates the past, the process of change, and the present point to
which both the person and the continent have come. Speaking for all Westernised
Africans, he says,
We have come home
From the bloodless wars
With sunken hearts
Our boots full of pride
From the true massacre of the soul.
As a result of the “massacre” of Westernization, he comes back alienated to a confused
moment “when the dawn falters/ Singing songs of other lands.” And the Africa to which
he returns is a “house without a shadow/ Lived in by new skeletons.”
This is a grim picture sketched by a realist who will not blink or turn away. Near
the end of the volume, in the longest poem in the collection, the realist turns satirist.
Peters was one of the first Anglophone poets to use satire, and he uses it to accuse the
new black leadership of perpetuating the “massacre” of the African soul and
expropriating the shadowless house of the written African state. The guilty are the
politicians who “came and went/ Meteors about the sky,” learning “to beg in style.”
Katchikali, a volume of sixty-nine poems that appeared in 1971, is one of a half
dozen important collections by Anglophone West African poets to appear in the early
seventies. It is not a happy or a hopeful book: its predominant theme is the painful
isolation of the individual. But again Peters speaks of this isolation as an African. To
the degree that one can judge these things, a great deal of the person of the author has
gone into Katchikali. In different poems he writes as an artist, a parent, a physician, and
an African. This last is the most important and is seen in the design of the book. He
places the specifically African poems at the beginning and the end of the volume,
creating a parenthesis of Africanness within which the other poems are enclosed.
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He depicts the isolation of the spirit in several poems through references to the
transitory character of an interracial love affair, but most of the poems focus on the
uprooted mind rather than the broken heart. (Ramanu, 1978)
The mind
Is like the desert winds
Ploughing the empty spaces
Listless, fastidiously laying down the dust.
In a later poem he personalized this pain by lamenting his inability to impose meaning
on experience.
There where all the opposites arrive
to plague the inner senses, but do not fuse
I hold my head.
In another poem this personal tragedy has its counterpart in nature itself
Around me
dead winter trees
wolves howling
This alternating between the internalising and generalising of the theme of isolation is
important in Peters’ poetry. As Edwin Thumboo points out, Peters is “mainly concerned
with the dissociated sensibility as a contemporary problem” in ways that are both
speculative and personal, intellectual and existential.
In “Katchikali,” the title poem, Peters examines the possibility of a return to
African tradition as a solution to existential isolation. He uses a sacred pond in The
Gambia to symbolize an indigenous past in which crocodiles are “as tame as pumpkins.”
But the pond and the past are defiled by colonial intruders who force pressgangs into
the labour of desecration. The result is not that the African is transformed by a return to
roots but that he finds himself almost hopelessly trapped in the rubble of· the present
when “all the institutions crumble.” The uprooted call in vain because the pond’s
“wisdom is silent.” But if the conclusion of the poem is pessimistic because “there are
no more answers,” the form of the poem is hopeful with a hope signalled by a
grammatical shift. Beginning by talking descriptively about Katchikali, the poet ends
by talking to Katchikali. What begins as a lament ends as an invocation. Like
Christopher Okigbo, Peters is “waiting on barefoot,” learning perhaps that the most
hopeful thing about prayer is not that one is answered but that one can pray at all.
The remaining poems of the collection alternate between cautious expressions of
hope in an African future built on an African past and cries wrung from the isolated
heart and from the angry citizen. In the latter role, with what Mphahlele calls his
“rejection of cant--honesty of purpose,” he repudiates the political and manipulative
exploitation of the African past.
Octogenarian breasts at twenty
enthroned in pools of urine
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after childbirth, whose future
is not theirs to mould or flirt with mirth
There is your ‘self’ crushed
between the grinding wheel
of ignorance and the centuries.
In 1981 Heinemann brought out a collection of Peters’ verse under the title Selected
Poetry. Along with selections from the previous volumes, it contains fifty-eight new
poems. They are not always as good as the earlier poems; they exhibit less control of
the brief, clear line, and there is less use of the vivid structural metaphor. But there are
still fine lines and strong poems. Here as in the past Peters writes of and out of the
moment. The mood and subject shift from poem to poem, but there is a kind of weaving
or pulsating of dominant concerns. The sense of discontinuity is always strong in Peters,
but it is especially so in the new poems. And it is presented in terms of the African past,
present, and future. The primary focus is again the present, depicted in the lives of
individual s, in the clash of cultures, and in the exploitation of nee-colonialism.
Juxtaposed against this is an intense nostalgia expressed in pastoral images of the
African past. A third concern is the future of Africa. Especially toward the end of the
volume, he considers how it will happen and what it will be like.
Among the interweaving themes the broken dream of the present prevails. It is
presented as a generalized reflection on political and economic life--the greed of the
elite and the poverty of the people. Often Peters is compelled to simple, sad assertions:
“It has been dismal/ since the new freedom came.” In one of the best of the new poems
he depicts the painful present as the centre of both Africa’s dilemma and his own poetic
consciousness.
Sand castles on the beach
within easy reach
of the white tide’s
menacing graces
I start in my dreams
calabash world in fragments
my pillow wet with tears
acid centuries of bitterness.
The first quatrain is a superb image of the vulnerability of traditional Africa. The second
links the poet’s consciousness to the torment of the continent through the dream of the
broken “calabash world.”
In a number of the new poems his response to this broken world is an intense
nostalgia--a longing to return to traditional Africa as depicted by pastoral and domestic
images. He speaks longingly of “messages/ from wood fires and the warm / pungency
of cooking.” But he, the written African, is disconnected--cut-off. This sense of
separation from the healing past is expressed in one of the best poems in the collection:
Men are roasting nuts
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on wood fires
their laughter like sheet lightning
in the night,
girls dancing by firelight
among green-flowing fields of rice crop.
I, always one removed
from their fun and laughter,
cannot reach them.
They know where sorrow ends,

and I, the broken bridge
across the estuary,
across worlds, cannot reach them.
The whole thrust of the new poems is an attempt to connect the traditional past to some
bearable, liveable future through the shattered present. And Peters is ambivalent about
the possibility of such a connection. In one poem he sees traditional Africa welcoming
its lost children with singing, drumming, and dancing. In another he warns that “the
nearness of nature / has not taught us self-reliance.” But he is a realist as well as a
humanist. In the final analysis continental self- reliance is the only message the past can
communicate to the present to create a future.
the tom-toms are saying
‘This is the time to know yourself.’
Self-knowledge will make possible a collective action, “a mass uprising / from the Atlas
to the Cape/ to ravage the puppets /perverts, iconoclasts.” But as this harsh indictment
of the new African elite makes clear, Peters offers no easy answers but only a slim hope
and a stern warning.
Ogun will not help us
Christ will not help us...
we hold our destiny

in rugged palm.
In Peters’ poetry what we see over and over again is the interaction of a strong sense of
negation and a rat her desperate hope for the future. The centre of his poetic vision is
the African present with its grief, violence, oppression, loneliness, and death. From this
he moves toward a past now lost and a future that may never come. From this centre of
the shattered present even nature is filled with menace unless cleansed by association
with an idealized past.
But there is a progression of feeling and focus from one volume to the next.
Satellites contains many poems that explore the relation of the African past to the harsh
present “when the dawn falters” as well as poems that record his own involvement in
the written African’s cyclical journey to the West and back. The two poems that begin
“We have come home” and “The present reigned supreme” are among his best and most
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ironic. And running through the volume, providing a kind of figurative unity, are images
of the indifferent harshness of nature. Katchikali are often less specifically African. The
poems in In this collection Peters writes more of the condition of written man generally
and of the problems facing the world. Even the political satire tends to be more
generalized. But here also it still seems that the centre from which he writes is the
broken dream of the African present. This is made clear in those poems near the end of
the collection in which he uses images of present suffering and future disaster to attack
the rhetoric of African politicians. Although the pictures of the present in Selected
Poetry are sti ll harsh and bitter, the new poems express increased nostalgia for the
pastoral African past as well as a cautious assertion of hope for the future. Like the other
poet s of his generation, Peters has found that the conditions of life in contemporary
Africa are tragic. As a poet he depicts this tragedy while trying to reclaim the past and
point the way to a viable future.
Assess the major themes in Lenrie Peters’ poetry collections, Poems and Satellite.
3.3 An analysis of The Panic of Growing Older by Lenrie Peters
The panic
of growing older
spreads fluttering winds
from year to year
At twenty
stilled by hope
of gigantic success
time and exploration
At thirty
a sudden throb of
pain. Laboratory tests
have nothing to show
Legs cribbed
in domesticity allow
no sudden leaps
at the noon now
Copybook bisected
with red ink
and failures-
nothing to show the world
Three children perhaps

the world expects
it of you. No
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specialist’s effort there.
But science gives hope

of twice three score
and ten. Hope
is not a grain of sand.
Inner satisfaction
dwindles in sharp
blades of expectation.
From now on the world has you. (Peters, 1967: 72)
The poem is about the different phases of human development starting from birth
through adulthood and old age. The aging process is slow: spreads fluttering winds from
year to year. In the second stanza, the poet describes what happens in early adulthood.
This period is filled with high expectations, hopes, ambition, and adventure. One also
has the advantage of time:
At twenty/stilled by hope/of gigantic success/time and exploration.
The next stanza describes age thirty as the period when one begins to experience pain
that lacks medical explanation: At thirty a sudden throb of pain. Laboratory tests have
nothing to show.
The fourth stanza portrays what happens in old age. As one approaches old age,
weakness sets in and one loses agility: Legs cribbed/in domesticity allow/no sudden
leaps/at the noon now. Often, one spends all his years on earth trying to copy others
without success: Copybook bisected /with red ink and failures. In the end, he has
nothing to show the world except children which the poet does not consider an
achievement: Three children perhaps/ the world expects /it of you. No/ specialist’s effort
there.
Although science gives hope of living up to one hundred and thirty years, this is
not a sure fact:
But science gives hope of/twice three score/and ten.
Hope/is not a grain of sand.
In old age, the thoughts of unfulfilled dreams and aspirations bring weakness to the
mind:
Inner satisfaction dwindles in sharp blades of expectation.
With not much time left, the aged has very little control of his life and simply resigns to
fate:
From now on the world has you.
Structure: This is a free verse poem with no consistent meter pattern or rhyme scheme.
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It has eight stanzas written in short phrases and arranged chronologically. Each stanza
describes the different phases of life.
Language: The poem’s language is simple. However, the poet uses symbols to
represent the aging process. Examples include: “legs cribbed”, “throb of pain”.
Theme: The poem’s main theme is the fear of aging or growing old. Other themes are
mortality of man and life’s uncertainties.
Mood and Tone: The mood is passive. Though the pain associated with aging is
undesirable, the poet accepts that aging is inevitable. The tone is calm.
Poetic Devices
1. Metaphor: Example- “fluttering winds” which describes the anxiety of aging.
2. Symbols: Examples- “sudden throb of pain”, “legs cribbed” represent weakness
associated with aging. “Hope of gigantic success/ time and exploration” represent the
youthful age.
3. Repetition: The word “hope” was repeated in the seventh stanza.
4. Alliteration: Example- “from year to year”
Provide a detail analysis of Peter’s poems other than the ones discussed in this unit.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Lenrie Peters, a surgeon/poet earlier poetry owes little to the oral tradition and
makes no use of indigenous mythology. He is a cosmopolitan poet whose themes are
aging and death, the risks of love, and the loneliness of exile. In Satellites (1967), the
poet-doctor’s surgical detachment is a metaphor for the uprooted individual’s painful
existential isolation. Intellectual ideas about politics, evolution, science, and music
orchestrate Peters’s images in the form of debates. Peter’s poem, The Panic of Growing
Older’ is about the different phases of human development starting from birth through
adulthood and old age. The aging process is slow: spreads fluttering winds from year to
year. The poem’s main theme is the fear of aging or growing old.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The biograpgy of Lenrie Peters
• The features of the poetry of Lenrie Peters
• An analysis of the “The Panic of Growing Older” by Lenrie Peters
1) Discuss the biograpgy of Lenrie Peters
190
2) Explain the unique features of the poetry of Lenrie Peters
3) Analyse “The Panic of Growing Older” by Lenrie Peters

Angmor, Charles. (1985). Contemporary Literature in Ghana 1911–1978: A Critical
Evaluation. Accra: Woeli Publishing, 1996. Anyidoho, Kofi. Earthchild. Accra:
Woeli Publishing.
Fraser, Robert (1986) West African Poetry, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goodwin, Ken (1982), Understanding African Poetry: A Study of Ten Poets, London:
Heinemann.
Press
Peters, Lenrie (1967). Satellites Poems, Heinemann: Houghton Mifflin Hercourt
------------------ (1981) Selected Poetry, London: Heinemann.
Romanus N. Egudu. (1978). Written African Poetry and the African New York: Barnes
and Noble.
Senanu, K. E. and T. Vincent. (1988). A Selection of African Poetry. Harlow: Longman.
191
MODULE 4 THEMES AND STYLE IN SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE
CONTEMPORARIES
Unit 1 The Poems of Kofi Ayindoho
Unit 2 The Poems of Niyi Osundare
Unit 3 The Poems of Sipho Semphala
Unit 4 The Poems of Funso Aiyejina
Unit 5 The Poems of Tenure Ojaide
UNIT 1 THE POEMS OF KOFI AYINDOHO
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Biography of Kofi Anyidoho
3.2 The poetry of Kofi Anyidoho
3.3 Exile and military dictatorship in Kofi Anyidoho’s Earthchild
3.4 Techniques of presentation used by Kofi Anyidoho
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Kofi Anyidoho, a Ghanaian poet was born in 1947. He was educated at the
University of Ghana, Legon (BA), Indiana University (MA), and the University of
Texas (PhD). Anyidoho’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies,
and his five published books of poetry are Elegy for the Revolution (1978), A Harvest
of Our Dreams (1985), Earthchild (1985), Ancestral-Logic and Caribbean Blues
(1993), and Praise Song for the Land (2002). His major themes are public, political,
and social concerns, and his poetry is deeply influenced by the traditions and culture of
the Ewe people of Ghana. The poetry is elegiac and uncovers the connections, in a
traditional African ontological context, between tragedy and comedy, life and death,
and sorrow and joy. In this unit, you will be introduced to the poetry of Anyidoho with
illustration from the Eathchild (1985) collection. (Senanu and Vincent, 2001). Below
are some of the objectives of this unit:
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Discuss the biography of Kofi Anyidoho
• Explain the unique features of Kofi Anyidoho’s poetry
• Examine the themes of exile and military dictatorship in Kofi Anyidoho’s
Earthchild
• Discuss the Techniques of presentation used by Kofi Anyidoho in his poetry
192
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Biography of Kofi Anyidoho
Kofi Anyidoho was a Ghanaian poet. He was born in 1947 Wheta in the Volta
Region of Ghana. Anyidoho was educated at the University of Ghana, Legon (BA),
Indiana University (MA), and the University of Texas (PhD). He taught primary,
middle, and secondary school in Ghana before moving into a university career. He is
currently a Professor of Literature in the English Department as well as Director of the
School of Performing Arts of the University of Ghana. He has received several awards
for his poetry, including the Valco Fund Literary Award, the Langston Hughes Prize,
the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award, the Fania Kruger Fellowship for Poetry of
Social Vision, Poet of the Year (Ghana), and the Ghana Book Award. He was elected a
Fellow of the International Academy of Poets in 1974. Some of his poems have been
translated into Italian, German, Dutch, and Slavic.
Anyidoho’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies, and his
five published books of poetry are Elegy for the Revolution (1978), A Harvest of Our
Dreams (1985), Earthchild (1985), Ancestral-Logic and Caribbean Blues (1993), and
Praise Song for the Land (2002), which includes a CD with readings of the poems.
Anyidoho’s major themes are public, political, and social concerns, and his poetry is
deeply influenced by the traditions and culture of the Ewe people of Ghana. The poetry
is elegiac and uncovers the connections, in a traditional African ontological context,
between tragedy and comedy, life and death, and sorrow and joy. In his poetry
Anyidoho reacts to the dehumanization and torture that characterizes the European
colonization of Africa and its peoples, and to the lack of moral rectitude of many
postindependence African leaders. He makes his preoccupation with the plight of
postindependent Africa explicit in “House- Boy” (in A Harvest of Our Dreams): “The
dreams of Fanon’s wretched of the earth/condense into storms in our mourning sky.”
Anyidoho is also the editor of a collection of essays titled Beyond Survival: African
Literature and the Search for New Life, with Abena P. A. Busia and Anne V. Adams
(1998). The collection has a literary focus, but also offers a thesis about the role of
African-heritage writers in current crises for African peoples as a whole. Another
critical work by Anyidoho is Fontomfrom: Contemporary Ghanaian Literature,
Theatre and Film, which he co-authored with James Gibbs (2000). He has also recently
published an article in Africa Today titled “The Back without Which There Is No Front”
(Killam, 2008)
Assess the literary biography of Kofi Anyidoho.
3.2 The Poetry of Kofi Anyidoho
In his “Oral Techniques and Commitment in The Poetry of Okot P’bitek and
Kofi Anyidoho: Their Contributions to Modern African Poetry” (2013), Okon discussed
the poems of Kofi Anyidoho. According to him Anyindoho is one of Ghana’s new
generation poets. This generation of poets can be differentiated by their masses-oriented
poetry. The implication is that their poetry is “committed”, committed to the ultimate
193
liberation of the masses from the shackles of economic and political exploitation. In
other words, Anyidoho can be seen as a revolutionary of some sort. This caption fits
him, as his activities fit Ngara’s definition of a revolutionary, as follows:
It is the duty of the revolutionary writer…. to produce works which awaken
the masses, which fire them with enthusiasm that they unite in one single
effort to transform their environment.
He, like others in his class, writes committed literature due to a deep understanding of
the class struggles in Africa as the motive force of African history. He sees the working
classes as the only hope for the continent and refuses to resign in the face of corruption
in despair (Agye 135-6). This, therefore, informs the vision of Anyidoho, in his poetry
collection, A Harvest of our Dreams. Excerpts from his earlier collection Elegy for the
Revolution included in the above-mentioned collection exemplify Anyidoho’s
revolutionary temper. An example is his dedication in A Harvest of Our Dreams
To the memory of
The revolution that went astray
And for/Those who refuse to die
Aluta continua…
Many of the poems in A Harvest of Our Dreams may perhaps be said to deal with the
defunct Acheampong/Akuffo Regimes in Ghana, between 1972 and 1978. Why this
deep attachment? Angmor rationalizes Anyidoho’s seeming preoccupation with the
Acheampong regime thus:
… Anyidoho belongs to the group of Ghanaian students who hailed the
military coup of 1972 as a hope and an opportunity to retrieve Ghana’s
international image, reshape the mentality of the citizenry and restore
economic security and contentment in the fortunes of the common man….
The sadness of the bitter shock of disappointment and disillusionment of the
youth is the current that flows through his poems (26).
It is in this context that we observe his comments on corruption in power, in the poem
“My Last Testament”
Adonu Adokli
Dancer - extra-ordinary
Who threw dust into Master-Drummer’s
eyes/so you’ve gone the way of flesh
danced on heels in a backwards loop
into the narrow termite home….
In the above poem Anyidoho expresses his disillusionment with the corruption of
usurping military rulers. Further in the poem, he says that the people’s dreams of
economic betterment have not yet been realized. He predicts another revolution:
Now I smell thunders
loading their cannons with
194
furies of storms…
and ends up reiterating his unyielding stance:
I toss these rising doubts to thunder
and stagger back into my soul, still
holding firm onto this growing confidence ….
Anyidoho stands as one who would flight on behalf of the less privileged in society. For
this reason, the tone of his poems remains unyielding. Another example of this
unyielding and resolute spirit is to be found in “Our Birth Cord”. This poem restates the
loss of the people’s hopes thus:
a piece of meat lost in cabbage stew
it will be found the tongue
will feel it out.
He reflects on the sufferings of the people “Across the memory of a thousand
agonies….”
While restating the loss of the people’s hopes, the protagonist ends in a resolute
attitude of not yielding to death threats from military rulers:
And if we must die at birth, pray
We return with –
But we were not born to be killed
by threats of lunatics
This piece re-echoes Langston Hughes’ poem “If We Must Die”
In “Dance of the Hunch-back” the protagonist depicts the poverty and misery of
the common man. The common man is here symbolically represented as a “hunchback”.
Mine is the dance of the hunchback….
I crawl my way with strain and shame
I leave the paved streets to
Owners of the earth….
“Owners of the earth” here represents the privileged class. Here, the hunchback’s
brother dies and the doctor makes the following pronouncement:
“he died of innate poverty”
Ironically enough, kinsmen who never offered help while the deceased was alive, now
come for the funeral, flaunting all sorts of expensive articles for their own selfish
enjoyment; even the deceased is buried in a glass coffin:
Kinsmen came from distant quests
With precious things for parting gifts…
a glass coffin with rims of gold…
each kind kinsman stood tall in our hearts
195
In spite of this, the hunchback is disgraced because he is too poor to contribute anything
towards his brother’s funeral. As an outcast, he states dejectedly:
I crawl along quiet sidewalks of life
With the hedge-hog and the crab
I carry a tedious destiny….
With this poem, Anyidoho’s identification with the common man is complete
In another poem entitled “Radio Revolution”, Anyidoho depicts the usual “game
of musical chairs” or charade of intermittent coups and counter-coups that plague not
only Ghana, but almost every country in Africa in the recent past. These coups are
normally characterized by dawn broadcasts by the new “saviours”, as Anyidoho states:
Again this dawn our Radio
Broke off the vital end of sleep
Revolution … Devolution ….Resolution!
This is a satire on all coups. The protagonist parodies this coup announcement by going
out into the streets “seeking revolution”. The sarcasm is barely concealed, especially in
the last three lines, when the protagonist puns on the sounds of the words “leave” and
“live”.
Long Leave the Revolution!!!
In the poem “Elegy for the Revolution”, the poet’s attitude of derogatory perception of
the military rulers is personified in his warning to them about the imminence of another
revolution:
The Revolution violates a devotee
Beware/Beware the wrath of
Thunderbolts/ The agonised thoughts
Of a detainee translate/our new
Blunders into nightmares of blood and sweat:
In “A Dance of Death”, Anyidoho’s poetry becomes not only prophetic of a coup aimed
at dethroning the Acheampong/Akuffo regimes, but prophetic of the eventual
elimination by firing squad, of all living former Ghanaian military Heads of State.
Besides, the poem re-iterates revolutionary ideals, endorsing violence and bloodshed as
necessary means through which reconstruction can be undertaken:
Let us celebrate our
death by firing squads
to beats of martial strains
let us link our arms
on these public fields of blood
teach our feet to do the dance of death
The poet believes that to rebuild and recreate the nation, there must be sacrifice
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The birth of a new nation
Calls for sacrifice of souls
and this is underscored with the dialectical paradox of destruction and creation:
The process of reconstruction
is also
A process of demolition
This signifies the cleansing of the society from corruption, by the elimination of corrupt
leaders. This poem is prophetic in that when Rawlings came to power a second time,
past rulers of Ghana like Afriffa, Acheampong and Akuffo, were eliminated by firing
squad (Okon, 2013).
What are the recurrent themes in Anyidoho’s poetry?
3.3 Exile and Military Dictatorship in Kofi Anyidoho’s Earthchild
Set against the background of military dictatorship in Ghana, Anyidoho’s
Earthchild (1981) presents one with the shocking images of home and their capacity
to instigate flight from annihilation, a thought that often undermines at the initial stage
the harrowing tribulations of exile since what matters for the moment is to escape the
immediate inconveniences of home. Schooled in the oral tradition of his Ewe people,
Anyidoho taps the rich resources of this tradition for the adornment of his art. For the
most part in this collection, there is an adoption of the dirge tradition of his people as
an artistic means of explicating the drift-prone condition of a nation hemmed in by the
tyrannical hand of military politicians.
While he adopts what Ezenwa-Ohaeto (1999:130) calls the use of personal
voice, the experience however reaches far beyond the personal as it brings to focus
the collective travail of a people in a society where the “Star-General is urinating
peace on Capitol Hill”. The difficulty of the military to cope with the self-imposed
responsibility of salvaging the nation from the shackles of international debt, austerity
measures and general economic mishaps (Henry Beienin 1987: 54) is worsened by
the tendency of the class to treat matters of serious national magnitude with levity
and disdain. This is what is metaphorically designated as the “urinating of peace”.
Whoever is acquainted with the corrosive acidity of urine surely knows that such act
stokes no good for the nation. As expected, all this provides an alibi for people to
leave in search of a greener pasture. It explains why the parting of soul-mates is what
is lamented in “Song of a Twin Brother” as the persona recollects that “many, many
moons ago” his “twin brother” with whom he “shared the same mat/…parted in our
dreams”. If in the above poem one is left to imagine the lot and fortune of the exiled
brother, such elliptical frugality which tasks the imagination is forestalled in “To
Ralph Crowder” which ends in the following lines:
We suffer here so much
But they say your case is worse
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And you’ve fought with all your
blood
Always fighting on the bleeding side
And you cannot go on like this …
Come Crowder Come
But I tell you all is not well at Home.
Again, the question of the dilemma to which the exile is tragically consigned resonates
in the stanza above. The reality of exile has turned out to be far from providing
succour. Ordinarily, return should be the next line of action, but the same kinsman
who calls for Crowder’s return cannot but alert him to the fact that “all is not well at
home.” The predicament of the lost twin brother and Crowder goes to demonstrate the
strength of Paul Tiyambe Zeleza’s (2005:12) argument that “dislocation, expatriation
from home is a prosaic condition experienced by millions of people rather than an
exceptional reality only for those blessed with artistic souls”. The poet thus becomes
a medium through which the expatriatory travails of his people are expressed (Okon,
2013).
Discuss other themes in Anyidoho’s Earthchild.
3.4 Techniques of Presentation Used By Kofi Anyidoho
What techniques does Anyidoho use? His major techniques include: The Use of
Praise Names, which demonstrates that he has been influenced by his Ewe traditional
oral poetry tradition, for example in his “My Last Testament”, he makes use of praise
names such as:
Adonu Adokli
… ………………
Katako Gako
Old mad-one…
The Use of Repetition: Repetition is used for emphasis: an example is in the poem
“Radio Revolution”:
(a) I/seek Revolution
… ………………….
(b) I was out my dear
I was out seeking revolution
Another instance is his repetition, with slight change in emphasis, of the following:
a piece of meat lost in cabbage stew
It will be found…
And, also the phrase:
“If we must die “

in the poem “Our Birth Cord”.
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The Use of Symbolism is found in the images he creates in his poetry. For example, he
depicts the common man as symbolised by the hunchback in “Dance of the hunchback”.
He also depicts the military class as “leopards”, “panthers”, or “lunatics”
Use of Puns and Homophones: homophones are used for example, in “Radio
Revolution”, thus:
Revolution… Devolution… Resolution
This play on words is done to give a different meaning to each word in spite of the
similarity in sound environment. Subtle change in meaning which the undiscovering
eye cannot see is what is aimed at. And above all, it is done for emphasis. There is the
pun on “live” and “leave” also in the same poem.
The Language of Anyidoho is seemingly simple, full of assonance, therefore,
musical. For example:
Again and again and again
You may stand on shores of memory…
(“On Shores of Memory”)
Anyidoho has contributed to modern African poetry in the following ways: As one of
the poets of the younger generation, he has contributed in making poetry for public
recital popular in Ghana (Apronti 31; cf Anyidoho 45-47)4. That is why sound and
music are important in his poetry. Both the public recital, and musicality of Anyidoho’s
poetry underline his masses-oriented vision. He has a musical frame of poetic
composition (Angmor 61); his poetry is closely modeled after traditional Ewe poetry in
which he is well versed. This influence can be seen in his use of praise-names, as well
as in his dirge-style. An example is his poems “A Harvest of Our Dreams” and “Fertility
Game”; his compositions have a lyrical quality just like p’Bitek’s. This is an index of
their derivation from the oral poetry of the people, and underscores the over/all musical
quality of their poetry; His unyielding vision of society has contributed to the urgency
and sharpness in his poetry, and also explains his pre-occupation with death, sacrifice,
revolution, and bloodshed. This vision now characterises many other writers of his
generation and is portrayed in their concern for the plight of the masses; he has
contributed to the political theme of military rule in Africa, just as other writers have
contributed to the same theme in drama and in the novel; and, he is one among few
African poets whose poetry has been prophetic to a large extent. In this regard, Nigeria’s
Okigbo is the first example. Therefore, Anyidoho’s poetry stands out in this respect
(Okon, 2013).
Outline the presentation techniques in Anyidoho’s poetry.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Kofi Anyidoho is one of Ghana’s new generation poets. The can be differentiated
by their masses-oriented poetry. The implication is that their poetry is “committed”,
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committed to the ultimate liberation of the masses from the shackles of economic and
political exploitation. Anyidoho can therefore be seen as a revolutionary of some sort.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The biography of Kofi Anyidoho
• The features of Kofi Anyidoho’s poetry
• The themes of exile and military dictatorship in Kofi Anyidoho’s Earthchild
• The techniques of presentation in Kofi Anyidoho’s poetry
1) Outline the biography of Kofi Anyidoho
2) Explain the unique features of Kofi Anyidoho’s poetry
3) Explain the themes of exile and military dictatorship in Kofi Anyidoho’s
Earthchild
4) Discuss the techniques of presentation employed by Kofi Anyidoho in his poetry
Anyidoho, K. (1985). Earthchild. Ghana: Woeli.
Beinin, H. (1987). “Populist Military Regimes in West Africa,” in John Harberson (ed).
The Military in African Politics. New York: in Cooperation with the School of
Advanced International Studies.
Ezenwa-Ohaeto. (1999). “Survival Strategies and the New Life of Orality in Nigerian
and Ghanaian Poetry: Osundare’s Waiting Laughers and Anyidoho’s Earth
Child,” in Kofi Anyidoho, et al (eds). Beyond Survival: African Literature and
the Search for New Life. Trenton, N.J: Africa World Press.
Press
Okon, F. A. (2013). “Oral Techniques and Commitment in The Poetry of Okot P’bitek
And Kofi Anyidoho: Their Contributions to Modern African Poetry”.
International Journal of English Language and Literature Studies 2(1):10-29
Zeleza, P. (2005). “The Politics of Exile: Edward Said in Africa,” Research in African
Literatures. Vol. 36, 2 (Fall 2005), 1-2.
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UNIT 2 THE POEMS OF NIYI OSUNDARE
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 A brief biography of Niyi Osundare
3.2 General review on Niyi Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
3.3 Analysis of selected poems from Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place.
3.3.1 African experience in Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
3.3.2 ‘Excursion’ as a portrayal of Nigeria’s socio-political experience
3.3.3 “Siren” as a portrayal of Africa’s leadership problem
3.3.4 African cultural heritages in Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
3.5 Osundare’s language and Style
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Niyi Osundare who has made a name as a linguist, a critic and an experienced
journalist and teacher is a poet devoted to serve the exploited African peasantry. He
appears impressive and prominent among the younger generation of Nigerian poets. His
works vividly convey his concept on the relationship between the oppressed
Nigerian/African and the crop of leaders there. His works address a deluge of themes
which include corruption, poverty, administrative mismanagement, and to a certain
extent, the lingering effects of colonialism on the African continent. Oundare played a
very prominent role in the campaign against the practices of the first generation of
Nigerian poets often referred to as “Euro-Modernist poets” who tended to have lingered
too long on the burden of managing the imperial lords’ legacy or what Inyabri, Thomas
(2006) calls “domineering images”. This unit will examine selected poems from
Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place to buttress how written African poetry portrays
African experience. Below are some of the objectives of this unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Give a Brief Biography of Niyi Osundare
• Review Niyi Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
• Analysis some poems from Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
• Describe the African experience in Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
• Discuss the theme of ‘excursion’ as a portrayal of Nigeria’s socio-political
experience in Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
• Discuss the theme of “Siren” as a portrayal of Africa’s Leadership problem in
Songs of the Market Place
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• Explain the theme of African cultural heritages in Osundare’s Songs of the Market
Place
• Discuss Osundare’s language and Style
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 A Brief Biography of Niyi Osundare
Nigerian poet, Niyi Osundare was born in Ikere-Ekiti, educated at the University
of Ibadan, the University of Leeds and New York University, Toronto. He returned to
Nigeria to work as a university lecturer and journalist. Since 1935 he has taken poetry
to a wider audience through his regular column in the Tribune newspaper. One of the
most prolific and highly regarded of Nigeria’s contemporary poets, Osundare’s work
uses a wide range of vernacular and literary idioms to frame its lyrical and satirical
concern with social justice. His principal collections of verse include Songs of the
Market Place (1984), Waiting Laughter (1990), Song of the Season (1990) Selected
Poems (1992) and Midlife (1993). The Eye of the Earth (1986) won both the Association
of Nigerian Author’s poetry prize. He is a celebrated performer of his poetry which has
affinities with Nigeria’s oral tradition. (Aiyejina, 1988)
Give detailed biography of Niyi Osundare.
3.2 Osundare as a Poetic Messiah
Niyi Osundare is apparently one of the most outspoken of the new breed poets
whose style marks him out as fitly messianic (Alu, 2008). This is because as a poet of
substance, Osundare’s attempt at addressing the problems facing critics and scholars of
African poetry places him as an interesting look-alike of Bloomian “kenosis”. He
pioneers a campaign against obscurantism by dedicating Songs of the Market Place to
propagate and celebrate what many critics came to believe was an over-asserted and
unrealistic leap. The void, so seemingly created at kenosis in this context, gave
Osundare the leverage to employ a befitting poetic medium to join the emerging new
voices in poetry. The new breed poets principally sought to demystify it through the
simplification of its language which Abdu Saleh affirms below:
Osundare’s poetic style marks him as a representative voice of the group.
Through a studied critique and reworking of language of their predecessors,
Osundare leads the group in their tacit task of liberating and demystifying
the business of poetry to many readers. As language and language use lie in
the essence of poetry, African poetry can only gain its distinctive voice
quality by the degree to which its language-African or borrowed European-
is shaped and reflected in local African experience (Alu, 2008: 49).
Maduakor, another important voice in Nigerian poetry, however, believes that the new
direction in the language of poetry has to do with the Nigerian civil war. The emergent
style and the themes of their poetry tended to address the new socio-political and
economic realities of the nation. He asserts that “a new attitude in language – the war
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revolutionized the attitude to language of Nigerian poetry- imbued it with new energy,
a new direction and a new urgency”. (49). Olu Obafemi’s observation that the poet’s
deployment of words as due to his “radical revolutionary vision” is also relative and
reflective.
Critically examine Niyi Osundare as a Poetic Messiah
3.3 Niyi Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
Several critical works have been written on Niyi Osundare’s poetry and even on
the collection under study here (Alu, 2008). It therefore becomes necessary to consider
one or two of these critical works. One of such critical works on Osundare’s poetry is
an article written by Sarah Ayang Agbor, with the title, History, Memory and Tradition
in African poetry. According to Sarah:
Poetry has become a means of remembering history and documenting the
oral lore of a people. It is a medium of transposing the culture of the people
as well as exposing the abnormalities within it through memory.
She identifies the functions of African poetry as evident in Osundare’s poetry to include,
education, entertainment and moralization. The writer goes further to state that Niyi
Osundare alongside, Odia Ofeimum, Tanure Ojaide, Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Biodun Jeyifo
and others as belonging to the third generation of Nigerian poets and their poetry is
characterized by social contradictions that are resolved in favour of the masses. She
defines “memory by quoting Stedman thus: retaining and recalling past experience
based on the mutual processes of leaning retention, recall and recognition”. Poetic
memory as she further stated recollects past events or history which can be couched in
orality”. She quotes Maurice Vambe as noting “how the notion orality is broad and
elastic including everything from allegory to tale si point possession fantasy and myth
to ancestor veneration ritual, legends, proverbs, fables and jokes” (235). She
emphatically notes that:
The recourse to orality by Osundare is part of the attempt by African writers to
regain aesthetic independence from Western traditions through the revitalization
of traditional African cultural modes. It was perceived that the use of elements
of African oral traditions could become a powerful tool in the establishment of
an alternative oppositional discourse (History, Memory and Tradition in Niyi
Osundare’s poetry).
She finally states that because of colonialism, the indigenous people resorted to their
oral culture to create a sense of belonging and identity against imposed Eurocentric
traditions. Colonialism is attempt to suppress African culture has instead produced a
united community with the single aim asserting the African cultural heritage.
Sarah’s essay reviewed above is instrumental to the work being embarked upon
here. She has been able to identify the thematic preoccupation of Niyi Osundare’s
poetry which is not far from the contemporary African experience. Her work
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collaborates the claim that Osundare’s poetry is good example of poetry that bothers on
African experience. The essay has equally been able to point out that Niyi Osundare’s
poetry is imbued with the sense of Africa’s cultural heritage. She has equally identified
the major aspect of Africans cultural heritage that is portrayed Osundare’s poetry. This
aspect is the oral tradition which Osundare exploits in treat dimension to fashion his
poetry (Alu, 2008).
Another critical work which concentrate on Niyi Osundare’s poetry is Joe
Ushie’s detailed essay with the title, ‘Cultural Crossings in Osundare’s Poetry’. In this
essay Ushie asserts that even though Niyi Osundare like other written African poets
have chosen to express themselves in English Language because of the wider audience
it offers them, the English language in their work is made to carry the weight of the
African culture. According to Ushie:
Osundare is known for his deployment of devices from his Yoruba roots into
his poetry in English. Indeed so conscious and deliberate is his reliance on
Yoruba culture and language that Stephen Arnold has described him as not
an Anglophone African poet but a Yoruba poet who writes in English.
The writer goes further to discuss the elements of orality that can be found in Osundare’s
Songs of the Market Place. He cites the example of proverb from songs of the market.
The lizard feeds on its own brood. And wonders why they say it barriers its future in its
guts (Sm, 37).
What are the major themes in Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place?
3.4 Analysis of Selected Poems from Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place.
3.4.1 African Experience in Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
It is important to mention first and foremost that Niyi Osundare leaves a space
for the oppressed masses of the society. This is what Funso Aiyejina describes as “The
fulfilment of the public poet, the town crier briefly glimpsed in the Okigbo of path of
Thunder” (22). Osundare’s artistry hinges on the politics of revolutionizing of society.
As he identifies with the people, he creates vents to satirize the politicians for their
statelessness. His poetry carries the readers through different social spheres in Nigeria
and Africa giving us a cinematographic account of the situation.
3.4.2 ‘Excursion’ as a Portrayal of Nigeria’s Socio-political Experience
In ‘Excursion’, which is the second of the thirty five (35) poem collection,
Osundare through the poetic persona takes the reader on a tour or excursion round the
country and the African continent. Several soul shattering experiences are portrayed in
the course of the excursion. The poet therefore, takes the reader on an artistic excursion
to enable us view vividly the contemporary situation in Nigeria as a country and Africa
as a whole. In the first stanza of this longest poem in the collection, the poet vividly
portrays the experience of poverty that has become the lot of many Nigerians. The effect
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of this massive poverty, hunger and starvation which results to sickness. This is the way
it is captured in the stanza one of the poem:
We meet eyes in sunken sockets
Teeth bereft of gum
Skins scaly like Iguana’s
Feet swollen like watermelon.
The poet through the use of hyperbole renders a soul-rendering picture of people who
have been mangled by hunger to the extent that they become unrecognisable as human
beings. Hunger have made their sockets go deep inside and the resultant sickness
leading to the loss of their gums and their feet becoming “swollen line watermelon”.
This is an experience that the poetic persona has in the course of the excursion.
In stanza two of the poem, the poet exposes the effect of this hunger and
starvation resulting from poverty on the breast feeding mothers and their babies. These
breast feeding mothers do not have money to eat a balance diet and as a result, there is
no milk in the breast for the new born baby. This unfortunate situation is captured thus
in the poem.
We meet babies with chronic hydrocephalus
Squeezing spongy breasts
On mother’s bony chests
Shrivelled.
The poet goes on in stanza three to intimate us with the effect of this cancerous hunger
on the young ones. As a result of malnutrition, these so called leaders of tomorrow are
suffering with bloated stomachs of kwashiorkor. The poet presents this thus:
We see village boys’ kwashiorkor bellies
Hairless heads impaled on pin necks
And ribs baring the benevolence of the body polity.
The poet in the last two lines ironically states that all these expose the benevolence of
the body polity which implies that, this shows how irresponsible in an ironical tone, the
leaders are. The leaders who are supposed to see to the welfare of her citizenry have
failed in their duties. And as a result of this, the citizenry are left to suffer untold
hardship.
In stanza four, five, six, seven and eight of the poem, we are intimated with the
struggle for survival which has become synonymous with the poor masses. These
stanzas prove that Africans or Nigerians to be specific are not lazy people; they work
so hard like elephants but eat little like ants. This is to show that the poverty which has
befallen them is not natural but rather man-made. The head of the family as we can see
in stanza four roams the whole bush, looking for daily bread. He tries to gather cocoa
that will even be used to nourish other nations not himself. This is the way the poet puts
it:
The family head roams the bush
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Trapping rats and insects
And cocoa bags in prosperous wait
For the trip to Liverpool.
The last two lines reminds us of the painful experience in African and Nigeria in
particular where poor farmers select the best crop yields of their farm produce for sale
while they eat the diseased or decaying ones. In most cases, it is even the irresponsible
leaders that feed fat on these farm produce while the main producers suffer in the pang
of poverty.
Pregnant women who have nothing to eat to keep body and soul together are
found rummaging garbage heaps for the rotting remnants of city tables. This ugly
picture of poverty is painted in stanza five of the poem. This lugubrious picture speaks
volume of the fact that in the same country where many have nothing to eat, few others
have much to eat and some left for the dust bins. This is so annoying because as we can
see that few have much while the majority have little or nothing. Our leaders and the so
called rich people are so selfish to the point that they will rather throw some of their
foods to the dustbin than giving them to the poor. In Nigeria, some dogs belonging to
politicians and the so called rich men, feed far better than many people in the country.
This is an experience that is peculiar to Africa where the leaders are so corrupt beyond
measures, to the point that what one selfish rich man has is more than enough to feed
hundred persons for a year.
Further in stanza six, another soul shattering experience is recalled thus:
We see the farmer shaving earth’s head
With a tiny, his back a creaking
Bow of disintegrating discs
From dawn’s dew to dusk’s dust
Offering futile sacrifices
To a creamless soil.
In the above stanza, it is clear that the country men are working pretty hard but with
nothing to show for their hard labours. This is because; the social structures erected by
the leaders have made it impossible for the labourer to enjoy the benefits accruing to
their labours. In the case of the farmer, he suffers from over used soil that has lost all
its nutrients. The leaders are not equally benevolent enough to help the poor farmers
with subsidized fertilizers. Whenever these fertilizers are made available, they are either
cornered or sold by government agents or the price for it is so exorbitant beyond what
the poor farmer can afford.
In stanza six, a picture of exploitation and suffering is presented thus:
Halfnude, tough biceped labourers
Troop in tipperfuls from sweatfields
Drived by fouremen sourless like
A slave master, a few kobo greet
The miserly home coming
Of a pilgrimage of misery.
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In most part of the country, in fact in every state and city of the federation, there is
usually place where the labourers station themselves. They wake up very early in the
morning to wait for visitors whose time of arrival is not known to them. Some of them
do not even eat before leaving the house. Whenever a car or a well dressed man or
woman passes by, they rush to him or her believing he or she has come to hire some
labourers. This they do on daily basis. In some of these days, they may not be very lucky
to get a job to do, then they will have to go home in utter disappointment and
despondency. The most annoying part of this is that whenever they are lucky to be hired,
the money they are paid is not commensurate with the work they have done. Sometimes,
they may not even be paid. It becomes more painful when one recalls that the hirers of
these labourers are our leaders and the so called rich men who feed fat on the sweats of
the people. This is the picture presented in the stanza above. Most of these labourers are
the country’s able bodied youths who are not able to get themselves something
meaningful to do. They dress in tattered rags because they have no money to buy new
ones. They are equally exploited because what they are paid is nothing to compare with
the amount of work they have done.
The poet goes further to relate to his readers one of the resultants of this kind of
pitiable economic situation. The country becomes a breeding ground for all kinds of
social vices and atrocities. One of such vices is prostitution on the part of the women.
It is well known that hunger can make one indulge in an illicit act that he or she would
not have ordinarily indulged in. This is the picture that the poets present in stanza eight
of the “Excursion”. Thus:
On street pavements women delouse
Each other in busy reciprocity
Nits deficient like palm kernels,
Explode between the nail rats and roaches compete
In the inner room
And lizards play
Hide and seek in wall cracks.
The above stanza is a product of a society where the leaders have utterly failed the
expectation of the masses. The ladies out of frustration and hunger have resorted to
prostitution which is a social vice. This is san indication to the fact that the rate of
prostitution in Nigeria is alarming. In many cities of the country, there are usually
brothels where these prostitutes live. They compete for customers to keep body and soul
together.
The poet in this poem does not want to leave any aspect of Nigeria’s life behind
just as he highlights religious exploitation which is another contemporary African
experience in stanza eight of the “Excursion”. The words of the poetic personae puts it
thus:
In the neighbourhood church
The faithful song into
Catatonic orgasms,
Hymning and psalming are the diets
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Of the soul though the body succumbs
To the buffets of hunger
Between belches the plump preacher
Extols the virtue of want,
The only ticket to the wealth beyond.
In Africa, religion has become a tool of exploitation, in which materialistic preachers
make merchandise of the people through their gullibility. These so called preachers
extort money from these poor masses all in the name of religion. They tell the people
that there is nothing good in this world and so, and their attentions should be focused
on heaven. The thematic thrust of their message is “lay up for yourself treasures in
heaven, where neither termites nor moths can reach” with such messages, these wolves
in sheep clothing end up collecting the whole the little that the poor masses have
gathered. Religion which is supposed to bring salvation to the people has in our country
become a tool of slavery in which some sardonic elements in the guise of preachers
exploit others.
The poet in stanza nine, returns to the agitating issue of the irresponsibility and
defiance attitudes of our leaders who have failed in their duties. These leaders are not
in any way perturbed about the situation of things in the country. Most of these so called
leaders pass through several Nigerian roads that are nothing better than death traps, but
they do nothing concerning it. These leaders pass through streets full of dirt and
rottenness but they are not disturbed. They are so myopic that cannot see the sufferings
of the masses. This is aptly presented by the poet:
Several government people
Have passed through these streets
Several Mercedes tyres have drenched
Gaunt road liners in sewer water
Several sanitary inspectors have come
In formidable helmets and gas masks
But rot and tanwiji escape
The uniformed eye.
The non-challant attitudes of our leaders is thus highlighted in the above stanza. This is
further corroborated in the one line stanza of stanza ten of the poem, thus:
Poverty is an invisible thing
This shows the rate of which
African leaders exhibit attitudes of irresponsibility
The question is, are the sufferings of the Nigerian masses not too obvious and
conspicuous for our leaders to see? The obvious answer is that they actually see them
and are very much aware of the poverty ravaging the majority of the citizens but they
have obstinately decided to remain adamant to the plights of the suffering masses. This
foregrounds the fact that the failure of post-colonial African leaders is an experience
peculiar to Africa.
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In the second part of “Excursion”, the poet captures a very prevalent experience
in Nigeria. Poverty and disability have sent to many people on the street to beg. Most
of these disabled people are as a result of one ailment or the other that left them
perpetually handicapped. The poet goes further to note with dismay in stanza two of the
second part of the Excursion that:
Some living casualties of our recent war
The war we fought
To make politicians rich
And the country poor
Some victims of a raging war battered grass in the battle
Of mindless elephants
They display angular babies
Extracting sympathy pennies
From passers-by.
The above stanza reminds us of the horrible and unforgettable historical experience of
the Nigerian civil of 1967 to 1970. This war rendered many homeless, penniless and
addition to the hundreds of thousands that lost their lives in the fratricidal war. The poet
in the above stanza, states that this war has rendered many Nigerians perpetual beggars
up till this day. Many of these beggars were former soldiers who fought the war but
only escaped with one part of their body being maimed. Some of these beggars are
equally unfortunate victims of nefarious government policies. Some workers who were
unnecessary laid off have no other option than to beg. In Nigeria, some workers are
forced to go on compulsory retirement before their time even without due pension and
gratuity. Indeed, this is a typical African experience!
Still in the third part of this long poem under study, the poet focuses his poetic
lens on the city life in Nigeria. He presents a picture of the day to day experience in a
typical Nigeria city like Lagos. This is the way it is put:
I have been through
The push and pull
Of shopping doors
Queuing before
Red-hipped damsels
Fingering cash registers
Insolent like a January harmattan.
This vividly captures the unrespectful and insolent attitudes of the beautiful sales girls
who are stationed in big shops merely to attract customers. The poet in stanza two of
this part of the poem vividly portrays the daily uncivilized attitudes of some Nigerians
in the city as he puts it:
I have been through
The jam and jab
Of motor parks
Molue, danfo, dagbere
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And ear slaying horns
Harcher than Hitler’s siren
Porters and omalanke
Scrumble under smuggled merchandise.
This is a vivid picture of life as it is lived in a typical Nigerian city. This is equally the
picture that the poet further paints in stanza three:
And touts strain for a pluck
At the hawking girls’ oranges
The just come country trader
Dissolves in tears
As pick-purse brawl
Over the loot
Across the street.
A close look at the above stanza, will reveal every day experience in Nigeria which the
poet carefully captures. It is a common thing in Nigerian motor parks that touts always
try to steal oranges from the female hawker. Pick pocketing is equally another
experience that is prevalent in Nigeria that is encapsulated in the above stanza.
In stanza five, six, and seven of this part, the poet faces the nonchalant and care
free attitudes of Nigerian civil servants. These civil servants as presented by the poet
are nothing but play boys’ who play hanky-panky games with their works. There is not
a sense of commitment in them at all just as files are lost and found and lost. These civil
servants are fond of taking the civil service work as no man’s work and as a result
behave any how they like. They come to work any day they feel like and make flimsy
trickish excuses to cover them up any day they do not feel like going to work.
Osundare, in the last part of this long poem “Excursion”, succinctly faces the
gigantic social malaise which Nigeria has become synonymous with. This gigantic
social malaise is nothing but corruption. Corruption has become a reoccurring
experience in Africa that cannot be avoided in the discourse of contemporary challenges
facing the African society today. In Nigeria series of military and civilian governments
have come and gone but one characteristic weakness of all this administration is
corruption. This corruption is mostly rampant on the part of our leaders who are self-
centred and guided by wild sense of materialism. Most of these leaders have been
severally indicted of money laundering. They staunch Nigerian money in foreign
accounts. They equally make life investment in other countries, thereby helping in the
development of other countries’ economy while their own home country is greatly
impoverished. This is the matter espoused by the poet in the first stanza of the part IV
of this same poem:
In the streets
People whisper their rage
About a million million
Naira of our blood
Multiplying foreign fortunes
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And the damnable years
Of our blind slavery.
One wonders in utter dismay, how in a country where many persons have nothing to
grease their mouths, few others eat and scatter and even gather their loots in foreign
reserves. The masses are aware of this, but the egocentric leaders surround themselves
with all the political arsenal or weaponry that they easily clamp down any form of
opposition. Even the only power the people has to determine who rules them through
democratic election has been undermined just as most elections in the country today are
marred by rigging and other electoral malpractices.
The corruption that has characterized governance in Nigeria has quietly crept into the
highest citadel of learning in Nigeria—the university. Most universities in our country
today celebrate mediocrity and not hard work. Lecturers collect money from students
in the guise of sorting to pass them in their courses, thereby making such students lazy.
That is not all; they sleep with the female students in order to pass them. What a calamity
that has befallen the apex of learning in our country. This is the way, Osundare presents
it in the second stanza of this part IV:
in university corridors
students talk about headbare gums
recycling worn traditions
dreading change like despots
yes, they talk about dons
pawning wives for chairs
then slouching into glamorized mediocrity
breeding flat minds
diplomaed with the slavish stamp
of received gospels.
The above stanza goes further to foreground the orthodox attitude of some lecturers who
have continued to do the same thing for years without any change. One will find very
old men in the university system as lectures that have refused to retire because they
forged their working ages.
The poet in stanza three, returns to a very vivid African experience that is the despotism
and tyranny of African leaders. This as we can see from this stanza and the next is both
evident in the traditional and political leaders. These leaders make themselves demi-
gods that should be worshipped by their subjects. They are so power drunk that they
would not want to relinquish power to another person. Several leaders in civilian and
military regimes in Africa have attempted to remain on the “throne” forever. This quest
to hold on to power by some African leaders have resulted into several political crisis
in the continent. The ineptitude of these ambitious egocentric African leaders is
captured in the following lines of the poem:
In the village
people talk
about the old confusing age with wit
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making grey hair excuse
for frosted folly
demanding a world prostrate
like a fossilized lizard salaaming
to the stiff orders
of hoary tyranny (13-14).
Similarly in stanza five,
in the cities
people whisper
about fortressed kings
ruling by boot and butt
sirens limiting through
the turbid squalor
of slums like the butcher’s saw....(14)
The capitalistic structure of African markets is portrayed in the second to the last stanza
of this long poem under study here. In the markets, few rich men and women are in
charge of the distribution and manufacturing of some essential goods and have
subjected the masses to their whims and caprices. The poet puts it this way:
In the markets
people talk
about bloated millionaires
hostaging us to slave markets
exporters
importers
emergency contractors...(14)
In the last stanza of the poem “Excursion” the poet seems to be optimistic that the
oppressions that the people have been subjected to, can come to an end one day but that
is when the people are ready to question authorities and hold their leaders to
accountability.
From all the analysis and illustrations above, it can be seem that “Excursion” is
indeed a long journey through the length and breadths of Nigerian experiences. It
portrays the leadership problem that has become synonymous with Africa. Leaders who
are so supposed to be at the vanguard of the people’s welfare but as we can see in the
last three lines of stanza five
“their excellences are not here”
For the begging bickering
of a faceless rural crowd.(15
This further foregrounds the fact that these leaders are not even in power because of the
people’s interest but rather for their own selfish interest. All these lines depicts the
tyrannical nature of African leaders who took over power from the colonial masters
after independence and the resultant corruption and other social vices.
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3.4.3 “Siren” as a Portrayal of Africa’s Leadership Problem
In this second poem chosen for the study here, Osundare vividly portrays the
defiant attitudes of our leaders. Our politicians only come very close to the masses
during election seasons but after that they disappear into the thin air. Whenever they
pass on the road with their flashy cars every other persons must stop for them to pass.
They blow the siren to keep every other person away from the road as the poet rightly
puts it:
Siren siren siren
police acrobats on motorbikes
wielding whips with consummate despatch
the road must be cleared at one
for which worthy ruler
ever shares the right of way?(21)
In the last line of stanza two, the speaker in the poem rightly points out in a symbolic
manner “afar from the maddening crowd”. This shows that, the same way these leaders
do not want to share the road with any other person, they are equally very far from the
people. The same people that elected them into positions of authority have suddenly
turned to nothing before their eyes.
In stanza three of the poem, we are presented with a recurrent issue in Nigeria.
Any time these selfish leaders are to come to any locality, the youths, children and even
cultural groups dance in frustration to welcome their Excellencies. All these are done
just because of poverty, they expect that at the end of the day, the politician can give
them something.
The nonchalant attitude of Nigerian leaders towards the welfare of the people is
x-rayed in stanza four of the poem. The bad nature of the roads in the country, the
environmental degradation, the hunger and starvation in the country has not gotten the
attention of our leaders. Provided, they have enough to eat with their families, the
masses are never their issue. This is the way the poet puts it:
Siren siren siren
even on highways where potholes
snail the jaguar
they manage not to see
a land de bowelled by erosion
confined withering
and yam tendrils yellowing
on tubers smaller than a palm kernel
blind are they
to the seeds of tomorrow famine.(22)
In stanza five, the poet laments the absence of basic social amenities in the country. He
points out with dismay that the leaders are not even bothered by these problems. They
do not have time for the days and dark nights, no time for hospitals and schools and
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roads. All these are supposed to be the primary business of the leaders but as we can
see from the poem, they have failed in their primary responsibility.
In the poem Railway one need not actually read the poem to discern the poets
thematic thrust. The typographical arrangement of the poem articulates its thrust:
Dark sna
Ky str
Tor tous
Mili
Pede on
Legs
Of iron
Crawl ing
Wear lly
From Swamp Savannah (30).
The poem mirrors languid and laggard nature of the Nigerian Railway Cooperation. It
shows how the railways are fractured just like the words of the poem. There is no
organisation in the railway system. No railway leads to another. In fact, one can say that
there is no railway in Nigeria. The poem is symbolic of the disorganisation in several
aspects of Nigeria’s life.
In the poem “Udoji”, Osundare satirizes government’s hypocrisy over the
reckless waste of wealth, a travesty of the yearnings and the aspirations of the deprived
masses. The voice of the masses is captured thus:
We ask for food and water
to keep our toiling frames
on the hoe
but they inundate us with udoji
now pocket burst with arrears
but market stalls are empty
gari is dearer than eyes
a naira cannot by a yam.(35)
The above poem is a clear picture of what happened in Nigeria in the year 1975
following the release of Salary Review Panel headed by Chief Jerome Udoji.
Government workers and some in the private sector received inflationary salaries and
arrears. It was a time of inflation in Nigeria when there was much money in circulation
but the prices of commodities were sky rocketing. This was an exploitative measure
introduced by the government that reveal their capitalistic tendencies. The government
instead of heading to the people’s request of salary increment only did that for their own
selfish interest. They created a price mechanism through which the same money they
paid to the workers returned to them in rapid circular flow of income.
The last poem we shall consider to show how written African poetry, African
experience is “Zimbabwe”. Zimbabwe is a poem in the collection, written to celebrate
Zimbabwe’s independence from their colonial masters. The poem recounts the struggle
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leading to the independence of Zimbabwe. The poet in stanza one dedicates the poem
to all the fighters of the war of independence thus:
For josiah tongorara
for every guerrilla who fought the war
that turned Rhodesia into Zimbabwe.(52)
The struggle for independence especially in East and South Africa was not an easy one.
It was a dogged war fought by the Mau Mau and Umkhonto we size we freedom fighters
in Kenya and South Africa respectively. Freedom in these countries, were bought by
the blood of patriotic legends, who laid down their lives to champion the course of
independence. The poet aptly captures this in stanza eight of the poem thus:
Not in vain
have gun boomed
not in vain
are children orphans
not in vain
are wives widows
before they are
five and twenty.(52)
The above stanza portrays the experience of the war of independence in Zimbabwe.
During the war, some children lost their parents; some wives lost their husbands, and
some parents lost their children. All these are the ruins of the war but the poet is happy
that all these have not happened in vain, just as the people have their independence to
show for it. So, independence was worth fighting for.
It can be seen from the analysis and illustrations above that, Osundare in Songs
of the Market Place vividly portray African experience. The raw material from which
the whole poems were composed is the daily realities in Africa. Osundare is not a poet
who pursues aesthetic to the detriment of the social functions of art. He is committed to
depicting the social, political and economic realities in Africa. All these are the
experiences that underlie his poetic art. In other words, Osundare does not write in a
vacuum. The realities of life in Africa and in his country home necessitate his poems.
All these have been extensively discussed using selected poems from Osundare’s Songs
of the Market Place. Now having direct much on portrayal of African experience in
Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place, this work shall now go into discussing how
African cultural heritages are portrayed in the poetry collection under discussion.
3.4.4 African Cultural Heritages in Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
It is important to point out first and foremost that Osundare is a poet who draws
heavily from his Yoruba culture. Even though he uses the English language, there is a
level of domestication of the English language. Osundare incorporate elements of the
oral tradition into his poems. So, an attempt to discuss Osundare’s Songs of the Market
Place in view of the cultural heritage it portrays, the major things that are going to be
highlighted are:
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1. The incorporation of the oral tradition into Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
and
2. The promotion of African language through the use of some Yoruba words.
Osundare is known for his deployment of devices from his Yoruba root into his
poetry in English. Indeed, so conscious and deliberate is his reliance on Yoruba culture
and language that Stephen Arnold has described him as not an Anglophone African poet
but a Yoruba poet who writes in English. The dominant features of African orality in
the poetry collection include the presence of repetition the use of the refrain, the
proverb, the pronoun and the vocative. Proverbs is an integral aspect of the oral
tradition. Proverbs are wittical saying that reveal the philosophy and wisdom of the
African man. Achebe has often been quoted as defining proverbs as the oil with which
words are eaten. Osundare employs proverbs in his poems to show that Africa is rich in
the use of proverbs and they equally authenticate the Africanness of his poetry.
From the poem ‘Reflections’, Osundare uses proverbs to advance his argument
that the problem of Nigeria and in fact Africa is caused by themselves. The poverty and
sufferings in the country are caused by the leaders. The instance of the proverb from the
above poem is given below:
The lizard feeds on its own brood
And wonders why they say it buries
Its futures in its guts (37).
Another instance of proverb can equally be found on the last stanza of the above poem:
The world is like Solel Boneh’s steam-shovel
It scoops earth from one place to fill another.(38)
Osundare equally employ a Yoruba proverb that was not translated in the poem, “On
Seing a Benin Mask in British Museum”.
Iya jajeji l’ Egbe
Ile eni l’ eso ye’ ni (40)
Meaning: suffering afflicts the stranger in an alien land/your treasure is in your home.
We can equally see another use of proverb in the poem “To the Dinosaur” on
page:
The whip that carved weals
On the first wife
will descend from the rafter someday
to give the new bride a stroke of history.(41)
This deployment by Osundare of these typical Yoruba proverbs in his poetry is a
conscious act to preserve the Yoruba speech culture even in the foreign tongue. Support
for this position comes from his poem, “Who is Afraid of the Proverb?” in which
footnote, he offers this English translation of the significance the Yorubas attach to the
proverb:
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The proverb is the horse of the word
The word is the horse of the proverb
When the word is lost
It is the proverb we use for finding it (101).
In one of the stanzas of the above poem, he presents this definition of the proverb which
reminisces physicist’s definition of a straight line:
Who is afraid of the proverb
Of the shortest distance
Between many truths (110).
In Songs of the Market Place, Osundare uses several Yoruba words of which some were
translated in the text while some are left untranslated. By so doing, he promotes his
Yoruba language and identifies with the culture of his people. Proverbs as used in the
poems above, apart from adding local favour to the poems also contribute to the
meaning of the poems. Proverbs in the poems are used to further prove the truth in the
words of the poet
As with the proverb, the poet also uses the pronoun in a manner characteristic of
a traditional African singer. Instances of this manipulation abound in songs of the
market place. In the collection, they are found on pages 11-12 for instance “I have been
through ---; and the use of “we” of most of the lines of the poem, “Excursions”. Again,
the transfer of this use of the pronoun from its African oral rhetorical setting to print
and in an alien tongue is consciously executed by Osundare, who in his article, “From
oral to written: Aspects of the socio-stylistic Repercussions of Transition”, explains:
The closeness between the oral performer and his audience is reflected in his
choice of lexical items --- in terms of personal deitics, he may employ “I” for himself,
“you” for his audience, “we” to envelope both parties, and “they” and “them” for those
who do not belong (11)
Another contemporary of Osundare, Tanure Ojaide, also explains that “The
frequent use of “we” shows that the poet’s role is the public one of defending communal
values” (Poetic Imagination, 27). Besises,the has a motif for these pronouns based on
his disposition towards his audience as foregrounded by the title of the collection
“Songs of the Market Place”.
Apart from the use of the proverb and the pronoun, there is also the deliberate
movement into the written poetry of features that characterize performance in African
oral literature. There are the specific provision for the use of musical instruments to
accompany the rendition of many poems; the prevalence of repetition which enhances
the musicality of the texts, the presence of the refrain, which anticipates audience
participation in the realization of the poems; and the use of the vocative, which is a
feature of orality.
This again confirms that the presence of African cultural features in the poetry
of Osundare, and hence, of this era, has been a conscious effort to ensure the survival
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of these elements as flowing from an identifiable African tributary into the sea of world
literature and culture.
Another strategy adopted by the poet to keep his craft close to his African cultural
roots is the employment of the vocative, which is a feature of the oratory. An instance
of his is “Oh my people” (29).
The features of orality and performance which have been examined here seem
to validate the observation by Tanure Ojaide that “Written African Literature is in a way
written oral literature” (The Guardian, 203). In a bid to portray African culture and
world view, Osundare deploys some lexical items from Yoruba language in the
collection. Some of the Yoruba words are translated in the text while some are not.
Examples are
(a) tanwiji (9)
Mosquito larvae (translated in the text)
(b) Omalanke (II) (translated in the text)
hand pushed cart
(c) Olee barawooooo Onye Oshiii (16)
Thief
(c) Ekan (18) (translated in the text)
Elephant grass
(d) babalawo (37)
Medicine man, herbalist, voodoo priest or diviner. Not translated in the text, possibly
assumed to have entered the English lexicon?
(e) egigun (71)
Siva cotton tree (translated in the text)
(f) afemoju (78)
Dawn (translated in the text).
There are equally some of other Yoruba words which are used in the collection without
translation. Examples are:
(a) molue, danfo, dagbere (11)
Names of passenger vehicles
(b) gari (35)
a Nigerian/African staple, commonly known and needing no translation to an African
audience.
(c) Langbalangba (40)
Undignifying; gracelessly
Ideophonic/onomatopoeic. Translation would murder the musicality and hence the
meaning suggested/represented by sound.
(d) Esua (72)
Memory aid. Perhaps, no equivalent referent in the English speaking world.
Some of the words considered untranslatable are those without English
equivalents, as characteristic of any language that has to function in a non-native
environment. Also there are some elements brought into the poems just for their musical
values, apart from their semantic meanings in their original contexts. In oral
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performance, these form an important part of the aesthetics of the text. These two
categories of transfers which run the poems in Songs of the Market Place reveal that
Osundare is a poet who is primarily concerned about meaning and musicality of his
texts, and who believes that Yoruba, rather than English is better able to achieve these
goals for him. A combination of these instances of direct transfers with the elements of
orality and performance which abound in the text, confirms Osundare’s linguistic
ideology as African writer who is more inclined to his Yoruba and African roots than
to the English language. This, thus validates Stephen Arnold’s description of Osundare
as “not an Anglophone African poet but a Yoruba poet who write in English”
(Anglophonia, 27). His work therefore, offers us an example of a successful transfer of
African oral heritage into print and in an alien tongue in such a manner that its identity
as an African product is guaranteed and insured.
Examine other poems in Niyi Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place that were not
discussed here, bringing out their major contents.
3.5 Osundare’s Language and Style
The poet’s interest in innovative style is conveyed in his ardent interest in the
use of language. The avalanche of critical responses to Osundare’s style, and the diverse
conflicting stances, as well as the influencing factors of its brilliance, relevance and
success in part necessitated this discourse (Alu, 2008). Osundare sets out in Songs of
the Marketplace to redefine poetry as “a life spring/which gathers timbre/the more
throats it plucks/harbingers of action /the more minds it stirs”. The poet rejects the
earlier preconceived exclusive and obscure nature of African poetry. The poet quickly
reworks the equation that amounts to African poetry, restating its nature, its dimension
and acceptable medium as he emphasizes accessibility to its target audience. Apparently
more reassuring and comforting to an erstwhile estranged audience, the poem poetry is
illustrating this new posture:
Poetry is
No oracles kernel
For sole philosopher’s stone
Poetry
Is
Man
Meaning
To
Man (1-2).
However, Osundare says his readers seem to have misunderstood his poem “poetry is”.
So he warns against oversimplifying the poem and ends up making it a yardstick of
measuring the rest of his poems. He explains more succinctly that poetry is a “hawkers
ditty/the eloquence of the gong/it is what the soft wind/music to the listening muse”. To
ward-off some misconceptions Osundare explains that what the wind whispers could
still be difficult after all:
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I want you to distinguish between obscurity and difficulties, --- want you to
distinguish between difficulties, obscurity and obscurantism. Anybody who
expects that all poems should not be difficult does not understand what
poetry is. Now anybody who expects all poems to be obscure doesn’t
understand what poetry is either… Alu (1998:99).
Although he admits saying poetry is “not the esoteric whispers of an excluding tongue,”
he opines that it does not mean, “Poetry is just out there---that you pluck a poem, put it
on paper without working on it”. The controversy could either contradict Osundare’s
stance, suggest a digression or both. The uncertainty of whether the advocated paradigm
of the new breed poets is that transparent intellectual development, snobbery or truly
bordering on Bloomian rivalry, establishes the relevance of Anna Balakian’s (1985)
submission that;
… the influences of authors of the same nationality and language upon each
other are negative influences, the result of reactions, for generations often
tend to rivals of each other and in the name of individualism reject in the
work of their elders what they consider to be conventions of the past.
The triumph of Osundare’s poetry and his new breed compatriots are most likely borne
out of necessity rather than envy contrary to what Bloom’s study reveals. The usual
appellation poured on his use of domesticated language brings him close to the masses.
It also makes his poems assume …a distinct anti-imperialist tone. This observation is
subsequently crystallized in the famous essay by Funsho Aiyejina who asserts that
Osundare being the most prolific of the lot, his poetry epitomizes the distinctiveness of
the group’s new style (Abdu 2003).
In the course of writing he has come to produce a blend of poetry that speaks for
itself and that is quite independent and distinct from others poets even in the same
category with him. The assertive differences of Songs of the Marketplace and
Moonsongs give credence to this assertion. In the light of which he offers the following
explanation in an earlier cited interview with Shaffa:
A poet who writes poems which don’t require any energy, any spiritual and
mental exercise to understand is not a poet, is a writer of doggerels. At the
same time a poet who writes such poems that cannot be understood except
by himself and one or two others is not a poet. He is a juggler, a magician.
Alu (1998:100).
In the face of such ambiguity and contradiction some critics attribute it to struggle or
Voice search which they feel has been found in The Eye of the Earth where he carries
along into further experimental grounds as he seeks to transform his society. He has
shifted from his initial political messages to emphasize poetic technique and formal
experimentation:
The poet has abandoned the style of individual lyrics for a form of poetry in
which a whole body of poems is organized around one or two motifs the
poems evolving as stages of a single poem. The form has dominated the
poems in Moonsongs and Waiting Laughters.
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In his poetry, we are confronted with many forces of oppression in the varying operative
arenas. Most importantly, the feature of his poetry is his defense of the speechless and
oppressed citizens of the land. He appears involved and sympathetic to their unfortunate
condition, be it in the rural or urban area. The theme runs through all his collections,
cutting across various fields of human endeavour. Affirming thus that he is essentially
a politician, since a genuine poet has always been interested in politics which is a means
of eradicating poverty, he opines:
And so when you have a country and a continent and a world where instead
of that happening, politics is being used to entrench poverty and enrich a
few, then problems are bound to rise. Poetry has become a tool for setting
things right, for praising virtue… Genuine poetry raises political songs;
political songs directly and indirectly. It tells kings about the corpses which
line their way to the throne. It tells the rich ones the skulls in their cupboards.
In Songs of the Marketplace, the poet dramatically depicts his concern with the socio-
economic matters in contemporary Nigerian society, using fairly strong imagery which
still leaves room for commitment, accessibility and expressiveness. Based partially on
the said obsession with the plight of the underdogs, some critics associate him with
socialist inclinations. This could be explained by the fact that he takes up the Marxian
metaphor in describing the unnatural relationship between the rich and the poor; “the
rich were not born so the poor need not die so…” Here are pictures of a society where
the minorities live in affluence while the majorities swim in the pond of poverty.
Village Voices exposes the simplistic life style of the village dwellers juxtaposed
to what obtains in modern urban civilization. The peasants who are the producers of
food are diversely presented as witty- singers, jesters and satirists. Like Songs of the
Marketplace, the central theme in both Village Voices and A Nib in the pond are the
predicaments of the societal underdogs.
The Eye of the Earth is very special, fashioned on his perception of man in
nature. The image of the poet here is more than an interpreter of a complex and rich
tradition of his people who share a collective philosophy. He celebrates the work culture
of his people with special emphasis on their reverence for nature, defending the
traditional myth on which the community lives together resisting collision. The volume
is seen as one of the fiercest indictments of modern economic culture of the people and
alien destructive forces. It takes a pictorial account of aggression on man and the earth
which is the author’s personal contribution to the problems of erosion and
desertification.
In Moonsongs, Osundare exhibits his commitment to socio-economic and
political issues. He talks on the social malaise in the society. Phase XXII poem
particularly handles the social disparity between the rich and the poor, reasoning that
the seasons, just like life, always fluctuate, confirming in many of the poems in
Moonsongs that life is transient. He addresses the mutability of seasons and the
uncertainties of human conditions in Moonsongs reading meanings into life mainly
from Yoruba oral folksongs. The lessons sink in as one begins to appreciate the medium
of its actualization which is performance. The strength of the book as observed by most
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of its reviews lies more in its form than content, mainly because of the oral nature of its
structure.
In Songs of the Marketplace, there are visible elements of genuine concern for
this unfortunate part of the country’s population, especially in poems like ‘Excursion’,
‘Sule chase’, ‘Siren’, ‘At a University Congregation’ and ‘Reflection’ to mention but a
few. ‘Excursion’ is a fairly long poem which is a poetic irony for the journey he
undertakes through different public places around, where life means different things to
different people. Here, however, we are confronted with images of disease, poverty,
deprivation and want which are symbolic pictorial portrayal of all facets of the Nigerian
society.
In explicating thematic aspect of any work of art, the form of its existence is
apparently of paramount importance; we are now ready to address his battle for a new
poetic revolution in African poetry. This is why his poems exhibit features of African
oral poetic style. The influences of various Yoruba oral genres such as the Oriki chant
and Ijala hunter’s song are very strong in collections like The Eye of the Earth and
Moonsongs. Adebayo Babalola confirms the abundance of “Praise songs” in Yoruba
tradition called “rara” Alu (1998). Perhaps for the purpose of musicality, the poet
intentionally refuses to give the English versions of some of these direct borrowings
from Yoruba language; “The moon, this night, is a rugged master. The moon, this night,
is a rugged master/teregungun maja gungun tere … (Emphasis added).
Direct address and dialogue are common features of oral styles extensively used
in Osundare’s works. In ‘Publish and Perish’, he is didactic and direct, with beautiful
rhyming lines:
Tell me
Do you think they will accept this,
The A & P
Do you think they will?
Just see
There are only a dozen references
footnotes don’t wind across pages
…
“Tell me” and “just see” are both investigative and deductive in the way they are used
in this poem. Looking bare of images, it is written in ordinary everyday English and
very communicative. This looks more like newspaper captions or the traditional town
crier’s early morning message in times of war:
“South Africa police
Murders seven hundred blacks in Soweto”
“The U.N. condemns the action”
“South Africa occupies Southern Angola
murdering women and children
burning barns and farms”
…
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The O.A.U. craves sanctions
Prays the Western con-trat- group
To do their jobs.”
Songs…(49).
Investigative/direct address as a literary device is also used by the poet as used in
Moonsongs:
Tell me, moon,
Where are your wrecks
Where are your wrinkles
Where, the creases left
On your wondrous robe … (18).
Similarly, dramatic dialogue is effectively used by the poet as shown in Waiting
Laughters:
Okerebu kerebu
Kerebu kerebu
And the snake says to the toad
“I have not had a meal
for a good one week;
Any time my stomach yearns
For your juicy meat”
Suppose I turn into a mountain?
Asks the toad
“I will level you up in the valley
of my belly”…(63).
The much desired flavour of African authenticity in the works of the new poets is
abundantly exploited by Osundare in Moonsongs. Perhaps that is why some scholars
are of the view that to fully appreciate his wonderful craftsmanship in the book, one has
to share, or at least have an insight into his Yoruba people’s world view. The impact of
Yoruba folk-song is very imminent revealing that the poet did compose with the native
influence taking the upper hand.
Moonsongs is a collection of songs which Odugbemi observes “… is riveting
lunacy of song… (Where) verses lap gently at the base of your soul… “ (Word in
bracket added) In a down to earth comment Odugbemi was quoted as saying:
The poet belts out his songs as though in a joy trance. He sweeps you from
moonrise to moonset. Imagine yourself by the magic seas of a moonlit night
lying on a carpet of songs, floating whimsically in the “soft windiness” of
this night of the gods. Muyide, (39).
The opening song/poem which is performed to the accompaniment of war drumming,
has its chorus interspersed with Yoruba. He is deeply rooted in his Yoruba oral tradition
which, Saleh Abdu says, have formed the backbone of the poet’s aesthetic-poetics:
223
Let the cricket slit night’s silence
with the scapel of its throat
Let nightbirds coo and cuddle
In the swinging Eden of their nests;
But when down finally climbs down
Through the leering rafters,
I will be a promise
Eternal like your seasonless sky
kiriji kiriji papelupe
Moonsongs (2).
He has exhibited and developed interest in oral performance poetry, which has thus
emphasized public recitations, as well as written poetry with instruments for its
orchestration. The rain songs, in the Eye of the Earth are highly lyrical and played in
accompaniment of flute and rain drum:
Let it rain it today
That parched throats may heal her silence
Let it rain
The earth may heal her silence
Let it rain today
that corn leave may clothe the hills
Let it rain … The Eye … (28).
The poem also illustrates the use of repetitions of phrases, lines and structures to
reinforce the lyrical tone of the songs employed in Waiting Laughters and Moonsongs:
And laughing heels so fugitive
In the just of fleeting truths
…
Truth of the sole
Truth of the palm
…
Truth of the liar
Truth of the lair (37).
The use of more than one literary device at a time is typical of Osundare as exhibited in
these graphlogically deviant structures and repetitions. This type of literary device is
used for emphasis to enhance meaning. I proscribe the snail/I proscribe the shell/I
proscribe the frog/I proscribe the tadpole/I proscribe the sea/I proscribe the sky/I
proscribe the tale/I proscribe truth. His punning devices are unique compound words
used in Moonsongs as in “moonmares”, “moonfire”, “Moongrass”, “Moonsweat”,
“Moonharvest”, “mooncantations”, “Mangoes”, “hen hood” “our glass” “tale/tail”
“toll/tale” and “seasun” which functions to enhance meaning as well as musicality.
The use of breath-space pauses, common in oral performances, is employed in
Songs of the Marketplace; Moonsongs and Waiting laughters. This device takes care of
punctuations in written English by the use of spacing in print as in ‘Nightfall’, ‘Back to
the future’ and ‘Phase XIII’ poems. The structures of these breathing spaces usually
224
result in some structural changes in the form of graph-logical deviations as shown
below:
Some say
You moon
Are the
Ash es
Of the
Sun bath
Ing limpid
Night in
The grey
Ing of
Your silence (23)
More radical use of this device is clearly demonstrated in Waiting Laughters where he
uses a letter of the alphabet as a line:
Long
er
than
the
y
a
w
n
Moonsongs… (84)
Rhetorical questions are some of the devices used by the poet to produce the tempo in
a number of poems especially as used below:
On moon oh moon where is your horse where, your hast Who reaped your
gallop in the furrows of the sky.
Oh moon oh moon where is your wardrobe, where, your ward
Who spread your silk in the loom of the sun.
Oh moon oh moon where is your udder, where, your pitcher
Who mothered the milk that bathes your limbs.
…
Oh moon oh moon where is your sage, where, your song
Who carved the wood of your towering tree.
Moonsongs (39)
In phase IX poem, he further employs the device. This usage however is usually to build
up pressure to buttress an idea. In this case to descend heavily on the selfish attitude of
African leaders and the changing seasons respectively:
How many hours will make a minute
How many oceans total one drop
Of elusive water
How many forests will make one tree
In regions of meticulous showers
How many…? (17)
225
Other important elements of oral literature visibly utilized here includes, rhetoric’s,
proverbs, praise names, axioms and idiomatic expressions. This is the most popular
device employed by African elders and community heads. This rich resource is
illustrated in the following lines:
Ah! The peacock cannot count
Her century of feathers,
The parrot cannot count the chimes
Which cat the bell of her restless beak.
Moonsongs (17)
Praise names are typical to African address system to elders or spiritual figures or gods.
It is important to note here that there are traditional registers as there are the various
English registers. Many African communities also share the use of wise sayings
especially by community elders. The use of a cluster of wise sayings here are to buttress
an idea of wasted labour:
Olosunta spoke first
The eloquent one
Whose mouth is the talking house of ivory
Olosunta spoke first
The riddling one whose belly is wrestling ground
For god and gold. The Eye… (13)
More interesting oral devices are employed on pages eighteen and nineteen:
…
this is Iyanfoworogi
where yams, ripe and randy
waged a noisy war against the knife; (18).
...and this Oke Eniju
where coy cobs rocked lustily
in the loin of swaying stalks. (19)
Osundare freely draws his embossed metaphor on the earth from the Yoruba Oriki and
Ijala chants in which he applies an extended praise- name to the Earth. This simply
proves the fact that praise-name epithets are relevant and necessary features of public
performance. These lines are illustrative of such special descriptions of the earth;
Temporary basement
And lasting roof
First clayey coyness
And last alluvial joy
Breadbasket
And compost bed
Rocks and rivers
Muds and mountains
…
Ogeere Omokoyeri… The Eye (1)
226
After the African traditional usage, the poet weaves names to describe the nature and
character of the earth. We also have praise- chants fashioned after Oriki praise chants
of the Yoruba. In ‘forest Echoes’ the forest trees are given their praises according to
their strength namely: the tough Iroko, “Oganwo” and feather weight “Ayunre”.
Oganwo, he declares;
… wears the surrogate crown
of heights and depths;
wounded by wanton matchets,
bled by the curing cutlass of the babalawo
the homing sun closes your weeping wounds
even as your doctor juice simmers,
in the portions at dusk. (6)
Such copious absorption of praise epithets by the poet are intended to make his poetry
appeal to his local African audience. However, allusions are made to other literary
devices that are commonly shared by the two literary traditions. Osundare has
persistently made references to places, gods, persons and remarkable events in Africa
in the creative process. In The Eye of the Earth for one, there are allusions to a rock in
Ikere which the people of the town are said worship annually during “Olosunta
festivals.” He alludes to Olosunta a rock in the poem, ‘The rocks rose to meet me’, in
which he personifies the rock and in five movements shower praises on it/him. He also
does the same to Oroole, a pyramid shaped rock in Ikere which the poet describes as
the ‘pyramid of the brood’ from where, the poet says, he could clearly see Amoye
Grammar School.
In ‘harvestcall’ he celebrates the fertility of Iyanfoworogi, Oke-Eniju and
Ogbese-Ode describing their life sustaining features. He likewise alludes to Okeruku”
in ‘meet me at Okeruku’ as red earth district (33). These allusions highlight the poet’s
interest in his localized audience. The advantage of these physical landscapes in
situating his audience in time and space enhances great sense of belonging and
credibility.
Other features of oral traditions are grammatical parallelisms, similes, metaphors
and noun/pronoun variations. Parallelisms can be either in the structure (syntax), or
sound. In The Eye of the Earth, poems like ‘Let earth’s pain be soothed’ ‘Excursion’
and ‘What the Earth said’, are illustrative of this device, which are variously structural,
syntactical, rhythmical and repetitive such as:
let it rain today
that roots may swell the womb of lying plains
let it rain today
the stomachs may shun the rumble of thunder
let it rain
that children may bath and bawl and brawl (28)
In waiting laughters, parallelisms are extensively used, which critics opine is very
important if the poet’s experimental orchestration were anything to go by at all. He also
needed refrains, preceding case or cases of structural and musical repetitions:
227
Waiting
for the heifer which bides its horns
in the womb of the calf
Waiting
for the nail which springs an ivory wonder
in the spotted arena of reading eyes
Waiting…
Waiting
For fists which find their aim. (10).
In this type of parallelism, the lexical overlapping is apparent due to the repetition of
phrases with their attendant grammatical variations. While these could sometimes be
monotonous, particularly in written poetry, it is aesthetically strategic, especially when
poems are read aloud. Other variations in style that could be placed between parallelism
and juxtapositions are the effective employment of allusions which could be either
situational or topical among others. Brilliant employment of socio-political incidents
are recorded in Songs of the Marketplace where the poem ‘Udoji’ illustrates the use of
topical allusions to the pay-hike Nigerian workers enjoyed in 1975 which is believed to
have sparked off the raging inflation in the country. Similarly, Osundare’s richest
collection, The Eye of the Earth adeptly renders this rare employment of similes and
metaphors in ‘eyeful glances’. The remarkable thing about the employment of this
subject is the manner of its delivery which is apparently grandiloquent:
The desert caller
Comes on a camel
Of clouds,
Undulates through the dunes
Of hazy shadows
&
gliding through the open welcome
of January’s door
whispers urgent tidings
in the ears of my skin. (23)
Poetic Epithets are literary devices usually indicative of formulaic language of oral
poetry which help in the proper handling of the oral thought-process, ‘forest Echoes’ is
illustrative of this poetic epithet:
Palm-bound, scalpel-toothed,
The squirrel pierces the tasty iris
Of stubborn nuts;
Adze man of the forest,
Those who marvel the canine fire
In your mouth
Let them seek refuge in the fluffy grace
Of your restless tail. (8)
Musicality across monotonous rhythm is another prominent identifying feature of
African poetic compositions which Sedar Senghor (as cited by Ojaide) says “is like
228
inhaling and exhaling air”. This musicality informs the poetic features of verbal,
structural repetitions and parallelisms. Osundare has in his own special way imbibed
what some critics called the “Agisymban” stylistic feature which is a characteristic of
sound and drums, dancing feet and melody of tones as aptly employed in Waiting
Laughters and Moonsongs hence reducing their complexity. It makes them more
accessible to a larger audience of listeners and readers as in oral traditional performance.
However, some of Osundare’s texts, particularly Moonsongs, Eye of the Earth, and
Waiting Laughters have come to prove that even though African oral devices are used,
complexity is never really eliminated. This only leads to another stage of the debate on
simplicity and complexity of the poetic language (Alu, 2008). The anatomy of these
poems would reveal architectural manipulation of his medium as Saleh Abdu (2003)
rightly observes:
…all the lexical, morphological and syntactic formations he employs to
embody his impressions and assimilations of local-mostly oral-repertoire of
the communication culture which he translates, transliterates or transposes
into the English language.
Provide a detailed analysis of at least five poems from Osundare’s Songs of Market
Place bringing out their major themes as well as the poetice devices employed in them.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Niyi Osundare’s works vividly convey his concept on the relationship between
the oppressed Nigerian/African and the crop of leaders there. They works address a
deluge of themes which include corruption, poverty, administrative mismanagement,
and to a certain extent, the lingering effects of colonialism on the African continent.
Osundare played a very prominent role in the campaign against the practices of the first
generation of Nigerian poets often referred to as “Euro-Modernist poets” who tended to
have lingered too long on the burden of managing the imperial lords’ legacy or what
Inyabri, Thomas (2006) calls “domineering images”. He also pioneered the team of
critics who redefined and re-oriented a new trend in modern African poetry popularly
tagged “Alter-Native Tradition in African Poetry.”
5.0 SUMMARY
• The Biography of Niyi Osundare
• A Review Niyi Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
• An Analysis of some poems from Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
• The theme of African experience in Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
• The theme of ‘excursion’ as a portrayal of Nigeria’s socio-political experience in
Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
• The theme of “Siren” as a portrayal of Africa’s Leadership problem in Songs of
the Market Place
229
• The theme of African cultural heritages in Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
• Osundare’s language and Style
1) What kind of poet is Osundare and what are those things that make him
unique?
2) As a Marxist poet, what makes Osundare stand on?
3) What is Osundare’s relevance to the present day Africa?
4) Is Osundare’s use of style language unique?
5) Describe the African experience in Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
6) Discuss the theme of ‘excursion’ as a portrayal of Nigeria’s socio-political
experience in Osundare’s Songs of the Market Place
7) Discuss the theme of “Siren” as a portrayal of Africa’s Leadership problem in
Songs of the Market Place
8) Explain the theme of African cultural heritages in Osundare’s Songs of the
Market Place
Aiyejina, Funsho, (1988) “Recent Nigerian Poetry.” Perspectives in Nigerian
Literature Ogunbiyi Ed.
Alu, N.A. (1998) Perspectives on Four African Poets. University of Jos. (Unpublished
PhD Thesis)
Alu, N. N. (2008). “Style and the New Poetic Revolution in Niyi Osundare’s Poetry”.
African Research Review Journal. An International Multidisciplinary Journal,
Ethiopia Vol. 2 (3), August, 2008 (Pp. 62-84)
Balami, H. S., (1990). (Interview with Osundare) “Poetry, Profession & Philosophy of
Life.” Ibadan, 1 July 1990 Cited in N.A. Alu, Perspectives On Four African
Poets. (unpublished).
Bamikunle, A. (1993) “Niyi Osundare’s Poetry and Yoruba Oral Artistic
Traditon,”African Literature Today. No 18
Press
Maduakor (1986) Violence as Poetic Focus: Nigerian Poetry and the Biafran
Experience” Nsukka Journal of Literature. No. 4.
Ngara, Emmanuel (1990) Ideology and Form in African Poetry. London: Heinemann.
Osundare, N. (1983) Songs of the Marketplace. Ibadan: New Horn Press.
___________ (1984) Village Voices. London: Evans Brothers.
___________ (1986) A Nib in the Pond. Ibadan: Heinmann, Nigeria.
___________ (1986) The Eye of the Earth. Ibadan: Heinemann, Nigeria.
___________ (1988) Moonsongs. Ibadan: Spectrum Books.
___________ (1990) Waiting Laughters. Lagos: Malthouse Press Ltd
Sallah, T. (1984). New Poets of West Africa. Lagos: Malt house Press.
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UNIT 3 THE POEMS OF SIPHO SEMPHALA
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Brief Biography of Sipho Sepamla
3.2 Sepamla and His Poetry
3.3 Sepamla’s Protest Poetry
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The South African Sydney Sepamla was born in 1932 must be ranked along with
Oswald Mtshali and Wally Mongane Serote among what might be called the poets of
the new cities. In his anthology of Black South African verse, the first and best
introduction to the new city poets, which takes its title from Sepamla’s fine satirical
poem ‘To Whom It May Concern’, Robert Royston remarked that the new poetry was
‘a form of self-preservation’. It presented less of a target to censors, priests and police
who had sunk, literally without trace, an entire raft of black prose writers in the fifties
and sixties. Sepamla’s poetry tends to be directed more towards the reforming views of
white liberals than towards raising the consciousness of black workers. His main talent
lies in his ability to exploit language for humorous effects. He combines a style of
broken English with “township Xhosa” and “tsotsi-taal” to induce a linguistic interplay
which underlines his point. (Sipho, 1982: 198). This unit will introduce you to
Sepamla’s poetry. Below are some of the objectives of this unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Give a brief biography of Sipho Sepamla
• Describe the characteristic features of Sepamla’s poetry
• Discuss Sepamla’s protest poetry citing relevant examples from his various
poems
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Brief Biography of Sipho Sepamla
Sydney Sipho Sepamla was born in 1932 and has lived most of his life in Soweto,
the giant township southwest of Johannesburg, so recently notorious. Soweto, with an
unofficial population perhaps upward of a million (so much in Soweto has been
unofficial always, even the people are thought of as temporary sojourners) living in a
vast dormitory of jerry-built houses stretching for astonishing miles over the flat, bleak
veld, existing in the minds of the planners and ideologues as merely a place to sleep the
thousands who service the white city next door by day. Sepamla must be ranked along
231
with Oswald Mtshali and Wally Mongane Serote among what might be called the poets
of the new cities. This refers not Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, but to their
black satellites, Soweto, Langa and Kwa Mashu, cities of night attending the cities of
the sun. Such mirror images and inverted relationships are characteristic in South
Africa.
Give a brief description of Sepamla’s literary biography.
3.2 Sepamla and His Poetry
In his anthology of Black South African verse, which takes its title from
Sepamla’s fine satirical poem ‘To Whom It May Concern’, Robert Royston remarked
that the new poetry was ‘a form of self-preservation’. However angry and expressive it
might be, it presented less of a target to censors, priests and police who had sunk,
literally without trace, an entire raft of black prose writers in the fifties and sixties.
Understandably, some of the new city verse is assertive, angry and confused - but in
South African poetry there has been nothing so invigorating for years. What sets
Sepamla apart from the others has been a certain wariness of political rhetoric, a most
un-South African subtlety. There is nothing unusual about using the big stick in South
Africa; everybody has one. But in a country of brutal distinctions what is truly rare is
the ability to distinguish. Sepamla’s is a nervy, urban sensibility, perfectly suited to
finding the chinks in the regime’s fibrous armour and thrusting in his spear. He is at his
steely best in ‘the deadpan, factual, throwaway line’ which Douglas Livingstone has
pointed to, splendidly instanced in this poem, ‘The Will’:
The burglar-proofing and the gate
will go to my elder son
so will the bicycle
and a pair of bracelets
His strength is double-edged; not only does he recount the pains of the blacks under
apartheid, but articulates, too, the white nightmare of dispossession, often imagined,
always expected, forever abjured.
Sepamla’s books include Hurry Up To It! (1975) and The Blues Is You In Me
(1976), both published in Johannesburg. With the publication of The Soweto I Love his
work is for the first time available abroad. He edits the review New Classic (named for
the dry-cleaning business in the room above which the magazine was founded), now in
its latest metamorphosis and always amongst the most worthwhile South African little
magazines open to the work of black writers. He edits, too, the drama magazine, Sketsh!
(Sipho, 1982).
3.3 Sepamla’s Protest Poetry
According to Holland (1987), Sepamla addresses the fading memory of an exiled
friend in his poem “The Exile”. From the little information he gains from newspapers,
he learns of his friend’s progress in the new world. Exploiting the parable of the prodigal
son, Sepamla closes the poem with the promised return:
232
Teach at that University of Life while I prepare
the fatted cow for a son exiled
for growing too big for his boots!
Sepamla’s humorous tone neither undercuts his triumphant prediction, nor seems as
unrealistic as Pieterse’s dream reunion. He promises a healing of the gap between exiled
poets and the poets at home without appearing impractical. He also offers the exiles an
enthusiastic audience and a reason to keep writing while they are separated by space
and time from the object of their discourse.
Although Sipho Sepamla has lived all his life in Soweto, and although he has
edited New Classic and Sketch, periods. He has never been exiled or imprisoned for
long Instead, he seems to write protest poetry which the state will tolerate. Sepamla’s
poetry tends to be directed more towards the reforming views of white liberals than
towards raising the consciousness of black workers. For example, in “Measure for
Measure”, Sepamla addresses himself to white officials and in an ironic tone seems to
comply with white policy:
count me enough wages to make certain that i
grovel in the mud for more food
teach me just so much of the world that i

can fit into certain types of labour
…and when all that is done

let me tell you this
you’ll never know how far i stand from you
The dignity of Sepamla’s speaker is founded in a strong sense of self-worth despite the
poor economic and social position his low wages and lack of education dictate. The
inability of the white official to understand the black speaker is a weapon of resistance.
In “Chi1dren of the Earth” the poet varies his choice of stanza patterns and language to
contrast the official social policies of the Nationalist government with the real poverty
and social problems they create. Sepam1a isolates socialinesses and combats the white-
washed rhetoric of the state with direct language which translates the double-speak into
what “that is” in actuality. (Holland, 1987)
Sepamla’s main talent lies in his ability to exploit language for humorous effects.
He combines a style of broken English with “township Xhosa” and “tsotsi-taal” to
induce a linguistic interplay which underlines his point. For instance, in “The
Bookshop” the speaker’s good-natured banter is strengthened by his broken grammar
and his assertions of literacy and ironically undercut by the speaker’s apologetic tone:
Here I is
Too literate to reads comics and the Bible
I walks into a bookshop a newspapers in one armpit
…..
The likes of me can be excused for being literate
Besides a good sight is a literate me
The pun on “a literate” reveals the speaker’s ability to create sophisticated linguistic
play while at the same time pleading ignorance. Moreover, the speaker’s love of
English-language magazines while at the same time rejecting childish comics and white
233
religion indicates a selectivity of cultural stimuli. The beginning of cultural awareness
comes with the beginning of literary judgement.
Other poems, like “To Whom It May Concern”, parody the language of official
documents such as passes. The bearer of the pass is allowed to travel “Subject to these
particulars/He lives/Subject to the provisions/Of the Urban Natives Act of
1925/Amended often”. Sepamla’s love for Soweto and his pride in the vitality of
township culture enables him to mock Passes, to criticize apartheid sharply and to use
sophisticated language. Even more than Gwala and Jensma, Sepamla is conscious of
the musicality of words. In such poems as “The Blues is You in Me” and “The Soweto
Blues,” blues beats are used to slow down lines and to reveal the dreary depression or
to create a fast tempo in line with the upbeat anger or the poet. Sepamla’s “use or irony
[is) more powerful and more varied than Mtshali’s. He does not have Serote’s
forcefulness.... “Certainly, Sepamla’s sense of humour celebrates the cultural variety
and endurance of Soweto as much as it criticizes social problems.
The explosion of poetry in Soweto and Alexandra in the seventies, both in
defiance of oppression and in celebration of life, has its roots in jazz and the blues, as
well as in traditional oral poetry (Holland, 1987). Moreover it touches on all aspects of
township daily life as well as on various crises in the struggle to end apartheid.
Township poetry is both angry and encouraging; it is both hopeful and desperate for
change. Although it is dominated by the ideology of Black Consciousness, and although
it records black experience, it is not exclusively written by blacks, nor are its messages
confined to Soweto. It exposes stereotyped behaviour and tries to speak for the victims
of oppression everywhere in South Africa while at the same time speaking to them.
Above all, township poetry is a balancing of tensions to produce a vital culture which
is one of the few things... most urban South Africans have left to lose and which is
perhaps the one thing that keeps poets like Sipho Sepamla going:
I will hay’e to ask for my slum location again
L feel a lot went wrong when I was moved from it
a lot died in the process
I lost my stance for standing up straight
I lost the rhythm of walking right
I lost my sense of humour
I lost the feel for loving
I lost my sense of smell
... I know I don’t just want fresh air
I need the smell of sweaty life
oh yes I want to live colourfully once more
Examine the style employed by Sepamla in his poetry.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Sepamla’s main poetic talent lies in his ability to exploit language for humorous
effects in his poetry. He combines a style of broken English with “township Xhosa” and
“tsotsi-taal” to induce a linguistic interplay which underlines his point. Sepamla’s love
for Soweto and his pride in the vitality of township culture enables him to mock Passes,
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to criticize apartheid sharply and to use sophisticated language. Even more than Gwala
and Jensma, Sepamla is conscious of the musicality of words. In such poems as “The
Blues is You in Me” and “The Soweto Blues,” blues beats are used to slow down lines
and to reveal the dreary depression or to create a fast tempo in line with the upbeat anger
or the poet. Sepamla’s “use or irony [is) more powerful and more varied than Mtshali’s.
He does not have Serote’s forcefulness.... “Certainly, Sepamla’s sense of humour
celebrates the cultural variety and endurance of Soweto as much as it criticizes social
problems.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The biography of Sipho Sepamla
• The major features of Sepamla’s poetry
• Sepamla’s protest poetry
• Discuss the biography of Sipho Sepamla.
• What are the characteristic features of Sepamla’s poetry?
• Discuss Sepamla’s protest poetry with relevant examples from his poems.
Press
Holland, L. (1987). A Critical Survey of Contemporary South African Poetry: the
Language of Conflict and Commitment. An Unpublished Masters Thesis
Submitted to McMaster University
Lionel Abraham, “Black Experience into English Verse: A Survey of Local African
Poetry, 1960-70,” Soweto Poetry.
Sipho Sepamla (1977). The Soweto I Love. Soweto Poetry, (London & Cape Town: Rex
Collings with David Philip,
Sipho Sepamla, “Chi 1dren of the Earth,” Children of the Earth, 67-68
Sipho Sepamla, “The Black Writer in South Africa Today: Problems and Dilemmas,”
Soweto Poetry, ed. Michael Chapman (Johannesburg: McGraw-Hill Book
Company 1982)
Sipho Sepamla, “The Exile,” Hurry Up to It! (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1975)
Stephen Watson, “Recent White South African Poetry & the Language of Liberalism,”
Standpunte 36.2 (1983)
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UNIT 4 THE POEMS OF FUNSO AIYEJINA
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Funso Aiyejina’s biography
3.2 Funso Aiyejina’s poetry
3.2.1 Aiyejina’s I, The Supreme and Other Poems
3.2.2 Language and Style in Aiyejina’s I, The Supreme and Other Poems
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Funso Aiyejina books demonstrate a concentrated interest with the historical,
culture and political life of Africa, particularly his native Nigeria. His writing manifests
a blossoming black diasporic poetics. His first collection of poems A Letter to Lynda
and Other Poems (1989), for instance, considers the historical plight, the shared
experiences of suffering and the immense possibilities of Africa and her descendants.
This collection is anchored in a trans-Atlantic love relationship that has produced two
sons who intimately seal a connection between the Old and New Worlds, and thereby
secure the promise of a “[g]olden harvest of interlocking histories”. This unit will take
you through the poems of Funso Aiyejina will particular reference to his poetic
collection of I, The Supreme and Other Poems. Below are some of the objectives of this
unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Outline Funso Aiyejina’s biography
• Discuss Funso Aiyejina’s poetry with particular reference from his I, The
Supreme and Other Poems
• Discuss the scope and themes in Aiyejina’s I, The Supreme and Other Poems
• Examine the language and style in Aiyejina’s I, The Supreme and Other Poems
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Funso Aiyejina’s Biography
Poet and short-story writer, born in Ososo, Edo State, Nigeria, and holds a
bachelor’s degree from the University of Ife, a master’s from Acadia University, Nova
Scotia, Canada, and a doctorate from the University of the West Indies, Trinidad. He
taught at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and since 1990 has
taught at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad. In 1995–96, he was Fulbright
Lecturer in Creative Writing at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. Short
fiction by Aiyejina has appeared in Okike; his poetry has been published in many
journals, including Opon Ifa, Okike, West Africa, Greenfield Review, and Trinidad and
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Tobago Review; his stories and plays have been broadcast over the radio in Nigeria and
England; and his work appears in a number of anthologies. Aiyejina’s first book of
poems, A Letter to Lynda (1988), explores indigenous idioms and images and won the
Association of Nigerian Authors Prize in 1989. The Legend of the Rockhills and Other
Stories (1999) won Best First Book, Africa, for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in
2000, and A iyejina has also published a second anthology of poems under the title of
I, The Supreme (2005).
Aiyejina’s award-winning The Legend of the Rockhills and Other Stories (1999)
is a collection of Nigerian-based short stories, told in the entertaining and insightful
ironic voice that is fast becoming his trademark. Many of the stories such as “The
Governor’s Tree,” “His Excellency’s Visit,” “The Brand New Chair” and “The Tax
Collectors” satirize corrupt governments, their power-maddened leaders and self-
important public officials, while gleefully reveling in their unmasking by the perceptive
gaze and anancy-like survivalist strategies of ordinary folk. These and others intersect
with the tales of abused power that feature in his second poetry collection I, The
Supreme and Other Poems (2004). This book demonstrates the maturing of Aiyejina’s
poetic style. The reader encounters the poet as spokesman for the community and the
chronicler of its experiences. He is prophet, social critic and moral vigilante whose
speech is couched in the community’s collective wisdom and tradition, drawing on
proverb, parable, and on a firm faith in the benevolent attendance of ancestors and their
gods. The text’s richness lies in its intricate weaving of many thematic concerns. Its
maturity is most evident in a confident control of voice that can be public and personal,
satirical and reflective. The collection laments the betrayal of innocence and the failure
of nationhood due to political corruption. It celebrates the resilience of the small and
their stubborn will to survive and oppose injustice. It explores the capacity of the human
person for unspeakable evil and redemptive good. The book condemns deceit and
violence, and satirizes folly. It is about the pain of loss and the certitude of rejuvenation.
I, The Supreme and Other Poems is also deeply concerned with African cultural survival
and interconnections. Above all, these poems are about love of people, nations, and the
earth that instructs and sustains us. The spiritual and philosophical orientation of this
text speaks of an investment, against all odds, in the hope of a “future continuous”, for
the people of Nigeria, the continent Africa and her diaspora, indeed for all the earth’s
peoples. (Aiyejina, 1988)
Asses the literary biograpgy of Funso Aiyejina.
3.2 Funso Aiyejina’s Poetry
3.2.1 Aiyejina’s I, The Supreme and Other Poems
Jennifer Rahim examined Aiyejina’s poems in her “Aiyejina, Funso. I, The
Supreme and Other Poems.” (2006). According to her, it is of particular interest for
Caribbean readers in I, The Supreme and Other Poems is the rooting of a transnational,
intercultural sensibility, one that began in his first, A Letter to Lynda and Other Poems.
We make this dimension of his work as opposed to Aiyejina’s gently confessed
resistance to an imaginative engagement with the Caribbean, primarily from the
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conviction that his creative formation and political concerns are elsewhere, that is, the
Africa of his origins. This is true; most of the poems contained in the collection have
this focus, particularly the opening sections, “Of Generals and Kings, Priests and Poets”
and “Victorious Victims.” Yet, it is also believed that we are privileged to witness the
evolution of what may well be a new trajectory in the literature of the African diaspora.
It can be suspected that as he keeps on writing, as he continues to be entangled in the
life of his current dwelling, a Caribbean focus will escape his censorship. Imagination
can be understood as the servant of love, which implies that imagination is its own
government. Derek Walcott reminds us in The Antilles (1992) that “love is stasis and
travel is motion”. So, as Aiyejina has chosen to stay with us, so too has he also chosen
to love us, and perhaps will one day agree to write about us with the same passion with
which he writes Africa.
In this regard, it is highly significant that what Aiyejina calls the book’s
“Pro/Epi/Logue” comprises a single poem entitled, “A Birthday Oriki for Iyalorisa
Melvina Rodney,” the poet’s Trinidadian, Orisa spiritual mother. As a wordsmith
conscious of the layered life of language, Aiyejina evokes the multiple streams of word
and text. As “prologue,” he ends the book where it logically begins or pre-starts; as
epilogue he signals where the book ends, but transcends its natural closure. As “logue,”
the author intimates that the text is a compilation of experience, a history of sorts, public
and personal, national and transnational—catalogue of a considered life. As logue, the
collection is a discourse, that is, a conversation across space and time, across worlds:
temporal and spiritual, there and here. The book is also a writer’s logue, an artefact of
memory, that catalyst of creativity, the transforming light of experience and agent of
continuity. “Memory,” he writes in the poem, “Dear Brother,” “is the master of death:
the beginning in the end …”.
“A Birthday Oriki for Iyalorisa Melvina Rodney” is written in eight parts and
opens with a lamentation for the histories of betrayals, old and new, that attempt to
make Africa’s descendants into “blind strangers” robbed of their place in the world. It
quickly moves to the resistance mode as self-pity and recrimination are rejected as dead-
ends in favor of the life offered in the counter-discourse of transformative “tales,” those
repositories of truths engineered by the wise that traverse time and place with their “vast
masts.” The ship, Paul Gilroy points out in The Black Atlantic (1993), is the centric
trope of traveling cultures, suggested here in Aiyejina’s image of those “vast masts”
that connect continents ((Rahim, 2006).
The establishment of this ancestral mooring, which is strengthened by the figure
of Iya Rodney as a New World living ancestor, fuels the poem’s acceleration into praise.
She is honoured and celebrated as “Matriarch of the crossroads” for Africa’s scattered
tribes. Rodney manifests the indestructible line of continuity between spiritual and
temporal worlds, across generations living and dead and yet to come. In short, the
Atlantic crossing of this contemporary traveller is no “amnesiac” surrender to
irretrievable loss. Arguably, one’s historical positioning is what makes the difference
between the first forced migration to the Caribbean as loss and later immigrations as
reconnection. As a contemporary African traveller to the Caribbean, Aiyejina’s
experiences of its cultural spaces and sensibilities cast no shadow of ambivalence about
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the African presence and its role as what Sylvia Wynter called, with reference to
Jamaica, the “syncretic mixing force of the society” in her 1967 review of “Lady
Nugent’s Journal”, a definition one can easily extend to this society—this Caribbean.
In Aiyejina, therefore, we witness the evolution of an imagination formed by
journeys, one that necessarily moves from here to there to encompass the fullness of
experience, and so forge links with geographic and socio-cultural territories, where
collective and personal histories overlap to generate fresh metaphors of recognition and
reconnection, such as the startling image of flamboyant trees of his adopted Trinidad
landscape that “bloom/Into a procession of possessed Sango priests” in the poem
“Memories of the future”. This transplanted African has literally found a second
motherland in the New World, hybrid and changed, but not displaced or placeless;
ravaged by a brutal history, but sprouting a new “style,” new tales spun with the
“wondrous metaphors of rockhills & islands”. In fact, the opening lines of the title poem
of his first collection, A Letter to Lynda and Other Poems echoes as one reads I, The
Supreme: “What is incalculably far from us/in point of distance can be near us./Short
distance is not itself nearness./Nor is great distance remoteness …”.
Evidence that the collection is occupied with charting a meeting point of worlds
surfaces in the section “Memorials.” There, in the poem entitled “Elroy Quamina,”
Aiyejina honours the memory of his father-in-law, whose prophetic prediction of the
birth of Ararimeh is recorded in his gift of a silver dollar for the “yet-to-be-conceived
second child”. At the heart of this section, is the desire to immortalize in verse the
significant persons who influenced the poet’s personal life, and who now form his ever-
widening community of ancestors that close the chasm between the worlds. There are
memorials, for instance, to close family members, writers and guides in poems such as
“Mariatu,” “Asetu,” “Father never said much,” “Dear Brother” and so on.
The bridging of the Atlantic divide and the interdependence of the future, present
and past which form the unifying logic of the collection is signalled most strongly in
the section, “The Future Continuous.” Many of the poems focus on the birth and growth
of his two sons, Abuenameh and Ararimeh, the children of his enduring love for Lynda.
This love builds a stable, renewing bridge across the Atlantic, the sea of time and
distance, suffering and renewal that the poetic imagination grapples to reconcile.
Several of the poems to his sons, written in the turbulent 1980s during the period of the
murder of the journalist Dele Giwa and the reign of General Babangida, are carry-covers
from the first collection, a choice that reinforces the sons’ role as signs of hope for a
different future for Africa and its diaspora. Therefore, the paternal blessing he bestows
on them is extended to all the “children of the wind”, fruits of the communion of Old
and New Worlds and the promise of cultural, spiritual and generational continuity.
With this almost Lammingesque “glance backward” in which one “rises full
speed forward” (“Asetu”), the collection’s non-defeatist confrontation with the sorry
state of African post-independence politics finds continuity, or perhaps identifies the
origins of its philosophy. Narratives such as the title poem “I, The Supreme,” “The
general on the swing,” “The power & the glory,” “Darkness may conceal” are potent
critiques of the betrayals of military regimes and corrupt dictators. The evil of perverted
leadership is most evident in the mercenary silencing of political detractors, captured in
239
poems like “Re: Jack Mapanje - poet,” “The innocent spider,” “Gani Fawehinmi.”
These figures and others are honoured as the courageous gatekeepers of truth, skillful
“peddlers of parables”, visionaries who “dream,” the people’s future, artisans of the
“the metaphors in our streams”.
In deference to Aiyejina’s loaded disclaimer: “No true character where none is
intended/No true incident where none is created/No true location where none is
identified,” we can also choose to remain mum, in spite of the earlier slip, about the
possible names of the long succession of dictators and the litany of crimes they oversee
against the innocent. Rather, we can surrender to walk the vanishing horizon the poet
skilfully navigates between fact and fiction, actuality and invention. Specific knowledge
and particular histories are not beyond one’s grasp, even as they are most times playfully
shrouded in the folktale’s anonymity. Aiyejina proves he is most adept at playing the
proverb’s best game of accusation without name-calling, and the choice of ironic double
entendre signals a submission to satire’s highest service in offering correction to human
error without ascending the throne of a reverse arrogance and violence. Indeed, these
are localized tales of the dark conspiracies wrought by expert “spinners of webs”,
“butchers” who “prepare knives” for the slaughter of sheep. They tell of “Generals,”
immovable elephants, usurpers of the seat of justice that concoct schemes, sometimes
“stranger than fiction,” that perhaps only fiction can best tell; but they are imbued with
the representational currency to speak to all of humanity of the shared problem of
misused power.
A strong didactic intent weaves through this collection, which appeals to a
timeless belief in the ultimate triumph of truth and justice over lies and injustice. The
text is a philosophy of survival that charts, even as it performs, a rite of passage into the
future. At its core, I, The Supreme is a spiritual handbook about crossing over. It
recognizes that the battle royal of human persons in the societies to which they belong
involves the necessary confrontation with injustice, betrayal, disappointment—
challenges of myriad sorts that test the mettle of the individual and collective spirit. This
poet may be an idealist but he is no romantic. Social activism against injustice is
therefore a collective responsibility, as it is the responsibility of art to speak out. His
mediation on the matters of the living is an heroic surge to gather from the deep recesses
of self, family, community and tradition, the spiritual weaponry with which mere
mortals can stand firm against the tyrannous supremacy of the false “I”s that seek to
deny life and imprison freedom. In essence, the book is about the inevitable, almost
anancy-like overthrow of dictatorial, murderous, deceitful and indulgent selves by
placing them in confrontation with the ordinary masses of people who are dispossessed
of everything but the wisdom of the community, and faith in a Divine might, preserved
in proverb, sanctified in ritual and lived in action, even if that is the act of waiting
(Rahim, 2006).
3.2.2 Language and Style in Aiyejina’s I, The Supreme and Other Poems
According to Rahim (2006), for the sceptics who believe that language or “poetry
makes nothing happen,” Aiyejina unleashes the potency of the people’s poetry: those
proverbial and parabolic, the “horses of speech” that can move “full-bodied elephants”,
and “if reason goes astray/”retrieve & return it home to stay”. He too takes command
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of his culture’s gift of words by crafting his own arsenal of parables and proverbs,
adding, like a dutiful elder, to the store of the community’s collective wisdom such as
his innovations in “On becoming the wisest man in the world”. Language is not that
unreliable post-written chameleon, shape-shifting, escaping the intention to make words
mean. It is rather the powerful vehicle of communication loaded with the firepower to
unveil deception, to effect change by speaking unchanging truths to those with ears to
hear and eyes to see the sad temporality of those who enthrone themselves on falsity of
various kinds. For this postcolonial, diasporic African, at least, the veneration of a
spineless, slippery language denuded of its potential to mean is not an option. Language,
like “Sango’s thunderstones,” is the purposeful weapon of righteous anger, charged
with the authority of experience and fortified with the confidence of an ancestral
grounding that make words the able, fecund seeds of renewal and transformation.
Finally, the ironic vision of I, The Supreme and Other Poems is the light that
provides the text’s counter-discourse with corruption. In contradistinction to the false
“I” of egotistical kings, prophets and gods whose time on the deceptive “swing” of glory
is but a temporary night, there is the true sovereignty of the wise, whose perceptive
I/eye, like the dawn, will dethrone tyrants. Many of the folk tales and narratives in this
collection such as “The goat & the head butcher,” “On becoming the wisest man in the
world,” “The power & the glory,” and “Termites dwell underground” affirm the organic
wisdom of the community on which the disempowered and victimized rely. This is a
book about the timeless battle between history’s Goliaths and Davids that will
ultimately prove laughable the tyrant leader’s litany of empty boasts with which the title
poem “I, The Supreme” opens:
They labour in vain: termites aspiring to devour rocks!
Futile are their lots to surprise the crab in a trance.
The back of the cat is not for the ground to embrace.
The ready challenge that undermines the authority of the General’s blind arrogance
comes from the battery of contesting responses in the poems that follow this pseudo
“Prologue” to the story of the community. The subtle revolutionary power of the
collective voice of people is best represented in the poem written for the judicially
murdered poet, Ken Saro-Wiwa, “Termites dwell underground”. Revolution from the
bottom up is therefore the strategy reinforced in the text. It is with this understanding
that truth triumphs that Aiyejina writes the poem “Elegy for my land,” which is really
a song of hope, a refusal to mourn, and the antithesis of the section entitled “Epilogue,”
since the future has only just begun.
Diasporic literature, we know, has developed the worrying reputation as the
literature of “homelessness.” In a real sense, the problem of home, cultural loss and
hyphenated ambivalences are very visible aspects of the postcolonial saga of
lamentation over the cultural “erasure” and “dissociation” wrought by Imperialism and
its aftermath. Aiyejina’s gaze, however, offers a refreshing leap from that discourse of
loss and anguished recuperation. Although his body of work so far represents an early
stage of writing in between spaces of dwelling, he is not in doubt about his belonging,
nor is Africa an imagined space that slips from reality (Rahim, 2006).
241
Explain the themes and poetic language of Funso Aiyejina, citing relevant examples
from his The Supreme and Other Poems.
4.0 CONCLUSION
As outsider/insider to the Caribbean landscape and culture, Aiyejina is awed by
the miracle of African cultural survival and transformation. His cultural experience and
vision as a second wave, this time willing, immigrant to the Caribbean, updates and
remedies, in a certain sense, the discursive strains that attempt to institutionalise
displacement as typical markers of the postcolonial condition, or celebrate the
“pleasures” of in-betweenity that may indicate the uncommitted, “stateless” globality
of the nomad, that depoliticised transculturality of Fanon’s forewarned “rootless,” “race
of angels” in The Wretched of the Earth (1967). He stands on firm ground,
imaginatively moving between worlds that are as real to him as the love that calls him
to craft them whole.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The biography Funso Aiyejina
• The unique features of Funso Aiyejina’s poetry with illustration from his I, The
• The scope and themes in Aiyejina’s I, The Supreme and Other Poems
• The language and style employed by Aiyejina’s in his I, The Supreme and Other
Poems
1) Outline Funso Aiyejina’s biography
2) Discuss Funso Aiyejina’s poetry with particular reference from his I, The
3) Discuss the scope and themes in Aiyejina’s I, The Supreme and Other Poems
4) Examine the language and style in Aiyejina’s I, The Supreme and Other Poems
Aiyejina Funso (1988), “Recent Nigerian Poetry in English: An Alter/Native
Tradition”, Yemi Ogunbiyi (Ed.), Perspectives on Nigerian Literature, Vol. 1,
Guardian Books, Lagos.
Killam, G. D. (2008). Student Encyclopedia of African literature. London: Greenwood
Press
Rahim, Jennifer (2006) “Aiyejina, Funso.I, The Supreme and Other
Poems.”Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1, Article 14.
242
UNIT 5 THE POEMS OF TENURE OJAIDE
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Tenure Ojaide’s Biography
3.2 Tanure Ojaide and his poetry
3.3 The town-crier’s resistance and mediation: Tanure Ojaide’s Delta Blues and
Home Songs and Fate of the Vultures & Other Poems
3.4 Ojaide’s poetry and the environmental sustainability in the Niger Delta
3.5 Exploding the ballon of postnationallity in the poetry of Ojaide
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Of the new generation of African poets and their poetry, there are only a few that one
would read and return to. Nigeria’s Tanure Ojaide belongs to those few. What makes
Ojaide’s poetry appealing is not only its technical qualities but its cultural integrity.
Ojaide is not the type of poet one remembers only by one good work; he is prolific, and
his writings are consistently rich and deeply rooted in the Delta region of Nigeria. He
has published more than five books of poetry, including Children of Iroko and Other
Poems, Labyrinths of the Delta, The Eagle’s Vision, The Endless Song, and The Fate
of Vultures and Other Poems. If there is a persistent and unifying theme in most of his
works, it is a single-minded detestation of tyrants combined with an obsessive
commitment to social justice. This essay recognizes the impossibility of a deep
exploration of this rising poetic star’s work in a single foray and therefore settles only
for a brief, but ambitious survey of the artistry and social concerns of a poet who may
very well be one of the finest, if not the finest, among Nigeria’s harvest of poets of the
post-Okigbo/post-Soyinka generation. The selection and treatment here of poems across
many of the poet’s several collections is ad hoc and sporadic-the choice of poems
largely motivated by a concern for representative demonstration. The treatment of
Ojaide’s work is undertaken within a meaningful triadic framework, rotating around
three themes: his life, artistry, and social vision. Below are some of the objectives of
this unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
• Give an outline of Tenure Ojaide’s biography
• Discuss Tanure Ojaide’s poetry
• Examine the theme of town-crier’s resistance and mediation in Tanure Ojaide’s
Delta Blues and Home Songs and Fate of the Vultures & Other Poems
• Discuss the Niger Delta’s environmental sustainability in Ojaide’s poetry
243
• Examine postnationallity in the poetry of Ojaide
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Tenure Ojaide’s Biography
Born on April 24, 1948, in Okpara Inland, Bendel State, Delta Region of Nigeria,
Ojaide thus grew up in this riverine forest area, largely brought up by his mater- nal
grandmother, Amreghe, to whom he pays tribute in “For Granny.” Ojaide was educated
at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (BA) and at Syracuse University (MA, PhD). Ojaide
is currently a Professor of African American and African Studies at the University of
North Carolina and is a former Fellow in Writing of the University of Iowa. He is a
productive poet and has won several awards, including a commendation by the
Commonwealth Writers Prize 2005 for his first novel Sovereign Body, and 2003
Association of Nigerian Authors Prize for Poetry. Ojaide’s collections include Children
of Iroko (1973), Labyrinths of the Delta (1986), which won a Commonwealth Poetry
Prize, and The Eagle’s Vision (1987), which won the Christopher Okigbo Prize. The
Endless Song (1989) was specially mentioned by the Noma Award committee; The Fate
of Vultures and Other Poems (1990) won the Association of Nigerian Authors’ (ANA)
Poetry Award; and the title poem of the latter volume received a BBC Arts and Africa
Poetry Award.
Other collections are The Blood of Peace (1991), Cannons for the Brave (1995),
Invoking the Warrior God (1995), which won the ANA ‘s Poetry Award, Daydream of
Ants (1995), Invoking the Warrior Spirit: New and Selected Poems (1999), The New
African Poetry: An Anthology (1999), In the Kingdom of Songs: A Trilogy of Poems,
1995–2000 (2001), Delta Blues and Other Home Songs (1998, 2002), and I Want to
Dance and Other Poems (2003). He has also published a book of short stories titled
God’s Medicine-Men and Other Stories (2004), and Ojaide’s poetry is also included in
such anthologies as Ubangiji: The Conscience of Eternity (2000), The Palm of Time
(2002), and Winging Words (2004). The use of traditional African imagery, rhythm, and
music and Nigerian English to express Nigerian/African experience characterize
Ojaide’s poetry.
Provide a detailed biography of Tenure Ojaide, giving more emphasis on his poetic
compositions.
3.2 Tenure Ojaide and His Poetry
According to Awuzie, (2017), Tanure Ojaide’s poetry, like the poetry of his
contemporaries is preoccupied with the themes of political and environmental
degradation. According to Charles Bodunde, Ojaide’s poetry is an “aesthetic in which
images are deployed to emphasize the idea that human right struggle is imperative in
seeking to restore the people’s well-being” (2002). However, in his essay entitled “New
Trends in Modern African Poetry”, Ojaide sees this aesthetic as a dominant trend in
contemporary African poetry and this emerges from the context in which “the generality
of the populace had become economically and politically marginalized” (Ojaide, 1995).
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In his book of essays, Ojaide makes it clear that his poetry revolves around the Niger
Delta politics and its environmental problem:
To me as a poet, Childhood is vital, because it is the repository of memory.
[...] My Delta years have become the touch-stone with which I measure the
rest of my life. The streams, the fauna, and the flora are symbols I continually
tap. [...] Home remains for me the Delta, where I continue to anchor myself.
(1995)
Uzoechi Nwagbara (2009) argues in his essay entitled “Aesthetic of Resistance and
Sustainability: Tanure Ojaide and the Niger Delta Question” that ecocriticism is central
in the poetry of Tanure Ojaide and that Ojaide’s poetry negates ecological imperialism.
He goes further to argue that since Ojaide’s poetry intersects with the realities of
ecological imperialism, it is therefore a dependable barometer to measure “Nigeria’s
environmental/ecological dissonance for sustainable development” (Awuzie, 2017).
With adequate citations from from his different poems, explore the thematic concerns
of Osundare’s poetry.
3.3 The Town-crier’s Resistance and Mediation: Tanure Ojaide’s Delta Blues and
Home Songs and Fate of the Vultures & Other Poems
According to Aito (2014), the unhealthy experience in post-colonial Nigerian
societies must have influenced the kind of ‘intuitive desire’ constituted by the poet
Tanure Ojaide, a second generation poet of the 1990s, to mediate and fight corruption
and oppression especially of the Niger-Delta. Sallah (1995) explains that Ojaide finds
the retarding system and nature of African leadership uncomfortable. The character of
African leadership, in this sense, is marked by incoherent social vision, corruption,
environmental degradation, oppression and exploitation, all for pernicious ends. He,
however, describes Ojaide as a ‘new traditionalist’ poet who derives his poetic style
from indigenous roots, characterized by direct statement; the language is free of
idiosyncrasy and arcane imagery. In other words, he relies on parables and refers to
traditional ritual adjusted to contemporary conditions.
Ojaide justifies his poetic style in his claim that he tries to model some of his
poems in English on the poetic form of Udje, the Urhobo traditional songs of abuse
(Ojaide 2001). The Udje dance songs belong to the corpus of traditional satire that
strongly attack what the traditional society regards as vices. In this context, the
traditional singers assume the position of social critic and reformer with the desire to
ensure that what the society considers as positive norms are upheld. Central in the songs
are the principle of correction and deterrent through the use of “wounding” words.
Ojaide, from Niger-Delta continues in the tradition of late Saro-Wiwa, however, he
claims that his poetic inspiration is indebted to a muse, Uhaghwa or Aridon, Urhobo
god of songs. In this instance, Ojaide’s posture and choice of techniques can be deemed
purposeful. His poetry is a resistance to oppression (of the Niger-Delta people) in post-
independent society, patterned along traditional poetic form popular as a weapon of evil
deterrent among his folks (Aito, 2014).
245
When examining few poems in Delta Blues and Home Songs (1998), Ojaide’s
posture and technique ensure the instances of his thematic preoccupation. On the whole,
the collection reads as a poetic diatribe against environmental degradation of the Niger-
Delta and the unjust system which makes the people to be chief mourners and paupers
in the midst of their oil wealth. It is also a weapon of resistance against the oppression
of the people. In a nutshell, oppression and resistance find unity in his poetry. The first
poem in Delta Blues and Home Songs “My drum beats itself” seems like a signature
tune to the entire poetic performance, while taking up Okigbo’s concern in “Elegy for
the Slit-Drum”. Here, the poetic personae parades himself as a possessed town crier
charged by a muse for a purposeful mobilization among his people and sustains this
posture throughout the collection. The posture of the poet is understandable,
considering the fact that the collection was published in 1998 under the military
oppressive mechanism of General Sani Abacha (1993– 1998) in Nigeria after he
murdered Ken Saro-Wiwa to silent his environmental activism. It was a period when
the waves of economic impoverishment and political subjugation that have become
common trend in most African States peaked under military cabal in the oil-rich Niger-
Delta of Nigeria. Moved by the need to mediate in the suffering of his people, the poet
seeks their solidarity in resisting the cabal by adopting the leader-chorus formula typical
of African oral performance under the inspiration of Uhaghwa/Aridon. This poetic
technique also signifies involvement of the people in the protest that is non-violent:
Now that my drum beats itself,

I know that my dead mother’s hands at work
This round that I lipsing and others think mines
Could only come from beyond this world
The little from there makes abundance in my hands

Inside the drum hides a spirit
That wants me to succeed beyond myself…
My drum beats itself

And I await the carnival the drum divines.
Sing with me
Iye iye, Iye Iye… (“my drum beats itself”, 10–11).

The long and short lines structure of the poem symbolizes the leader-chorus
performance and the trepidation of the heart due to the subjugation of the people and
explication of their wealth.
In “When green was the lingua franca”, the poet captures the activities of
multinational corporations such as Mobil, Shell, Agip, Elf/Total etc. and foreign
collaborators in the power abuse through economic oppression of the Niger-Delta
people. The poet laments the destruction of the Niger-Delta green heritage, the idyllic
environment in the name of white-collared jobs and wealth creation through oil
exploitation. The result is ‘double-yoke’ for the Niger Delta people, who are subjected
to environmental degradation and economic impoverishment. The poet employing a
propagandistic tone resists the oppressors’ activities by describing them as hellish:
246
Then Shell broke the bond
With quakes and a hell
Of flares…
I see victims of arson

Wherever my restless soles
Take me to I hear witness.
The Ethiope waterfront wiped out by prospectors
So many trees beheaded
And streams mortally poisoned
In the name of jobs and wealth!
… The weeds have been amputated. (12–14)

In “Season”, the poet narrates the people’s ordeal and calls in the attention of the ruling
class to their plight: “We selected delegates to take our prayers to Abuja/but guns scared
them from the Promised Land” . And in “Wails”, he decries the Cabal’s murder of Ken
Saro-Wiwa and 9 others in 1997 by lamenting the vacuum created by a devouring
nation. Using the image of a boa to symbolize a nation that devours her offspring instead
of celebrating its own, the poet raises his protest beyond all impeding ‘high walls’ and
invokes Aridon for intensity: “Aridon give me the voice to raise this wail/beyond high
walls”.
In the same mood of protesting the devouring nature of the nation, “Witchcraft”
becomes a metaphor for describing the socio-political and economic condition of Niger-
Delta and the Nation as a whole. Witchcraft symbolically refers to an African belief in
the metaphysical power of bewitchment to suffer “Between life and death”, leaving
“Fresh Casualties” due to oppressive military tyranny. “Fresh Casualties” is an inter-
textual response to J. P. Clark’s “Casualties”. Ojaide’s “Fresh Casualties” is the poet’s
perspective of post-independent Nigeria of the 90’s while Clark’s “Casualties” is an
examination of the casualties of colonialism and the Civil War of 1967–1970. Ojaide’s
“Fresh Casualties” expresses concern about post-colonial neo-imperialism, that is,
localized oppression through economic capitalisation and environmental pollution
within an ‘independent’ nation against its own people:
The casualties are neither those
Who stayed the brunt of fire power,
Nor who fled from reinforcement of cover;
But those small things tackled in our souls
That shone through the bodies
And made us upright in a crooked world.
We have become mercenaries
Slaughtering the totem of the land
To lavishly outlive a killing season. (37)
Finally, Ojaide in “Remembering the town-crier” reiterates his ideological project of
mediation in conflict through protest. Here, he reinstates his ideological posture as a
messiah like Moses bearing the eye-for-eye law. However, he describes his position as
a town-crier charged and committed to the struggle for economic equality and social
247
justice of his people, not an anarchist. As a town-crier with messianic mission, he calls
on Aridon, and draws on Udje satirical poetic form of the Urhobos of Niger-Delta to
abuse, lament, curse, and deter all forms of socio-political imbalances in Nigeria.
Repulsive imagery and pungent metaphors colour the poet’s use of language in his
purposeful mission of a town-crier among the oppressed. It seems the poet, Tanure
Ojaide, lives Ghandi’s ideology of resistance without violence that is promoted by
Martin Luther King Jnr. In fact, poetry as a genre of literature is prophetic and
referential in its functional nature is realising socio-political change. Thus in his
collection, Fate of Vultures & Other Poems, Ojaide further displays his skills as an
indigenous poet, who draws upon traditional elements, powers and forms in order to
address national socio-economic conditions and violence in the Niger-Delta.
In the “The music of pain” is the expression of threat or warning about his effort
as a “town-crier” seeking change by revolution. The tone of the narrative is that of pain
and the struggle not to give up but to continue the songs of satire that will bring about
a change. And to achieve this, Aridon is again invoked in the silent revolutionary songs
against oppression and environmental abuses. Obviously, the destruction of Niger-Delta
– ecological degradation, exploration and exploitation of oil wealth and destruction of
the sense of being human – is not only by the west but also by Nigerians who are
supposed to be leaders and are expected to safe-guard our identity:
Listen. I do not cry in vain.
my song I sought
the chorus of resistant cries…
I dressed my words with steel of shafts for a long hunting
season…
“What can songs do?” they mock me…
They are fine-filed machetes in the hands of the threatened! (2)
The music or song of pain represents the communal pain, cries and resistance through
the voice of the ‘town-crier’.
Another of Ojaide’s poem is “The fate of vultures” that calls upon the presence
of the unseen, Aridon, to “bring back my wealth from rogue-vaults; legendary witness
to comings and goings, memory god, my mentor…” (11). Ojaide in this poem relives
and affirms the prophetic vision of his forefathers. Ojaide’s lamentation is significance
in its poetic concerns for the sanity of the human environment and dignity of human
identity. Ojaide’s The Fate of Vultures & Other Poems are traditional expressions of
lamentations on the environmental destruction, pollution and wastefulness that
characterise postcolonial Nigeria (Aito, 2014).
Discuss the themes in Ojaide’s Delta Blues and Home Songs and Fate of the Vultures
& Other Poems.
3.4 Ojaide’s Poetry and the Environmental Sustainability in the Niger Delta
The interest and inheritance of Tanure Ojaide environmental sustainability in the
Niger Delta is clearly expressed in his Delta Blues & Home Songs which tells of the
horrors and tragedies of multinational corporations’ presence and activities in the Niger
Delta region of Nigeria:
248
The inheritance I sat on for centuries
Now crushes my body and soul …
My nativity gives immortal pain
Masked in barrels of oil –
Breaking the peace of centuries
And tainting not only a thousand rivers,
My lifeblood from the beginning,
But scorching their sacred soil was debauched
By prospectors, money-mongers?
My birds take flight to the sea,

The animals grope in the burning bush … (21).
The poem above tells of the horrors and tragedies of multinational corporations’
presence and activities in the Niger delta region of Nigeria and ‘The AT & P, Sapele’:
When I first entered the AT & P
On excursion from St. George’s,
It was next to the largest sawmill
On earth…
The planks smelt fresh,
Sardine-packed for export;
They came in raft by water…
When decades later I went home
To the delta of hardwood,
A big clearing welcome me … (30).
Also in his collection When It No Longer Matters Where You Live and Daydream of
Ants and Other Poems Ojaide called forth pictures of the socio-physical disaster, the
deplorable condition of man and the fauna:
Choking from the season’s flagellation,
Droves of wailers comb the breath of the
Land…
Wild fires consumed barks and herbs

What are the chances of catching the lion
Alive…? (77).
Dogs will never shed enough tears

To tell their sorrows,
Goats will never sweat enough in a rack
To show the world their desperation.
Babies suffocate from the game
Of loveless elders of state … (70).
These poems paint a gory picture of the state and condition of the local and flora, fauna
and man by the ‘elders of state’: the polluted atmosphere, the choking in the air and the
battered environment; ‘the gnarled barks of trees’, ‘babies’ and ‘goats’ all point to the
249
perils of deforestation and the evil of imperialism wrought via gas flaring and oil leaks
in the Niger Delta and Nigeria by extension. It tells of the horrors and tragedies of
multinational corporations’ presence and activities in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
Ojaide considers the eco-critical art of poetry as a kind of public duty, which he owes
to the Nigeria people, to expose, reconstruct, and negate the actualities of environmental
degradation in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Above all Ojaide uses literature for
environmental purposes. He places premium on the biotic community – its
sustainability and preservation. He is a poetic blueprint that is environmentally
conscious and ecologically sensitive to the plights of the people and their environment.
Glissant E, the Caribbean writer, offered a statement to corroborate this literary
pattern: that Ojaide is committed to “aesthetic of the earth” (Glissant, 1997). In the same
light also, Aldo Leopold, the American ecologists, in his A Sand County Almanac said
that “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the
biotic community (Leopold, 1966: 262). Today, the destructive effect of man’s
activities on the environment has shifted from Africa and the developing world to the
industrialized world like Britain. Unlike the attempt to domesticate the African mind
and its natural environment for the West, Industrialization now attempts to domesticate
the earth – its space, lands and seas and the consequences of this are the destruction of
the world eco-system. This universal concern is expressed by Ross Parmanterin in the
last quarter of the 20th century, that “In remaking the world in the likeness of a steam-
heated, air conditioned metropolis of apartment buildings, we have violated our kinship
with nature. The recent Gulf oil spill on the Pacific Ocean, though far from African
shores, it is human induced disaster against global aquatic system.
Explore the theme of ecocriticism in Ojaide’s poetry.
3.5 Exploding the Ballon of Postnationallity in the Poetry of Tanure Ojaide
According to Olaoluwa (2007), Ojaide’s narration of the nation is essentially
from the viewpoint of the Niger Delta crisis and by so doing, he interrogates the basis
for the invention and sustenance of the nation. This takes us back to how exile connects
globalization in this discussion. The feverish race towards planetization otherwise
known as globalization has generated and will continue to generate all manner of
debates. In the observation of Angus Cameron and Ronen Palan (2004), these debates
and arguments are bound to elicit responses across institutional strata. Tanure Ojaide’s
When it no Longer Matters where you Live is one of such responses. The planetary
innuendoes of the title coupled with the spatio-temporal suggestiveness of the para-
textual illustration of the cover page – a juxtaposition, yet contiguous placement of both
ruralscape, represented by a diminutive hut, and urbanscape, represented by an
imposing skyscraper with satellite dish installation – all foreshadow the cynicism which
is obvious in the collection. It is first and foremost a response to Marshal McLuhan’s
(1964) enthusiastic prognosis about the capacity of information technology to transform
and possibly homogenize the world. The indispensability of this technology is at the
core of most of the various definitions of globalization. David Held (1998: 13) for
instance views globalization as the:
250
Stretching and deepening of social relations and institutions across space and
time such that, on the one hand-day-to-day activities are increasingly
influenced by events happening on the other side of the globe and, on the
other, the practices and decisions of local groups and communities can have
significant global reverberations.
As innocuous and progressive as this appears to be, the duo of Cameron and Palan
(2004) further remind one that “metaphors and other linguistic devices used to describe
social and spatial forms are never so innocent.” This compels a critical look at
globalization from the angle of the binarism between the First World and the Third
World nations. By taking as crucially instructive the position of the former and its bias
in the pontification on the morality and operation of globalization, there is no doubt
that, even at its best, the justification for the practice of the conceptual agenda, despite
its apparent prospects, remains suspect. Its compression of all forms of social structures
into a single mould (Murphet 2005:128), reveals that it is nothing but the consequence
of the global epoch of imperialism which is a reconstruction of Empire political maps.
The substance of this fallout especially in the Third World is evident in the fact that “in
place of firm notions of identity has come an era of mass migrations, exile and
transition’ (Mirzoeff 2001). This is what Olu Oguibe (2002) refers to as the dialectic of
“connectivity and the fate of the unconnected”. It is this fag-end status of the Third
World and the frenetic efforts of its citizens to escape “unconnectivity” that has become
the greatest catalyst to the experience of dislocation in the postmodern time, which is
what is the preoccupation of When it no Longer… Beyond its perception as a
commentary on the national image of Nigeria as home, the collection, like most other
collections of Ojaide, lays out in a manner that deconstructs national culture as it
articulates more resonantly the ethnic aspirations of the Niger-Delta region of the
country whose unconnectivity despite its oil wealth has become world knowledge. But
first the capitalist and exploitative presence of the multinationals like Shell in this part
of the country must be understood in terms of the their capacity to undermine national
sovereignty, making it subservient to them (Ahmad 1992; Murphet 2005), in order that
the dispossession of an ethnic or regional entity can be easily accomplished. So the
nation, not infrequently embroidered in political crisis with exponential causes traceable
to the western originating countries of the multinationals, cannot live up to her citizens’
expectations. This is the implication of the argument that runs in “Home Song II.”
While this goes on at the national level primarily because of the oil-wealth of the
Niger- Delta, the same region is engulfed in abject poverty explicable only in terms of
the postulation of “resource curse”.2 This is the import of “In Search of a Fresh Song”
in which the poet finds that “fecal trash” with “toxic blast” has created the “afflicted
neighborhood” of Igbudu Market. The natural consequence is disillusionment which
induces deracination:
The eyes blurred from exhaustion
see no further than the next half-meal
next week fresh exiles will take flight
to distances without roots (51)
251
The vulnerability to dispersion toward the west, which verges on the susceptibility to
Foucault’s terminology of “hyperreality” of the western world, is not discovered until
victims of capitalist dispossession end up in the world capital only to be faced with the
harrowing realities of exclusion in “distances without roots”. In “Immigrant Voice”,
one of the migrants testifies in Pidgin:
Wetin my eye don see for here pass pepper I have been witness to peppery
persecution
Make me de prepare to go sweet home A homeward return is my salvation
If God de, make e punish them If God exists, let Him deal with them
Wen drive me from Africa come hell Who sanctioned my dislocation from Africa
into hell. (106)
The grandeur that is expressed in the lines above mocks the superciliousness of “elitist”
critics like Harry Garuba (1988) who assign only facetious values to the use of Pidgin
in literary practice. In fact, it is for this that Ezenwa-Ohaeto (1994), echoing Achebe in
a positional criticism, warns that such critics of western critical bias against Pidgin must
“cultivate the habit of humility appropriate to their limited knowledge of pidgin”. The
appropriateness of the choice of pidgin in this context comes to the fore on account of
the fact that “merging vernacular languages, folk arts, European avant-garde forms, and
secular concerns” has become a defining feature of postcolonial literature (May Joseph
1999); besides, it must be understood as the necessity of taking serious the Lyotardian
injunction to “wage war on totality” (Olaoluwa, 2007).
Examine the themes of Postcolonialism in Ojaide’s poetry.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Ojaide’s writings have received several well-deserved praises from renowned
poets and critics such as Hayden Carruth, who describes him as “may be one of the most
important Nigerian poets of his generation” (Labyrinths of the Delta blurb). He was a
regional winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1987, and has won other awards
for his poetry, including the Soyinka-endowed All-Africa Okigbo Prize for Poetry in
1988 and the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award also in the same year. His poetry
points “assegais” at tyrants-the poem is simultaneously an “art form” and a “weapon”
through which the “warrior-poet” confronts, criticizes, and condemns the political
charlatanism and often deleterious role of African dictators. He is uncomfortable, as is
evident in his poetics, with the retrogressive character of African leadership, who are
often greedy, ruthless, and lacking in any coherent social vision and who, far from being
benevolent, exploit the coercive authority of the state for often pernicious ends. His
poems resemble what Soyinka, citing the poet Ted Joans, calls “shot-gun” poems-they
are meant to be detonated immediately on the complacent bottoms of enemies (Imfeld).
Ojaide’s “Shot-gun” poems are aimed at a target-in Ojaide’s case “Africa’s or Nigeria’s
malevolent dictators”-and they have a reason. This consuming theme of rebellion
252
against tyranny and injustice, recurrent in much of his poetry, he has made inimitably
his own. The message of the town-crier from across the Niger has become cancerous
destroying the unity and prospect of development of an impoverished nation in the mist
of plenty, especially in the area of environment. Poetry, as a genre of literature, is the
most vibrant and powerful vehicle of ensuring reconciliation and development in any
given society. The poet creates awareness about an ensuing conflict; provides options
of resolution; reconciles “differences” through poetic use of language and ensures
development through peaceful relations.
5.0 SUMMARY
• The biography of Tenure Ojaide
• The unique features Tanure Ojaide’s poetry
• An analysis of the theme of town-crier’s resistance and mediation in Tanure
Ojaide’s Delta Blues and Home Songs and Fate of the Vultures & Other Poems
• A discussion of the Niger Delta’s environmental sustainability in Ojaide’s
poetry
• The concept of postnationallity in the poetry of Ojaide
• Give an outline of Tenure Ojaide’s biography
• Discuss Tanure Ojaide’s poetry
• Examine the theme of town-crier’s resistance and mediation in Tanure Ojaide’s
Delta Blues and Home Songs and Fate of the Vultures & Other Poems
• Discuss the Niger Delta’s environmental sustainability in Ojaide’s poetry
• Examine postnationallity in the poetry of Ojaide
Aiyejina, Funsho, (1988) “Recent Nigerian Poetry.” Perspectives in Nigerian
Literature Ogunbiyi Ed.
Aito, O. O. M. (2014). “The Poet as Town-Crier in a Nation in Conflict: Okigbo’s and
Ojaide’s Poetry”. Brno Studies in English Volume 40, No. 2, 2014
Awuzie, S. (2017). “A Psychoanalytic Reading of Tanure Ojaide's Poetry”. English
Studies at NBU, 2017 Vol. 3, Issue 2, pp. 74-87
Inyabri, T. (2006) “Millennial Battle Ogaga Ifowodo and the Emergence of the third
Generation of Nigeria Poets” Currents in African Literature and the English
Language. Vol. IV, May, 67-76.
Press
Maduakor (1986) Violence as Poetic Focus: Nigerian Poetry and the Biafran
Experience” Nsukka Journal of Literature. No. 4.
Ngara, E. (1990). Ideology and Form in African Poetry. London: Heinemann.
253
Ojaide, T. (1989) The Changing Voice of History: Contemporary African Poetry.
Genere Afrique.
Olaoluwa, S. S. (2007). “From the Local to the Global: A Critical Survey of Exile
Experience in Recent African Poetry”. Nebula
Sallah, T. (1984). New Poets of West Africa. Lagos: Malt house Press.
254

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COURSE

Course Editor: Dr. Chris Egharevba

Course Coordinator: Dr. Bridget A. Yakubu

14/16 Ahmadu Bello Way

National Open University of Nigeria, 2021

First Printed 2021

All Rights Reserved

Module 2: ISSUES IN WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY

Unit 1 Poetry and African Experience

Module 3: SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE EARLIER POETS

Unit 1 The Poems of Leopold Senghor

Module 4: SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE CONTEMPORARIES

MODULE 1: BACKGROUND OF WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY

MODULE 2: ISSUES IN WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY

MODULE 3: SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE EARLIER POETS

MODULE 4: SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE CONTEMPORARIES

HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM THIS COURSE

MODULE 2 ISSUES IN WRITTEN AFRICAN POETRY ………………………

MODULE 3 SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE EARLIER

MODULE 4 SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY: THE CONTEMPORARIES…

Unit 1 The Poems of Kofi Ayindoho…………………………

UNIT 1 AN OVERVIEW ON POETRY

According to Sotunsa (2002), the existence, quality and value of African

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING

What do you understand by Written African Poetry?

3.2 Historical Development of Written African Poetry

They are slave quarters

Discuss the historical background to written African poetry.

In Gladys Casely Hayford’s “Rejoice” African nationalism is expressed. The

Rejoice and shout with laughter.

For you are a great nation,

I once saw a maiden dark and comely,

‘I am neither sad nor lonely,’ she said,

Or restless youths who are born

Into deep and clashing cultures,

Sorting, questioning, watching.

…Buys the spirit of the age,

Don’t preserve my customs

Let me play with the Whiteman’s ways

Then in sweet rebirth

Let them bury their prejudice,

Awake, thou sleeping heart!

Thou sleeping heart!

Bellow you frenzied bulls of steel!

In another poem, entitled: ‘Because’, Vilakazi focused on the theme of

UNIT 1 POETRY AND AFRICAN EXPERIENCE

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING

And the ornaments of him,

Under your power wait I

The papers on my husband’s desk

When the master is eating

Who sows a little

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS

3.2 The Women Voices in Written African Poetry

Unit 1 The Poems of Leopold Senghor

UNIT 1 THE POEMS OF LEOPOLD SENGHOR

birds at the gates of schools