LIT 313 COURSE OUTLINE AND LECTURE NOTE

AFRICAN POETRY

WEEK 1 Introduction to Poetry.

WEEK 2 Functions, Types and Classifications of Poetry.
WEEK3 Historical Background: Pre-Colonial and Colonial Periods.
WEEK 4 Introduction to African Poetry.
WEEK 5 Anglophones West African Poetry.
WEEK 6 Negritude Poetry.
WEEK 7 East African Poetry.
WEEK 8 South African Poetry.
WEEK 9 Central African Poetry
WEEK 10 Features, Themes and Style of African Poetry.
WEEK 11 North African Poetry
WEEK 12-13 Revision
WEEK 14-15 Examination

RECOMMENDED TEXTS
 Gabriel Okara’s Piano and Drum
 Christopher Okigbo’s Hurray for Thunder
 Niyi Osundare’s I Can’t Breathe
 Leopold Sedar Senghor’s Black Woman
 David Diop’s Africa
 Jared Angira’s No Coffin no Grave
 Oswald Mtshali’s Nightfall in Soweto and Boy On a Swing
 Dennis Brutus’s Letter to Martha
 Daniel Bourdanne’s The Cry of the Bird
WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION TO POETRY
Poetry is a type of literature based on the interplay of words and rhythm. It often employs rhyme
and meter (a set of rules governing the number and arrangement of syllables in each line).
In poetry, words are strung together to form sounds, images, and ideas that might be too complex
or abstract to describe directly. Poetry was once written according to fairly strict rules of meter
and rhyme, and each culture had its own rules. For example, Anglo-Saxon poets had their own
rhyme schemes and meters, while Greek poets and Arabic poets had others. Although these
classical forms are still widely used today, modern poets frequently do away with rules
altogether – their poems generally do not rhyme, and do not fit any particular meter. These
poems, however, still have a rhythmic quality and seek to create beauty through their words.
Poetry is probably the oldest form of literature, and probably predates the origin of writing itself.
The oldest written manuscripts we have are poems, mostly epic poems telling the stories of
ancient mythology. Examples include the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Vedas (sacred texts of
Hinduism). This style of writing may have developed to help people memorize long chains of
information in the days before writing. Rhythm and rhyme can make the text more memorable,
and thus easier to preserve for cultures that do not have a written language.
Poetry can be written with all the same purposes as any other kind of literature – beauty,
humor, storytelling, political messages, etc. Poetry (derived from the Greek poiesis, "making") is
a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language, such as ‘phon
aesthetics’, sound symbolism, and metre—to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the
prosaic ostensible meaning. Poetry has a long history – dating back to prehistoric times with
hunting poetry in Africa, and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile,
Niger, and Volta River valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the
Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic
poetry, the Epic of Gilgamesh, was written in Sumerian.
Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese
Shijing; or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Sanskrit Vedas, the Zoroastrian Gathas,
and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ancient Greek attempts to define poetry, such
as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song, and comedy. Later
attempts concentrated on features such as repetition, verse form, and rhyme, and emphasized the
aesthetics which distinguish poetry from more objectively-informative prosaic writing.
Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretations of words, or to
evoke emotive responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and rhythm
may convey musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony, and other
stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations.
Similarly, figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, and metonymy establish a resonance
between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously
not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns
of rhyme or rhythm.
Some poetry types are unique to particular cultures and genres and respond to
characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Readers accustomed to identifying
poetry with Dante, Goethe, Mickiewicz, or Rumi may think of it as written in lines based on
rhyme and regular meter. There are, however, traditions, such as Biblical poetry, that use other
means to create rhythm and euphony. Much modern poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition,
testing the principle of euphony itself or altogether forgoing rhyme or set rhythm. In an
increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles, and techniques from diverse
cultures and languages. A Western cultural tradition (which extends at least from Homer to
Rilke) associates the production of poetry with inspiration – often by a Muse (either classical or
contemporary).

WEEK 2-3
Form in Poetry
Poetic form is more flexible in modernist and post-modernist poetry and continues to be less
structured than in previous literary eras. Many modern poets eschew recognizable structures or
forms and write in free verse. But poetry remains distinguished from prose by its form; some
regard for basic formal structures of poetry will be found in even the best free verse, however
much such structures may appear to have been ignored. Similarly, in the best poetry written in
classic styles there will be departures from strict form for emphasis or effect. Among major
structural elements used in poetry are the line, the stanza or verse paragraph, and larger
combinations of stanzas or lines such as cantos. Also sometimes used are broader visual
presentations of words and calligraphy. These basic units of poetic form are often combined into
larger structures, called poetic forms or poetic modes (see the following section), as in the
sonnet.
Lines and Stanzas
Poetry is often separated into lines on a page, in a process known as lineation. These lines may
be based on the number of metrical feet or may emphasize a rhyming pattern at the ends of lines.
Lines may serve other functions, particularly where the poem is not written in a formal metrical
pattern. Lines can separate, compare or contrast thoughts expressed in different units, or can
highlight a change in tone. Lines of poems are often organized into stanzas, which are
denominated by the number of lines included. Thus a collection of two lines is a couplet (or
distich), three lines a triplet (or tercet), four lines a quatrain, and so on. These lines may or may
not relate to each other by rhyme or rhythm. For example, a couplet may be two lines with
identical meters which rhyme or two lines held together by a common meter alone.
Other poems may be organized into verse paragraphs, in which regular rhymes with
established rhythms are not used, but the poetic tone is instead established by a collection of
rhythms, alliterations, and rhymes established in paragraph form. Many medieval poems were
written in verse paragraphs, even where regular rhymes and rhythms were used. In some cases,
particularly lengthier formal poetry such as some forms of epic poetry, stanzas themselves are
constructed according to strict rules and then combined.
Visual Poetry
Even before the advent of printing, the visual appearance of poetry often added meaning or
depth. Acrostic poems conveyed meanings in the initial letters of lines or in letters at other
specific places in a poem. In Arabic, Hebrew and Chinese poetry, the visual presentation of
finely calligraphed poems has played an important part in the overall effect of many poems. With
the advent of printing, poets gained greater control over the mass-produced visual presentations
of their work. Visual elements have become an important part of the poet's toolbox, and many
poets have sought to use visual presentation for a wide range of purposes. Some Modernist poets
have made the placement of individual lines or groups of lines on the page an integral part of the
poem's composition. At times, this complements the poem's rhythm through visual caesuras of
various lengths, or creates juxtapositions so as to accentuate meaning, ambiguity or irony, or
simply to create an aesthetically pleasing form. In its most extreme form, this can lead to
concrete poetry or asemic writing.
Diction: Poetic Diction
Poetic diction treats the manner in which language is used, and refers not only to the sound but
also to the underlying meaning and its interaction with sound and form. Many languages and
poetic forms have very specific poetic dictions, to the point where distinct grammars and dialects
are used specifically for poetry. Registers in poetry can range from strict employment of ordinary
speech patterns, as favoured in much late-20th-century prosody, through to highly ornate uses of
language, as in medieval and Renaissance poetry. Poetic diction can include rhetorical devices
such as simile and metaphor, as well as tones of voice, such as irony. Aristotle wrote in the
Poetics that "the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor."
Narrative Poetry
Narrative poetry is a genre of poetry that tells a story. Broadly it subsumes epic poetry, but the
term "narrative poetry" is often reserved for smaller works, generally with more appeal to human
interest. Narrative poetry may be the oldest type of poetry. Many scholars of Homer have
concluded that his Iliad and Odyssey were composed of compilations of shorter narrative poems
that related individual episodes. Much narrative poetry—such as Scottish and English ballads,
and Baltic and Slavic heroic poems—is performance poetry with roots in a preliterate oral
tradition. It has been speculated that some features that distinguish poetry from prose, such as
meter, alliteration and kennings, once served as memory aids for bards who recited traditional
tales. Notable narrative poets have included Ovid, Dante, Juan Ruiz, William Langland, Chaucer,
Fernando de Rojas, Luís de Camões, Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Robert Burns, Adam
Mickiewicz, Alexander Pushkin, Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Tennyson, and Anne Carson.
Lyric Poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre that, unlike epic and dramatic poetry, does not attempt to tell a story but
instead is of a more personal nature. Poems in this genre tend to be shorter, melodic, and
contemplative. Rather than depicting characters and actions, it portrays the poet's own feelings,
states of mind, and perceptions. Notable poets in this genre include Christine de Pizan, John
Donne, Charles Baudelaire, Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Epic Poetry
Epic poetry is a genre of poetry, and a major form of narrative literature. This genre is often
defined as lengthy poems concerning events of a heroic or important nature to the culture of the
time. It recounts, in a continuous narrative, the life and works of a heroic or mythological person
or group of persons. Examples of epic poems are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, While the
composition of epic poetry, and of long poems generally, became less common in the west after
the early 20th century, some notable epics have continued to be written. The Cantos by Ezra
Pound, Helen in Egypt by H.D., Paterson (poem) by William Carlos Williams, and Empire of
Dreams (poetry collection) by Giannina Braschi are examples of modern epics. Derek Walcott
won a Nobel prize in 1992 to a great extent on the basis of his epic, Omeros.
Satirical Poetry
Poetry can be a powerful vehicle for satire. The Romans had a strong tradition of satirical poetry,
often written for political purposes. A notable example is the Roman poet Juvenal's satires. The
same is true of the English satirical tradition. John Dryden (a Tory), the first Poet Laureate,
produced in 1682 Mac Flecknoe, subtitled "A Satire on the True Blue Protestant Poet, T.S." (a
reference to Thomas Shadwell).
Elegy
Thomas Gray
An elegy is a mournful, melancholy or plaintive poem, especially a lament for the dead or a
funeral song. The term "elegy," which originally denoted a type of poetic meter (elegiac meter),
commonly describes a poem of mourning. An elegy may also reflect something that seems to the
author to be strange or mysterious. The elegy, as a reflection on a death, on a sorrow more
generally, or on something mysterious, may be classified as a form of lyric poetry. Notable
practitioners of elegiac poetry have included Propertius, Jorge Manrique, Edmund Spenser, Ben
Jonson, John Milton, Thomas Gray, Charlotte Turner Smith, William Cullen Bryant, Percy
Bysshe Shelley, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Evgeny Baratynsky, Alfred Tennyson, and
Virginia Woolf.
Verse Fable
The fable is an ancient literary genre, often (though not invariably) set in verse. It is a succinct
story that features anthropomorphised animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or
forces of nature that illustrate a moral lesson (a "moral"). Verse fables have used a variety of
meter and rhyme patterns. Notable verse fabulists have included Aesop, Vishnu Sarma,
Phaedrus, Marie de France, and Ambrose Bierce.
Dramatic Poetry
Dramatic poetry is drama written in verse to be spoken or sung, and appears in varying,
sometimes related forms in many cultures. Greek tragedy in verse dates to the 6th century B.C.,
and may have been an influence on the development of Sanskrit drama, just as Indian drama in
turn appears to have influenced the development of the bianwen verse dramas in China,
forerunners of Chinese Opera. East Asian verse dramas also include Japanese Noh. Examples of
dramatic poetry in Persian literature include Nizami's two famous dramatic works, Layla and
Majnun and Khosrow and Shirin, Ferdowsi's tragedies such as Rostam and Sohrab, Rumi's
Masnavi, Gorgani's tragedy of Vis and Ramin, and Vahshi's tragedy of Farhad. American poets
of 20th century revive dramatic poetry, including Ezra Pound in “Sestina: Altaforte,” T.S. Eliot
with “The Love Song of J. Alfred Proufrock,” and Giannina Braschi's Empire of Dreams.
Speculative Poetry
Speculative poetry, also known as fantastic poetry (of which weird or macabre poetry is a major
sub-classification), is a poetic genre which deals thematically with subjects which are "beyond
reality", whether via extrapolation as in science fiction or via weird and horrific themes as in
horror fiction. Such poetry appears regularly in modern science fiction and horror fiction
magazines. Edgar Allan Poe is sometimes seen as the "father of speculative poetry". Poe's most
remarkable achievement in the genre was his anticipation, by three-quarters of a century, of the
Big Bang theory of the universe's origin, in his then much-derided 1848 essay (which, due to its
very speculative nature, he termed a "prose poem"), Eureka: A Prose Poem.
Prose Poetry
Prose poetry is a hybrid genre that shows attributes of both prose and poetry. It may be
indistinguishable from the micro-story (a.k.a. the "short short story", "flash fiction"). While some
examples of earlier prose strike modern readers as poetic, prose poetry is commonly regarded as
having originated in 19th-century France, where its practitioners included Aloysius Bertrand,
Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud.
Light Poetry
Light poetry, or light verse, is poetry that attempts to be humorous. Poems considered "light" are
usually brief, and can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature word play, including
puns, adventurous rhyme and heavy alliteration. Although a few free verse poets have excelled at
light verse outside the formal verse tradition, light verse in English usually obeys at least some
formal conventions. Common forms include the limerick, the clerihew, and the double dactyl.
While light poetry is sometimes condemned as doggerel, or thought of as poetry composed
casually, humor often makes a serious point in a subtle or subversive way. Many of the most
renowned "serious" poets have also excelled at light verse.

WEEK 4: INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN POETRY

African poetry encompasses the wide variety of traditions arising from African 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. As Anouk Ziljlma 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 11 in the case of South Africa). This official language acts as the 'lingua franca' for
(at least) a reasonably sized region."
According to Prof. Joseph A. Ushie of the University of Uyo Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria:
"Modern written African poetry has a double heritage — pre-colonial and Western. As in most
post-colonial situations, the tilt of our writing should be more towards the pre-colonial African
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.
Pre-colonial era
Numerous examples of pre-colonial African literature span the continent, from scripts
documenting the kings of Ethiopian and Ghanaian empires, as well as popular folklore in a host
of native languages, through to Mali's famous Timbuktu Manuscripts, dating from the 16th to
18th centuries, with a wide array of subject matter, including astronomy, poetry, law, history,
faith, politics and philosophy. In medieval times the universities of North Africa amassed Arabic
and Swahili literature.
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. As an example, in the pre-
colonial era in Nigeria — the most populated country in Africa and a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual
nation — poetry was unwritten. "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 society." Margaret Busby's 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa begins with
a selection of traditional African poems, including Ancient Egyptian love songs.
Colonial era
While the West bears record of African literature from the period of colonisation and the slave
trade, particularly of works by Africans using acquired Western languages as their medium of
expression, the thriving oral traditions of the time – particularly if in a mother tongue, were not
recognised for their artistic value or the richness and significance of their content. Generated by
the Atlantic slave trade and its opposition, from the 1780s onward, an astonishing and
unprecedented array of texts appeared, both pro- and anti-slavery: poems, novels, plays,
histories, sermons, speeches, newspaper columns and letters, travelogues, medical treatises,
handbills, broadsides, songs, children's books. African authors writing in this period, along with
the abolitionists and apologists, raise questions about the relation of British Romanticism to
colonialism and slavery. Themes of liberation, independence and négritude among Africans in
French-controlled territories, began to permeate African literature in the late colonial period
between the end of World War I and independence. Léopold Sédar Senghor published the first
anthology of French-language poetry written by Africans in 1948. He was one of the leaders of
the négritude movement and eventual President of Senegal.
Liberation Struggle and Independence era
It is the political, economic, social and cultural events of a society that shape its literature. In his
essay "Homecoming" (1972), Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o makes this stance very clear
when he says: “Literature does not grow or develop in a vacuum; it is given impetus, shape,
direction and even area of concern by the social, political and economic forces in a particular
society. The relationship between creative literature and other forces cannot be ignored
especially in Africa, where modern literature has grown against the gory background of
European imperialism and its changing manifestations: slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism.
Our culture over the last hundred years has developed against the same stunting, dwarfing
background.”
Many African poets suffered greatly and were compelled to cast aside their artistic
vocations in order to be involved in the liberation struggles of their peoples. Christopher Okigbo
was killed in the 1960s' civil war in Nigeria; Mongane Wally Serote was detained under South
Africa's Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967; his countryman Arthur Norje committed suicide in
London in 1970; Malawi's Jack Mapanje was incarcerated with neither charge nor trial; and in
1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa died by the gallows of the Nigerian junta. Sam Awa of the University of
Lagos' Department of English, states: "Moreover, African literature is protest in nature. It comes
as a reaction to various forms of injustices meted out on Africans by the colonial masters and
later, post-colonial masters."
Postcolonial African Literature
"To have any sense of evolving African poetics, one must be aware of the socio-political
significance of literary expression and the ideological character of literary theory." Most African
nations gained their independence in the 1950s and 1960s and with liberation and increased
literacy, African literature written in English, French and Portuguese and traditional African
languages, has grown dramatically in quantity and in global recognition of this work. Ali A.
Mazrui and others mention seven conflicts as themes: the clash between Africa's past and
present, between tradition and modernity, between indigenous and foreign, between
individualism and community, between socialism and capitalism, between development and self-
reliance and between Africanity and humanity. Other themes in this period include social
problems such as corruption, the economic disparities in newly independent countries, and the
rights and roles of women. Female writers are today far better represented in published African
literature than they were prior to independence.
Donna Seaman (1995) says that the editors of this haunting anthology of poetry, both
African-born poets themselves, have selected work by women poets from 18 African countries,
from Algeria to Senegal, Mauritius and Zimbabwe. A historical note is struck by the anthology's
oldest poem, an obelisk inscription composed by Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt, while a modern
Egyptian poet, Andrée Chedid, epitomizes the dignity of the collection with her powerfully spare
and provocative mediations. Unlike Queen Hatshepsut, most African women suffer tyranny,
sexism and poverty and toil in silence and anonymity. Chedid writes, "Often from a point
without place / I stifle my story / From past to future / I conjugate the horizon." For many of
these poets, the world is unrelentingly cruel, and they belie their vulnerability with stoicism. In
1986 Nigerian writer, poet and playwright, Wole Soyinka became the first post-independence
African writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
African Poetry Today
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 modern 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. In January 2000, "Against All Odds: African Languages and
Literatures into the 21st Century", the first conference on African languages and literatures ever
to be held on African soil, took place, with participants from east, west, north, southern Africa
and from the diaspora and by writers and scholars from around the world. Delegates examined
the state of African languages in literature scholarship, publishing, and education in Africa,
celebrating the vitality of African languages and literatures.
 Truthful and fruitful human experience forms the basis for written expression in any
branch of literature. Conveyed through a language of international exchange, it can reach a wider
audience for whom it becomes a useful reference in times of need. The English language attained
international prominence due to several reasons; one of the most important being colonization.
As in other countries of the Commonwealth, English was imposed on Anglophone Africa as a
means of easy communication and administrative convenience. It is a historical irony that the
same language serves the African writer in voicing his thoughts and feelings to the world at
large. While discussing the future of English, Simeon Porter observes, It will adopt to meet new
needs and in that incessant reshaping and adaptation, every speaker and writer consciously or
unconsciously will play some part.
Today, the prediction of Porter came true of African writing in English. It brought
strength and appeal to the English language by adding a large range of new vocabulary and
usage. Writing on the problems faced by the African English writers, Chinua Achebe the famous
Nigerian writer says, The African writer should aim to use English that brings out his message
without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange
will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English, which is at once unusual and able to
carry his peculiar experience. It is applaudable that the writers of Africa succeeded in
accomplishing the above task set by Achebe, which is by any means not an easy one. Their
successful integration of native experience and expression in an alien tongue received worldwide
acclaim. Their success proved, as critics like Srinivasa Iyengar pointed out. A shot in the arm of
modern English Literature has had to come from West Africans like Amos Tutuola, Wole
Soyinka and Gabriel Okara.
The role of poetry, in African literature, has been highly effective in providing the people
with the needful inspiration and the necessary insight. The language of poetry, for the African
people, is a source of learning and becoming aware of their destiny that necessitates the
knowledge of their past, present and the possible future. These and several other ideas fuelled
African poetry in English. For the African poets, 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 stab of pain..." but also a nation's history as it moved from
" freedom to slavery, from slavery to revolution, from revolution to independence and from
independence to tasks of reconstruction which further involve situations of failure and
disillusion". (Iyengar, 15)
When we read African Literature, we should, by obligation remember that, colonization
was at its harshest in Africa. As history stands proof, it was highly exploited and savaged by the
ambitious 'white man'. This experience is on the minds of all thinking poets. Despite getting
'uhuru' or independence, the bitterness returns again and again. The unforgettable colonial past
comes angrily alive in a poem by Kenya's poet Joseph Kareyaku thus,
It is not as you suppose, your lands,
your cars, your money, or your cities
I covet...
It is what gores me most,
that in my own house and in my very own home
you should eye me and all that's mine
with that practiced, long-drawn, insulting sneer.

In a poem entitled "If you want to know me" Noemia De Sousa writes ruefully of Africa, by
effectively using the literary device of personification thus:

This is what I am
empty sockets despairing of possessing of life
a mouth torn open in an anguished wound...
a body tattooed with wounds seen and unseen
from the harsh whipstrokes of slavery
tortured and magnificent
proud and mysterious
Africa from head to foot
This is what I am.

The much-brutalized Dark Continent is tellingly depicted in the following lines of a poem named
"The Shapes of Fear" by Richard Ntiru.

Like an arrested breath

when breathing makes silence imperfect
and the ear cannot differentiate
between the conspiratorial whispers and the winds singing.
... a twig in the courtyard snaps
and report of a gun is understood.
Nigerian poet , the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka's masterful irony skillfully conceals anger at the
racist attitude in his famous poem, "Telephone Converstion." After negotiating for a house on
rent on telephone, he tells the landlady of his being a black African. He was rudely shocked
when he was 'caught...foully' by the lady's query regarding his darkness thus:

" HOW DARK...?" I had not misheard... "Are you light

OR VERY DARK..."
The "ill- mannered silence" between the two is filled with images such as 'stench of rancid breath
of public- hide-and-speak, Red booth, Red- Pillar-box, Red double-tiered Omnibus squelching
tar' that subsume the age-old and still hopeless and violent colour- conflict.
The theme of English superiority glares through David Rubadiri's poem "A Negro Labourer in
Liverpool":
Here his hope is the shovel
And his fulfillment resignation.
One of the most important phases in African poetry is Negritude, a powerful literary movement
founded by Aimé Césaire 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's an example from David Diop's poem "Africa."
Africa, my Africa
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs....
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 to the whip under the midday sun....
That is Africa your Africa
That grows again patiently obstinately
And its fruit gradually acquires
The bitter taste of liberty.
Dennis Brutus, a South African poet, was subjected to torture by a cruel regime. His writing is
full of images of love 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.
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,
You are a concept
...I know now that is what you are Africa
Happiness, contentment and fulfillment.
A poet's affirmation of his love for Africa shines radiantly through the following verses.
Dark Africa!
My dawn is here;
Behold! I see
A rich warm glow in the East,
And my day will soon be here.
Deification 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 Dadie's poem
attains special significance viewed in that light. He says in a poem entitled "I Thank God",
I thank you God for creating me black.
White is the colour for special occasions
Black the colour for every day
And I have carried the World since the dawn of time
And my laugh over the World, through the night creates
The Day.
In Africa, the advent of the white man's civilizing mission displaced scores of native societies
from their own cultural roots. The impact of the spread of Christianity combined with material
benefits such as classroom education and well-paid jobs forced many Africans abandon their
own faith and adapt the religion of the pale-faced aliens. This situation is responsible for the
natives to suffer from culture shock. Nevertheless, the native is expected to owe allegiance to his
own tribal culture and embrace Christianity for material benefits. This cultural confusion is well
articulated by Mabel Segun in a poem thus:
Here we stand
Infants overblown
Poised between two civilizations
Finding the balance irksome.
Gabriel Okara expresses the same sentiments in a lyric thus:
When at break of day at a riverside
I hear jungle drums...
Then I hear a wailing piano
Solo speaking of complex ways.
However, there are poets like Kofi Awoonor Williams of Ghana whose passion for past is
expressed in his rediscovery themes with the help of extended rhythms as in the following lines.
"Sew the old days for us our fathers
that we wear them under our old garments
after we have washed ourselves....."
( The Anvil and the Hammer)
again,
" Sew the old days for me my father
Sew them so that I may wear them
For the feast that is coming."
He accomplishes the same excellence of evolving extended rhythms in poems like "The Long
Journey" and "My Song." Poetic excellence and rare innovative creative ability are seen in
Christopher Okigbo poems such as "The Stars Have Departed." He says,
The stars have departed
The sky in a monocle
Surveys the world under
The stars have departed
And I- Where am I? ?
Stretch, stretch O antennae,
To clutch at this hour,
Fulfilling each movement in a
Broken monody.
Images that can evoke a situation beyond hope which are reminiscent of Eliot's war poetry are
visible in the following verses from K. Brew's poem "The Search."
The past is
but the cinders
Of the present
The future
The smoke
That escaped
Into the cloud- bound sky.
Some of the poets have realized the futility of fighting over issues such as race, respect and
national identity. What more can be more illuminating than the enlightened poet's words such as,
You must leave the sifting sands
of self- seeking and deceit
and erect far mightier mansions
on the rock of healthy soil.
Lenrie Peter's poems are short on the print but deep on one's mind like the one cited below
Open the gates
To East and West
Bring in all
That's good and best.
The memorable lines of Peter's poem "On a wet September Morning" with their sheer beauty of
imagery and the underlying thought of universal brotherhood celebrate the oneness of the human
family. To cite a few verses,
The echo burst in me
Like a great harmonic chord-
Violins of love and happy voices
The pagan trumpet blast
Swamping the lamentation of the horn
Then the heraldic drums
In slow crescendo rising
Crashed though my senses
Into a new present
Which is the future.
After this brief glance at African poetry, we realize that it is not simply an offshoot of
British literary tradition. Despite the many disadvantages such as a scarred past, colonial trauma,
expression in a foreign medium, inability to travel abroad, unstable economic and political state
of affairs in their respective nations, lack of educational opportunities, the African poet has
effortless creative capacity. It is an enriching combination of rich oral literature, native
experience and imported tradition of writing in English that made African poetry a tremendous
success both at home and abroad. The 'Black Orpheus' (African Poets) is no longer an unknown
or an unwanted quantity but a fascinating and often enviable and beneficent literary marvel from
what was ignorantly termed as the 'dark continent'.
WEEK 5: ANGLOPHONE WEST AFRICAN POETRY

The nineteenth century was a period of migration that was perpetuated by the socio-political and
economic instability in the continent; this caused the decline in the quality of life which had
forced many people to go on exile. This study provides insights into the development of exilic
poetry in Anglophone West Africa to show that exilic literature is not an accidental product; it
grows out of the sordid social, political and economic realities in the sub-region. The
contemporary development in exilic literary discourse in Anglophone West Africa indicates a
radical shift in vision which is informed by the need to use this literature as a writing-back
strategy. We have also discovered in this study that exilic literature in Anglophone West
Africa has grown from the simple narration of personal feelings to become a radical ideology
for re-ordering of human relations. Moreover, this study shows that there is a wide range of
forms emerging from exilic literary experience in Anglophone West Africa in the explication of
personal feelings, nostalgia, alienation, political and socio-cultural disruption.
A pervading motif in recent Anglophone West African poetry is the narration of the pains
and gains of exile; this marks a shift in the thematic focus from the poetry of dehumanization at
home to the poetry of humiliation abroad, and by extension, the subtle stigmatization of African
leaders for their irresponsible governance. Exile involves the physical displacement of a people
from their homeland, either forced or voluntary. It is also concerned with the cultural and
psychological disorientation of an individual as a result of estrangement and alienation. Arnold
Itwaru (quoted in King 203) underscores the complex nature of exile when he stresses that “to be
in exile is considerably more than being in another country, it is to live with myself knowing my
estrangement. It is to know that I do not belong here”. This estrangement, more than anything is
felt at the domain of language when a migrant becomes inaudible as a result of language
differences. Exile also has the capacity of providing security for people who are no longer safe in
their homeland; this has influenced artistic creativity as writers in exile find it propitious to
express their condemnation of the activities of the rulers in the homeland without fear of
censorship or incarceration. Syl Cheney-Coker has explained that writers go to exile under
compulsion in order to help in the reconstruction of their society.
Literary production in Anglophone West Africa is informed by diverse experiences that
result from the socio-cultural, political and economic realities of the sub-continent. Emanating
from these phenomenal concerns is the diagnosis of the challenges that the continent has had to
contend with in asserting its place and importance in the world. Modern Anglophone West
African poetry simply refers to the recent literary poetic production written in the language of the
former colonial master, specifically, Britain, in West Africa. Several factors could be attributed
to the growth of this poetic tradition: the frequent political skirmishes in Africa have the
tendency of producing equivalent thematic response through the medium of poetry. Another
outstanding factor is the postcolonial inclinations of these writers who are able to see the
problems engendered by colonialism in the domains of politics and cultural relations. In terms of
movements, Anglophone West African poetry responds to the panoply of activities within the
sub-region. Therefore, the poetry which began as a cultural material had developed in recent
years to create a passion for the expression of societal foibles, and perhaps the outflow of
personal emotions.
In Anglophone West Africa, the factors that initiate and perpetuate exile are mainly
economic and political. But literary exiles are also propelled by personal and psychic
compulsions that are at variance with the conditions of their home countries, so exile becomes a
form of freedom where the mind is free to roam the world and express multitudes of ideas
without constraints. Nuruddin Farah (184) explains, in “In Praise of Exile” the freedom that exile
offers when he says that “one of the pleasures of living away from home is that you become the
master of your destiny, you avoid the constraints and limitations of your past and, if need be,
create an alternative life for yourself. That way everybody else becomes the other, and you the
centre of the universe. You are a community when you are away from home”. Literary artists are
able to discern the sharp contrast between the way of living in their home countries and the
world metropolis and may decide to move away to such world centres in order to experience the
condition of living is such places. But while there, they experience alienation from home in the
form of loss of identity and they try to reclaim it through artistic creativity by resorting to exilic
imagination, through which they create new themes and fresh inspirations.
Through travel writing a lot is being discovered about cultural histories and ideologies.
Travel writing as a way of re-imagining the world, widens our understanding of the binary
opposition between home and abroad, and recreates the connectivity between the home and
foreign cultures. There is also the complex attitude of people that is revealed when cultures
interact, as travel writing provides enough ground for the analysis of the textual logic inherent in
different cultures. Within this logic, the political and cultural complexities in the relations
between the imperialists and the colonies are explored. Thus, travel writing produces, through
inscription and appropriation, a discursive formation that aims at echoing the colonial presence.
Furthermore, travel writing brings to limelight contemporary issues in the world. This is
corroborated by James Duncan and Derek Gregory (1) when they observe that “[travel writing]
raises questions about the politics of representation and spaces of transculturation, about
continuities between a colonial past and a supposedly post-colonial present, about the ecological,
economic and cultural implication of globalizing projects of modernity”. This movement is
driven by the economic, political, social and cultural events and conditions in the originating
nations and societies; this also creates new experiences or evolves new identities in terms of
cultural artefacts, new clothing, and the development of alternative food culture, new political
lineages and a new direction in literary production.

Piano and Drums

By Gabriel Okara

When at break of day at a riverside

I hear the jungle drums telegraphing
the mystic rhythm, urgent, raw
like bleeding flesh, speaking of
primal youth and the beginning
I see the panther ready to pounce
the leopard snarling about to leap
and the hunters crouch with spears poised;

And my blood ripples, turns torrent,

topples the years and at once I’m
in my mother’s laps a suckling;
at once I’m walking simple
paths with no innovations,
rugged, fashioned with the naked
warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts
in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing.

Then I hear a wailing piano

solo speaking of complex ways in
tear-furrowed concerto;
of far away lands
and new horizons with
coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint,
crescendo. But lost in the labyrinth
of its complexities, it ends in the middle
of a phrase at a daggerpoint.

And I lost in the morning mist

of an age at a riverside keep
wandering in the mystic rhythm
of jungle drums and the concerto.

Analysis of the Poem

The poem is a post-colonial poem that focuses on the contrast between two cultures (African and
western culture). The poet puts the culture side by side to emphasize the comparison between the
two cultures. The poem broadly talks about the experience that Africans had with colonialization
and the aftermath of colonialization on the African continent. The poem is strongly built around
symbolism and metaphor. The poet uses the "piano" to symbolize the western culture, and the
drums to symbolize the African culture. From the lines of the poem, you examine the poet's tone
and mood. The mood of the poem is sober and at the end of the poem, it becomes more indignant
angry. From the poem, we can detect that the poet prefers the African culture that is simple and
free from complexities, unlike the western culture that is embedded in sophistication that makes
the black man end in confusion.
From the poem, we can see that the poet is cut up between two cultures, and that is where
the confusion set in. Looking at the colonial era, the western culture was forcefully infused into
the African culture, that Africans themselves could not separate the western life from their true
heritage. At the point where the African man can't separate the western life from his own culture
because sometimes he remembers his own culture and wishes he can go back to what used to be,
but at the same time he is caught up in the western culture. "And I lost in the morning mist of an
age at a riverside keep, wandering in the mystic rhythm of jungle drums and concerto". The
poem is basically about the cultural clash and post-African literature.
THEMES OF THE POEM, PIANO AND THE DRUMS
1. Celebration of nature – In stanza one, the way the poetic persona expresses the details of
the jungle drum depicts his appreciation of the normal natural environment of things.
2. No place like home – Although, this theme cannot be identified on a surface level in the
poem, but, when the poetic persona laments over the confusion that emanates from the
contact of the two instruments: piano and drum (African lifestyle and western lifestyle),
he shows how comfortable one can be at home with the things and way of life that he is
familiar with. There was no confuse when it was all African and their drums until
civilization came.
3. Living a double standard lifestyle – By emphasizing the confusion that comes out from
the marriage of the piano and drum sounds, the poetic persona tells us that living two
contracting lives can only breed confusion and complexities.
4. Acculturation – The notion of acculturation is brought into the poem with the contact of
the piano and the drums. Acculturation is when two distinct cultures meet and start to
adopt and absorb each other’s norms.
5. Cultural conflicts. – The poem also shows that two distinct cultures cannot stay together
as any such attempt will result to conflict of norms, traditions and believes. For instance,
as many analyst has proposed, the conflicts in Nigeria that appear in the forms of
ethnicity(tribalism), favoritism, nepotism, nonchalant attitude to public work and so on, is
as a result of the incompatibility of the three major tribes in Nigeria and the many others.
However, irrespective of these abnormalities, Nigeria still calls for unity in diversity.
 Piano and Drums treats the theme of the unending clash or conflict between African
culture and European culture. This is the inevitable outcome of European contact and
colonization of Africa for more than five centuries.
 The poem Piano and Drums also deliberates on the African’s loss of his original identity
following his contact with foreign European way of life.
 Piano and drums treats the issue of modernity versus old ways of life.

 Another important theme in Piano and Drums is the need to preserve the positive aspects
of African culture.
  The effects of western culture on African traditions is another way to look at the ideas
expressed in Piano and Drums.

Christopher Okigbo
"Hurrah For Thunder"

WHATEVER happened to the elephant –

Hurrah for Thunder –

The elephant, tetrarch of the jungle:

With a wave of the hand
He could pull four trees to the ground;
His four mortar legs pounded the earth:
Wherever they treaded,
The grass was forbidden to be there.

Alas! the elephant has fallen –

Hurrah for thunder –

But already the hunters are talking about pumpkins:

If they share the meat let them remember thunder.

The eye that looks down will surely see the nose;
The finger that fits should be used to pick the nose.

Today-for tomorrow, today becomes yesterday:

How many million promises can ever fill a basket...
If I don’t learn to shut my mouth I’ll soon go to hell,
I, Okigbo, town-crier/ together with my iron bell

Commonly neglected among influential 20th century poets because of his localized themes,
Christopher Okigbo deserves greater recognition for his poetry. He writes about Africa,
specifically his home Nigeria. Part of the Biafra movement, he expresses a discontent with the
current affairs of Africa and a frustration with his own impotence of influence. Many of his
poems contain two layers of meaning: the surface which is usually described in terms of natural
imagery and the deeper meaning which generally applies to society. Okigbo refers to himself as a
town crier in several of his poems. A crier is a person who would make announcements
throughout the streets to guide townspeople during times a crisis, an important figure. For his
part, Okigbo hones his meaning to that of prophet. He believes that his poems are like prophecies
delivered on street corners which are received by deaf ears. He earnestly believes in the power of
his words, but his readers do not seem to understand the wisdom of his warnings. Tired of being
ignored and under-appreciated, Okigbo's poems take a turn toward desperation when he hints at
abandoning his attempts at counsel altogether.
Although his primary concern is Africa, Okigbo writes about pervasive issues in his
generation across the globe. People are just realizing that they've abused their natural
environments to the point of irreversible change. As a political revolutionary, Okigbo sets great
stock in the power of change as a positive, while recognizing its immense potential danger. He
wants people to be aware of the likely ending of society according to its present (for the mid
1900s), but he does so in hopes that people will take action to prevent said result.
Themes
Loss
Repeatedly throughout his poetry, Okigbo expresses a deep sense of loss. He takes a melancholy
tone in much of his writing, as if in mourning. Doubtless this is the result of his topics --
heartbreak, animal extinction, and iconoclasm. As a member of the Biafra movement, he
understood the intimate pain of loss. The movement was never taken seriously until war broke
out in Nigeria. Okigbo joined and eventually was killed during the war. Before that, however, he
wrote about the pain of loss in all of his poems. For example, "Love Apart" is a short poem
devoted to the end of a relationship.
Writing as Prophecy
Okigbo writes about himself as a town crier, a person who informs townspeople of the latest
news who is also an authority figure. Through his writing, he attempts to do just that. He
considers himself to be a prophet, predicting the future with his words. Unfortunately, Okigbo
has long been unappreciated for his precautions, especially during his lifetime. In "Hurrah for
Thunder" he expresses a frustration about this, claiming he will cease to prophecy soon for fear
of angering the gods with his meaningless words. As a writer, Okigbo takes himself seriously,
desiring to do something powerful with his influence. He doesn't wish to risk writing out of
vanity.
Nature
Writing about Africa, Okigbo continually references its natural resources. He speaks fondly and
tenderly of the animals and various African landscapes. Each of his poems are grounded in
nature imagery, which reminds readers of Okigbo's particular focus upon Africa. From deserts to
jungles, he mentions all of it. Interesting to note, he discusses elements of nature through
personification. This is a common practice among tribal peoples such as the Native Americans of
the plains. Living in harmony with the animals and in fact all of nature is a natural desire for
Okigbo and his audience.
The Passage of Time
Again, Okigbo writes with a mournful, melancholy tone. He continually expresses a distaste for
the unavoidable passage of time, taking great care to point out its significance. When talking
about the elephants in "Hurrah for Thunder," he focuses on the temporal element of their
existence as a species. He urges his readers not to forget that the elephants once ruled the jungle,
although now they are an afterthought to hunters. The land which once belonged to the elephants
is now being developed for farming. Naturally resulting from his personal experience with the
changing times, Okigbo's writing seamlessly connects the ideas of iconoclasm and reverence. He
desires for progress and simultaneously fears the arrogance which stems from disrespecting or
ignoring history.

Niyi Osundare’s I Can’t Breathe

I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
I can’t bre
I can’t
I can’t
I. . . . .
*
2020: Black Lives Matter
1965: I AM A MAN
*
There are countless ways
Of lynching without a rope
*
The casualties were fewer than we ever expected:
10 Persons
&
1,000 Negroes
*
For every Black in college
There are a hundred more in prison
*
So many centuries on,
America still has a “Negro Problem”
*
My skin is my sin,
Sings Bluesman with the wailing strings,
My very life is an “underlying condition”
For countless afflictions
*
And the Media Sage responds:
Racism is America’s Original Sin
Violence, its inalienable companion
*
There is a common crime in town:
Breathing While Black (BWB)
 *
Mr. George Floyd committed two cardinal crimes:
He was Black
He was big
*
Black Lives Matter
Black Life Martyrs
*
Asked Louis Armstrong, the Smiling Trumpetman:
What did I do to be so black and blue?
II
Black Life Martyrs,
Their voices rise from their untimely graves:

Amadu Diallo, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Botham
Jean, Breanna Taylor, Philando Castille, Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd. . . . .

Any Hall of Fame

For Trophies from Police hunts?
*
To be and not to be
To wallow in want in a sea of wealth
To shout and not be heard
To stand and not be seen
To sow and never to reap
To live all your life below the Law
To be stopped and frisked stopped and frisked stopped and frisked stopped and. . . . .
To be told countless times
To forgive and then forget
*
Yess Sur, Yes Maa’m. . . .
Put them at ease with your Negro smile
Your low, low, bow and your high regard
That cool façade is your saving grace
The “Angry Black Man” is as good as dead
*
911, 911, 911, 911
My name is Sue,
Calling from my car in City Park
There’s a big black male around
Whose big dark shadow is menace to my sight
Please send a cop; my life is at risk
*
Choke-hold, choke-hold
Stranglehold and dash and dangle
400 years of knee-on-neck
*
Our Police know their oath:
To serve
&
To protect
*
The Police Chief took a knee
The Sheriff followed in tow
Is this a genuine genuflection
To Kaepernick’s treason*
Or patronizing bribe of momentary appeasement?
*
And the Emperor snarls
From the bunker of his White Castle
Vowing “vicious dogs and ominous weapons”
Rolling in guns to “dominate the streets”
His unhappy nation now his “battlespace”
*
Black Lives Matter
Black Life Martyrs
*
Asked Louis Armstrong, the smiling Trumpetman:
What did I do to be so black and blue?
*
I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
I can’t bre. . . . .
I. . . . .

WEEK 6: NEGRITUDE POETRY

Negritude, French Négritude, literary movement of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s that began among
French-speaking African and Caribbean writers living in Paris as a protest against French
colonial rule and the policy of assimilation. Its leading figure was Léopold Sédar Senghor
(elected first president of the Republic of Senegal in 1960), who, along with Aimé Césaire from
Martinique and Léon Damas from French Guiana, began to examine Western values critically
and to reassess African culture. The Negritude movement was influenced by the Harlem
Renaissance, a literary and artistic flowering that emerged among a group of Black thinkers and
artists (including novelists and poets) in the United States, in New York City, during the 1920s.
The group was determined to throw off the masking (to use the word of critic Houston A. Baker,
Jr.) and indirection that had necessarily attended Black expression in a hostile society. The
Harlem Renaissance is associated with such writers as poet Langston Hughes, but it was Claude
McKay, a somewhat lesser-known figure, who caught the attention of Senghor. The Jamaican-
born poet and novelist was one of the Harlem group’s most prominent spokesmen. He believed
that a writer should deal with important political subjects, and he himself had much to say about
institutionalized racism.
McKay spent a good deal of time in France, where he got to know a West Indian family
who held an informal salon attended by writers, musicians, and intellectuals, including visiting
Americans. Members of the group that attended the salon began to publish Revue du Monde
Noir (“Review of the Black World”) in 1931. Poetry by McKay and Hughes appeared in the
review, where Senghor, an occasional visitor to the salon, probably saw their work. Possibly by
that time, he had already read McKay’s Banjo, a picaresque novel that affected him deeply;
translated into French in 1929, it centres on Black seamen in Marseilles and is notable in part for
its portrayal of French treatment of Black colonials. In any case, Senghor called McKay “the true
inventor of [the values of] Negritude.” Césaire said of Banjo that in it Blacks were described for
the first time “truthfully, without inhibition or prejudice.” The word “Negritude,” however, was
coined by Césaire himself, in his 1939 poem “Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (“Notebook of a
Return to My Native Land”).
The assertion of Black pride by members of the Negritude movement was attended by a
cry against assimilation. They felt that although it was theoretically based on a belief in universal
equality, it still assumed the superiority of European culture and civilization over that of Africa
(or assumed that Africa had no history or culture). They were also disturbed by the world wars;
in which they saw their countrymen not only dying for a cause that was not theirs but being
treated as inferiors on the battlefield. They became increasingly aware, through their study of
history, of the suffering and humiliation of Black people—first under the bondage of slavery and
then under colonial rule. These views inspired many of the basic ideas behind Negritude: that the
mystic warmth of African life, gaining strength from its closeness to nature and its constant
contact with ancestors, should be continually placed in proper perspective against the
soullessness and materialism of Western culture; that Africans must look to their own cultural
heritage to determine the values and traditions that are most useful in the modern world; that
committed writers should use African subject matter and poetic traditions and should excite a
desire for political freedom; that Negritude itself encompasses the whole of African cultural,
economic, social, and political values; and that, above all, the value and dignity of African
traditions and peoples must be asserted.
Senghor treated all of these themes in his poetry and inspired a number of other writers:
Birago Diop from Senegal, whose poems explore the mystique of African life; David Diop,
writer of revolutionary protest poetry; Jacques Rabemananjara, whose poems and plays glorify
the history and culture of Madagascar; Cameroonians Mongo Beti and Ferdinand Oyono, who
wrote anti-colonialist novels; and the Congolese poet Tchicaya U Tam’si, whose extremely
personal poetry does not neglect the sufferings of the African peoples. The movement largely
faded in the early 1960s when its political and cultural objectives had been achieved in most
African countries.
Negritude has been defined by Léopold Sédar Senghor as “the sum of the cultural values
of the black world as they are expressed in the life, the institutions, and the works of black men.”
Sylvia Washington Bâ analyzes Senghor’s poetry to show how the concept of negritude infuses it
at every level. A biographical sketch describes his childhood in Senegal, his distinguished
academic career in France, and his election as President of Senegal.
Themes of alienation and exile pervade Senghor’s poetry, but it was by the opposition of
his sensitivity and values to those of Europe that he was able to formulate his credo. Its key
theme, and the supreme value of black African civilization, is the concept of life forces, which
are not attributes or accidents of being, but the very essence of being. Life is an essentially
dynamic mode of being for the black African, and it has been Senghor’s achievement to
communicate African intensity and vitality through his use of the nuances, subtleties, and
sonorities of the French language.

LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR’S The 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, I came upon you, my
Promised land.
5.And your beauty strikes me to the heart like the flash of
An eagle.
Naked woman, dark woman
Firm-flesed ripe fruit, somber 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
10. Your solemn contralto voice is the spiritual song of the beloved.
Naked woman, dark woman
Oil that no breath ruffles, calm on the athlete’s
Flanks, on the flanks of the princess of Mali
Gazelle limbed in Paradise, pearls are stars on the right
Of your skin
Delights of the mind, the glinting of red gold against
Your watered skin
15. Under the shadow of your hair, my care is lighted 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.

SUBJECT MATTER
This poem was originally written in French as “femme notr”, and later translated to English. It is
a hymn of praise to the African black woman as a person and symbol of the richness of African
culture. The black woman is seen as a mother, daughter, sister and indeed the poet’s home
country, Senegal. Senghor’s experiences while living abroad influenced his writing of this ode to
the black woman, whose beauty is natural and perfect. He also uses the poem to, stress the need
to accord the black woman her rightful place in the scheme of things in the African society.
THEMES
The poem has the controlling theme of the beauty of the black woman. The poet admires the
beautiful smooth skin of the African woman. Which strikes his heart” like the lighting of the
eagle” he appreciates the powerful black presence of the natural black woman around him right
from his childhood. The African woman’s body is compared to the of a ripened fruit, and whose
resonant contralto voice is regarded as the spiritual anthem of the nation. Senghor describes the
African woman as elegant, graceful and pure in all her physical attributes.
There is also the theme of the African woman as the source and sustainer of the growing
child. The poet express his love and appreciation to his mother and indeed mother Africa, for the
care, protection until he enters the “promised land” of adulthood. The ability of black woman to
give birth and sustain the life of the infant child is commended in the poem. The role of the
African woman as the first teacher of the child is exposed by the poet, as he remembers his
mother’s tutelage at the various stages of childhood that sustained his growth into adulthood.
The poem also has the theme of the beauty of Africa. The poet personifies Africa as the
black woman , who’s ever beautiful. He is proud of the undiluted culture and physical features
that make the African heritage unique. Senghor presents mother Africa a paragon of beauty and
complete perfection without any western influence before the colonization. It is important to note
that the poem uses word like : nakedness, blackness, darkness to describe the perfect beauty of
Africa. These words are normally used to Connor the “uncivilized peoples” of Africa. The poet
sees nothing negative or evil about Africa, but rather a “promised land” that flows with milk and
honey.
The theme of the nurturing role of mother Africa also pervades the poem. Senghor
reflects on his childhood, and long for the land of his birth, Senegal. His reflection is necessitated
by the experiences in France. Which made him to remember where he was brought up as a child.
He recollects his childhood days, and regards the period as a form of paradise. Besides, he refers
to the black woman as the ” promised land” in the poem. He describes how the African woman
nurtures her child in the African continent. In the light of this nurturing role, he sees the black
woman not only as an individual but by extension the symbol of African heritage.
There is also the theme of praise in the poem. The poet uses choice word to praise the
black woman, and the greatness of African woman. He showers praises on the natural black
colour of the African womans skin, and everything about the black woman. Her smooth skin is
compared to that of an athlete. He further praises the African woman as graceful and elegant as a
gazelle. Is praises of the natural beauty of the black woman, also implies the richness of the
African culture before the colonization. Childhood memory is another theme in this poem. The
poet looks back to the period of his childhood, and remembers his place of birth, Senegal. “In
your shadow I have grown up; the gentleness of your hands was laid over my eyes”. It is a
memory lane down to his frowning days as a child, which he considers as living in paradise. He
sets on a poetic journey to the ” promised land” of his home land, Senegal. He recalls the Caring
attitude of his mother, which sustains him as a child. He appreciates the black woman as a wife
and mother, who nourishes his childhood.
STRUCTURE
In the first stanza, the poet expresses his fondness for the black woman. He describes the black
colour of her skin as beautiful. Senghor presents Africa as a maternal mother who gives life
through birth. And under whose shadow his childhood has been nourished. He sees the gentility
of his mother as a shield from any harm until he comes upon the poet’s heart” …like the flash of
an eagle “. He loves and adores the dark skin of the African woman.
Senghor presents the black woman as a lover in the second stanza of the poem. He
compares the black body of the African woman of a ripened fruit, and the Savannah which”
shuddering beneath ” eagerly caress the east wind. Her skin is further compared to the well
“carved tom-tom, taut tom-tom” drum the mutters under a valiant conqueror’s fingers. Besides,
her solemn contralto voice has become “…the spiritual song of the beloved” one’s. Even the
words like. Naked and dark are used positively to describe the perfect body of African woman.
In the third stanza of the poem, the adoration of the black skin of the African woman
continues. Her smooth skin is further compared to that of an athlete “… On the flanks of the
princes of Mali,” the elegant and graceful movement of the black woman is also compared to
that of a gazelle limbs formed in paradise. While the pearls shine as star on her skin on a
heavenly night of celebration. The shadow of her hair is seen as a cover that has the ability to
melt away the worries of the poet by “the neighboring suns” of her charming eyes.
In the concluding stanza of this poem, Senghor sees the black woman as Africa
personified. He prefers to keep a live the beauty of the African woman perpetually hanging on
the walls of his mind. This memory will not be affected even when “…jealous fate (death) turns
her… to ashes to feed the root of life. The natural beauty of the African woman is compared to
that of Africa before the colonial masters invaded and colonized the continent.
STYLE
Diction: the poet uses choice of words to symbolized the beauty of the black woman. He
deliberately uses words like nakedness, black and darkness which are seen as negative attributes
to praise the natural beauty of the black woman. The poet is also challenging the African woman
to appreciate her natural beauty. And to bleach the dark skin in the name of sophisticated culture
of the western world.
Mood: the mode of the poem is that of Adoration. The poet adores the awesome beauty of the
black woman. He describes everything about the African woman as naturally beautiful. Senghor
sees Africa as the black woman he loves to celebrate. He seeks to adore that state of natural
beauty before it is taken away by death.
Tone: the poet’s tone of the appreciation of natural beauty of the black woman pervades the
poem. He praises the African woman not only for her natural smooth dark skin, but also for the
way and manner she brings up her children.
Ode: the poem is a hymn of praise to the black woman, an African mother, daughter or sister and
indeed mother Africa which deserves to be treated like a woman, the poet praise the natural
beauty of the African woman, and stresses the need to accord her the rightful place in the society.
Metaphor: the figure of speech prominently used in the poem is that of metaphor. The black
woman is compared to the promised land, ripe fruit, Savannah, oil and gazelle in lines 4,7,12,
and 13.
Simile: the literary device is used by the poet in line 5 “your beauty strikes me to the heart like
the flash of an eagle,” the comparism brings to mind the beauty and nobility of an eagle.
Repetition: line 1 “naked woman, black woman” and. Line 6 “naked woman, dark woman” are
repeated in lines 11 and 16 respectively to emphasize the natural beauty of the African woman.
Symbolism: Senghor uses symbolic words like: the promised land, ripe fruit, Savannah, oil and
gazelle to symbolize the natural beauty of the black woman as a person, as well as a symbol of
African woman and mother Africa.
Apostrophe: it is a literary device that poet employs to address the black woman, the object of
praise as though she were physically present with him.
Personification: the black woman is figuratively used to personified the African continent and
Senghor’s country, Senegal. The poet uses beauty of colour of the African woman skin to
personified the rich African culture before western influence and colonization.
Imagery: the poet natural imagery to link the Beauty of the black woman to nature, and by the
same token to his homeland of Senegal. Natural images like: wind, sun, noon, night, and stars are
presented as attributes of the darkness of the African woman’s skin.
Alliteration: the poet uses alliteration to buttress the beauty of the black woman in lines
1,2,3,6,7,9 etc.
Line 1,6,11 and 16 naked woman black woman
Line 2 “clothed with your colour which is life, with your form which is beautt”
Line 3 “…grown up; the gentleness….”
Line 7 ” firm-fleshed ripe fruit….. Mouth making lyrical my mouth ”
Line 9 “carved tom-tom, taut tom- tom…”
Line 12 “…flanks, on the flanks…”
Evaluation / judgment
The poem written in the first person singular, is no doubt an amazing ode to the black woman.
Senghor living abroad, away from his home country, Senegal feels estranged in the midst of
Western culture. In the circumstances therefore, he uses this poem to reflect on his childhood and
the role played by his mother (black woman). She is referred to as “promised land” in the poem.
He praises the African culture which finds expression in the beauty of a black woman.

ANALYSIS OF THE POEM "AFRICA" By David Diop

AFRICA
BY David Diop (Senegal)
Africa my Africa
Africa of proud warriors in the ancestral savannahs
Africa of whom my grandmother sings
On the banks of the distant river
I have never known you
But your blood flows in my veins
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery
The slavery of your children
Africa tell me Africa
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 to the whip under the midday sun
But a grave voice answers me
Impetuous son that tree young and strong
That tree there
In splendid loneliness amidst white and faded flowers
That is Africa your Africa
That grows again patiently obstinately
And its fruit gradually acquires
The bitter taste of liberty.

INTRODUCTION
This poem is written by David Diop - A Black African who was born in France in 1927. His
father was from Senegal and his mother from Cameroon and he grew up in France and West
Africa aware of both cultures and traditions. He was deeply concerned by the question of
independence from colonial rule. This poem is a dramatic monologue where the speaker seems
to be in conversation with Africa. The poem can be thematically divided into three parts ; pre-
colonial Africa, colonial Africa and post-colonial Africa.

THEMATIC ANALYSIS.
COLONIAL TORTURE AND EXPLOITATION
There are evidences of torture and exploitation in the poem due to the fact that the poet expresses
how the sweat of Africans was lost in vain.
The blood of your sweat
He sweat of your work
All this was done at a time when Africans were turned into slaves and worked for their masters
without any benefit.
The work of your slavery
The slavery of your children
OPPRESSION AND HUMILIATION
Oppression and humiliation were common practices in colonial time. They were used to force
Africans work for colonisers without objection. This has left scars to Africa that we still depend
on them even when they seem to mistreat us.
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
IDENTITY AND AWARENESS
The poet however seems to be aware of his identity as black African. Although he grew up in
France he shows that black blood flows in his veins, which is to say he is still an African
regardless of where he grew up.
I have never known you
But your blood flows in my veins
The voice that answers Diop sums up his African identity.
Impetuous son that tree young and strong
That tree there
In splendid loneliness amidst white and faded flowers
That is Africa your Africa.
EFFECTS OF COLONIALISM
The poet concludes his poem by showing the effects that colonialism had on African continent.
Nevertheless, he seems to be optimistic that at least Africa is growing up again just like a young
tree.
That is Africa your Africa
That grows again patiently obstinately

WEEK 7: EAST AFRICAN POETRY

Songs as Oral Poetry in East Africa

As noted earlier on, the rhythm of life of the Africans had a poetic pattern. Africans had a sense
of poetry in nearly everything that they did. This poetry revealed itself through the composition
and performance of songs. For every activity that they engaged in, Africans composed a song.
There were songs for seductions, birth songs, songs for growing up, initiation songs, funeral
songs, planting songs, harvesting songs, songs at the place of work, war songs and many other
songs. Songs are simply oral poetry because they observe the principles of poetry. They are
creatively and imaginatively conceived, brief in nature, embellished in style and communicate a
message. All these songs were geared towards entertainment, socialization and education.
War Songs
Before going to war, Africans sung songs to give them courage against the enemy. Nearly all the
East African communities trained warriors and therefore they all had war songs. Performance of
war songs was not just done before the war but also during and after the war itself. This was one
of the ways in which allies would distinguish one another from the foe. The lead warrior would
start the tune and the other warriors would simply understand the meaning of that tune. It may be
a tune to signal retreat or attack more forcefully or to attack from a different front.
Funerary Poetry
There is nothing as solemn as loss of life. Therefore, the best way human beings can come to
terms with the loss of their loved ones is by singing the sorrow away. Funerary poetry in East
Africa was used to console the bereaved, to implore, command or even chase away death and
also to provide some warmth and vivacity to the bereaved. Virtually every community in East
Africa had and still has funeral songs. Funeral poetry has greatly influenced the written Poetry
especially in Kenya. See the Poems, Christine Vakhoya by Loice Abukutsa in Boundless Voices,
Nyalgunga by Amateshe in An Anthology of East African Poetry and The Death of My Father
by Henry Indangasi in Poems from East Africa. These poems have been written following the
rules of recitation of dirges.
Ritual Poetry in East Africa
This was Drama associated with rites especially religious rites and rites of passage. Initiation
songs and dances were practiced and performed as a way of entertainment, advice and rebuking
bad behaviour. During such performances obscenities were sung and fertility dances and songs
performed. Initiation Poetry was particularly vulgar in communities which initiated women.
Among the Luhya people of Western Kenya, the male initiation ceremony was characterized by
singing and dancing around the village with specially made jingles called Enyimba. The initiates
would cruise around the village singing and hurling insults or taunting the people who were
considered social misfits in the society. Middle aged women would also taunt the initiates and
dance very vulgarly to the initiates and challenging them both to show courage and preserve the
dignity of their families and villages or risk being sung in the next initiation ceremony. In all
these, one can notice the utilitarian nature of this Dramatic form. That on one hand, it was
supposed to give the initiates the courage to face the knife while on the other it was supposed to
correct the social misfits by exposing their bad actions through song and dance. All these were
part of Dramatic expressions that these people used to engage in and in some parts of East
Africa, People still practice these rituals.
Birth Songs
There were also songs sung for a new born baby. This was to celebrate the arrival of a new life
and to thank the gods for having seen it fit to perpetuate the lineage of the family. At the same
time it was also to wish the new born blessings so that it may grow into a respectable person who
would bring honour and not shame to the family in particular and the village as a whole.
Example of a birth song that is so common in Kenya is the Mwana wa Mbeli from the Luhya
community
Court Poetry
Before the advent of Europeans in East Africa, court poets worked in the Kabaka’s palace in
Buganda to entertain and inform the people during big feasts organized by the Kabaka. These
were highly skilled composers, singers and dancers whose profession was solely to serve the
king and the kingdom through performance. That tradition finds contemporary expression in the
dramatic works of Ugandan playwrights like Robert Serumaga, Ryron Kawadwa, and Numa
Sentango and Elvania Namukwonya Zirimu, who, at least in sentiment, perpetuate pro-royalist
theatre in East Africa. Court poets sang the praises for the King and valiant men of the society.
They were literally under the employment of the King and he honoured them by such gifts as
recognition, food stuffs, cattle or land. They exulted and extolled his successes in ruling the
people. They also advised citizens to be obedient and hard-working in the society.
Characteristics of Oral Poetry in East Africa
 It takes the form of collective responsibility and activity. It is basically expressed in a
language, cadence and idioms which the entire community understands and is able to
give a collective/ communal response.
 It has ability to involve a long population of the community since it begs for oral
delivery. It is not a preserve of an individual but of the entire community.
 It also assumes an instant collective/communal response. There is little space for
choreographed audiences. All people present are both audience and at the same time
performers.
 It is a performed Poetry that is naturally dramatized. Its performance is spontaneous and
not forced. It is taken as part of life itself.
Classical Swahili Poetry
It is believed that the ancient Swahili people living along the coastal strip and the islands of East
Africa wrote and recited poetry just like it is done in the modern times. The earliest known
Swahili poem of note is Fumo Liongo, which is dated by various writers anywhere from the 14th
to the 17th century. Coastal dramatic Poetry seems to have flourished due to the interactions of
the coastal natives with the Arabic world. Swahili Poetry was written in Arabic letters for over
three hundred years. The oldest Swahili manuscript so far discovered according to Janheinz Jahn
is Utendi wa Tambuka, a heroic poem written for the sultan (Fumo) in 1728. Among the later
day Swahili poets, we have Muyaka who was born in Mombasa. Muyaka writes and recites on
themes of war and politics as well as social lives. Shaaban Robert is another poet who has
extensively written poetry on issues affecting the Swahili world. He was a Tanzania native well
known for the Ngonjera verses. Other Swahili poets include Matiasi Mnyampala, Amri Abedi
and Ahmed Nassir Juma.

Jared Angira’s No Coffin, No Grave

NO COFFIN, NO GRAVE
He was buried without a coffin
without a grave
the scavengers performed the post-mortem
in the open mortuary
without sterilized knives
in front of the night club

stuttering rifles put up

the gun salute of the day
that was a state burial anyway
the car knelt
the red plate wept, wrapped itself in blood its master’s

the diary revealed to the sea

the rain anchored there at last
isn’t our flag red, black, and white?
so he wrapped himself well
who could signal yellow
when we had to leave politics to the experts
and brood on books
brood on hunger
and schoolgirls
grumble under the black pot
sleep under torn mosquito net
and let lice lick our intestines
the lord of the bar, money speaks madam
woman magnet, money speaks madam
we only cover the stinking darkness
of the cave of our mouths
and ask our father who is in hell to judge him
the quick and the good

Well, his dairy, submarine of the Third World War

showed he wished
to be buried in a gold-laden coffin
like a VIP
under the jacaranda tree beside his palace
a shelter for his grave
and much beer for the funeral party

anyway one noisy pupil suggested we bring

tractors and plough the land.

REVIEW
This is a scornfully sarcastic poem by Angira and many reviewers claim that it also mirrors his
style. The poem is a chronicle of events that marked the death of a traitor-ruler who was “buried
without a coffin” (line 1) and whose post-mortem was carried out by scavengers, vultures in the
open, outside a place where people go to celebrate and have fun. A night club! (line 6). This
gives a sense that his death may have been wished and when it came, it was a necessary party for
his people. Angira goes on to say that “stuttering rifles” (line 7) gave the salute when he died.
The same two quoted word are used in Wilfred Owen’s poem “Anthem for Doomed Youth”
where he discusses the scene before a war, intimating that the soldiers on the field are doomed to
death by the shots from their own stuttering rifles. As is signal of state burials, prominent people
are given a uniform salute by a regimental gunshot of a section of the army. But our politician
only received a stuttering rifle’s salute, to give us a hint that his gun salute was probably the
bullets that killed him; ununiformed. And confirmation reaches us, when we read that his car
knelt – came to its knees, literally – in a defeatist action and wrapped itself in its master’s blood
(lines 10-11). He died in his car and the car came to a grinding halt.
Angira quotes the colours of the Kenyan flag (red, black and white- line 14) as testament
to the true nature of the politician whose deeds alone were correct. So since there wasn’t any
yellow, he asks “Who could signal yellow” or contradict the politicians? After all, politics was
for the “experts” while the common man was cursed to brood on books, think about schoolgirls
and hunger, sleeping under torn mosquito nets (lines 15-22). And if our politician should step
into a bar, he is the lord (line 24) and woman magnet (line 25) who speaks the language of
money; the people’s money. And what can the cursed common man say? He can only cover the
darkness of his mouth and tell his prayers to the devil for all the politician cares.
The succeeding verse tells of how our politician’s diary reveals that he wanted a stately
VIP burial, with a gold-laden coffin at his palace and with so much beer. Angira earlier in line 12
says that the diary revealed itself to the sea, to say that it was found there in the sea. And now, in
line 30, he calls the diary a submarine of the Third World War. This is interesting analogy. It
could mean that the diary was found in the sea as a submarine, it is content was a destructive
weapon as a submarine that brought the poverty and hunger of the people, or that it had enough
power in its recommendation to dump the world into a Third World War. This is beautiful use of
language.
So, it has come to pass that Angira’s politician has passed away, with much celebration
from his people. And with little dignity too, having been denied all the pleasantries that he
wished to be accorded his death. The people care less and in the last line, one boy Angira calls
noisy, even suggests that they bring tractors and plough the land, ostensibly to purge it of the
desecration that this our politician’s blood may have caused it. And why is the boy even called
noisy unless it means that other people have already said the same thing?
This is a beautiful protest poem and we can see a lot of African leaders past and present fit
Angira’s politician well, in deed.
The Analysis
Setting: The setting of the poem is post-colonial Kenya. That is Kenya after independence.
Subject Matter: In the poem the ruler of Kenya is brutally murdered at the front of a night club.
His death brings joy to the people of the country because the ruler had been a dictator who had
oppressed the masses during his reign. After much research I couldn’t find any head of state or
president of Kenya who died in this manner, hence the events recounted in this poem are
products of creativity. However in recounting the circumstances surrounding the dictator’s death
the poet has been able to address vital issues facing the society or country of Kenya as well as
most African countries after the era of colonialism.
Themes:
1. Theme of oppression and cruel leaders
2. Theme of Uncertainty of the future: this is shown in the contrast between the kind of burial the
dictator wished himself, which he wrote in his diary and the kind he actually got in reality
3. Theme of Vanity: despite the luxury in which the dictator lived and despite his power, he dies
like a fowl and does not get even the humblest of burials rather his corpse was left to rot on the
street with vultures feasting on it.
4. Theme of Revolution
5. Theme of Plight of the masses: this is shown in the suffering masses.
6. Theme of ‘Good Riddance’: nobody cares the least about the demise of the man who ought to
be the number one citizen of the country.
Poetic Devices
Satire: The poem is a complete satire. This is where a writer uses humour to attack a concept
and brings out the flaws of that concept.
Sarcasm: This is close to satire. In this case the writer uses irony to oppose, attack and speak ill
of a concept e.g. ‘he was buried without a coffin/ without a grave’
Rhetorical Question: Line 14, Line 16
Metaphor: e.g. woman magnet,
his diary, submarine of the third world war (line 3)
Personification: The red plate wept
Ambiguity: The poet deliberately uses some words in context where their contextual meanings
become unclear
Structure: Free verse
Tone: Satirical and sarcastic
Mood: Sorrow and hope.

WEEK 8: SOUTH AFRICAN POETRY

The poetry of South Africa covers a broad range of themes, forms and styles. This article
discusses the context that contemporary poets have come from and identifies the major poets of
South Africa, their works and influence. The South African literary landscape from the 19th
century to the present day has been fundamentally shaped by the social and political evolution of
the country, particularly the trajectory from a colonial trading station to an apartheid state and
finally toward a democracy. Primary forces of population growth and economic change, which
have propelled urban development, have also impacted on the themes, forms and styles of
literature and poetry. South Africa has a rich literary history. Fiction, and poetry specifically, has
been written in all of South Africa's 11 official languages.
Protest poems or protest literature refers to works that address to real socio-political
issues and express objection against them. Protest poetry aims at making the reader aware of the
racial incongruities that characterise the system of apartheid and the detrimental and turbulent
effects, particularly on the black community.
Post-apartheid
With the demise of apartheid and the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990, many observed that
South African writers were confronted with the challenge of what was now most pertinent to
write about, even though the after-effects of this history evidently still live on in the society. The
"new South African" democratic era was characterised by what literary critic Stephane Serge
Ibinga in her article "Post-Apartheid Literature Beyond Race" describes as "honeymoon
literature" or "the literature of celebration", epitomised by Zakes Mda, who was active as a
playwright and poet long before publishing his first novel in 1995. Poets of this relatively stable
transition period in South African history also include more irreverent voices such as Lesego
Rampolokeng, Sandile Dikeni and Lefifi Tladi, founder of the Dashiki performance poetry
movement in the late 1960s. Another prevalent theme of post-apartheid poetry is the focus on
nation-building, with many poets and other writers re-evaluating past identities and embracing
notions of reconciliation in order to reflect authentically an inclusive concept of South Africa as
a nation, a diverse people united in a commitment to heal the past and collectively address
imbalances.
NIGHTFALL IN SOWETO
By Oswald Mtshali
Nightfall comes like
a dreaded disease
seeping through the pores
of a healthy body
and ravaging it beyond repair

A murderer’s hand,
lurking in the shadows,
clasping the dagger,
strikes down the helpless victim.

I am the victim.
I am slaughtered
every night in the streets.
I am cornered by the fear
gnawing at my timid heart;
in my helplessness I languish.

Man has ceased to be man

Man has become beast
Man has become prey.

I am the prey;
I am the quarry to be run down
by the marauding beast
let loose by cruel nightfall
from his cage of death.

Where is my refuge?
Where am I safe?
Not in my matchbox house
Where I barricade myself against nightfall.

I tremble at his crunching footsteps,

I quake at his deafening knock at the door.
“Open up!” he barks like a rabid dog
thirsty for my blood.

Nightfall! Nightfall!
You are my mortal enemy.
But why were you ever created?
Why can’t it be daytime?
Daytime forever more?

REVIEW
This poem sees Mtshali going almost emotional in his protest against the treatment of black
South Africans under the Soweto night sky. Soweto is an acronym for South-West Townships
and is located in that bearing from Johannesburg. It hosts some of the largest populations of
slum-dwellers in the world and is the setting for Mtshali’s poem. In review, nightfall comes like
“a dreaded disease” (line 2) that ravages beyond repair. (inf. line 5). Obviously, the poet sees a
worry about the fall of night and we are yet to find out why so. But he does not make us wonder
long!! In the next stanza (how good is it to say “strophe” here?), Mtshali uses four lines to
graphically describe the cold murder of the helpless victim (line 9). Note that he uses the definite
article “the” to describe the victim, indicative of the fact that these deaths are commonplace.
Then we begin to see why nightfall calls his wrath.
 The poet puts himself in the place of all the murdered, calling himself the victim and the
slaughtered (lines 10-11). “Slaughter” gives us a feel of the animalistic way in which human life
is treated and brings more attention to the worth of the life of the black man hiding in the Soweto
nightfall. He goes on to say (lines 12-15) that as the representative of all the victims, he fears
every night in the streets, knowing that his death cannot be far off. “Gnawing” in line 14 paints
the picture of something that is slowly being bitten off in small chunks and the comparison is
this: for all the many black men- estimated to be more than a million- living in the shacks of
Soweto, taking one or two lives a night is a slow, albeit sure way of killing the population off.
Mtshali is talking about the apartheid era, certainly, and we can only deduce the murderers to be
the law-officers whose duty it was to enforce the tyrannical decrees of the regime during the
times.
Lines 16-18 sum up the whole poem. “Man has ceased to be man” shows that either way,
the human race has changed. For the good? No. For in the ensuing lines Mtshali likens Man to a
beast and then to a prey. This Man has become the hunter and the hunted.
The law-officers never took men in broad daylight and killed them. They came
marauding in the night as if unleashed by night itself from its cage of death. This is pathetic. And
why night is a conspirator in this heinous crime earns it the accolade “Cruel” in line 22.
It was a hopeless situation then and houses were as impotent to keep one safe as it was to
just stand outside in the night and get shot. A desperate “barricade” (line 27) against nightfall
was useless even as the offenders march straight to doorsteps and order men out to their death.
Hounds and mad dogs “thirsty for my blood” (line 31).
So the curses of Nightfall continue as Mtshali signs out embittered. If the night will bring
death to the black oppressed man, then it was a sworn mortal enemy (line 33) and in the
conclusion of his rant, our poet wishes that we had “Daytime forever more”.
The irony of the poem is that Nightfall refuses to bring the rest that is deserved and
common. A long poem and review too but as I have often said, it is with reading the sacred lines
of Africa’s great poets that the history and tomorrow of this great continent can be appreciated.
Looking at the plot of the poem, the poem shows what the victims (the black) face
whenever "the whites" appears at such time of discrimination and apartheid. The oppressors use
such dark period to launch attack on targeted victims, they even knock at victims doors
compelling the to open up.
The poem has the theme of brutality and injustice (the blacks are brutalized), theme of
apartheid (lack of equality as a human right), theme of panic associated with nighttime attacks,
theme of oppression and discrimination, theme of helplessness and lamentation.

Boy on a Swing -By Oswald Mtshali

Slowly he moves
to and fro, to and fro,
then faster and faster
he swishes up and down.

His blue shirt

billows in the breeze like a tattered kite

The world whirls by:

east becomes west,
north turns to south;
the four cardinal points
meet in his head.

Mother! Where did I come from?

When will I wear long trousers?
Why was my father jailed?

The poem boy on a swing written by Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali was set during the apartheid
period in South Africa, the poem covers the brutality of the apartheid system, and also the fight
for independence by the black natives. During the apartheid period, the blacks had little or no
right over governmental policies. The period was a time when racial discrimination was at it
peek, and the blacks segregated from the whites. A lot of active activist in South Africa were
placed into confinement because of their protest and struggle for a racial free society. The
disadvantageous system of the white’s minority government of the period, led many black
Africans to work under a harsh and unfavourable condition in other to earn a living. During the
period of the apartheid, governmental policies were enjoyed by few blacks.
The poem starts by describing a very young and lonely boy playing on a swing as he
moves “to and fro”. He is still young and unconscious of the happenings around him, He has no
knowledge about the apartheid period. He is captured playing on a swing while his father is in
jail due probably to his protest against the white’s apartheid system. The poor black boy who is
painted in a blue shirt; like a “tattered kite” worries less about his status in the society, he cares
less about the oppression faced by the blacks.
At lines 4, as he swings” faster and faster” he begins to experience a dramatic change, he
is now matured and also aware of the happenings around him. There is a shift from a state of
ignorance to a state of self-consciousness. The thoughts whirling by and “meets in his head”
makes him to start asking his mother different questions. “the four cardinal point” which “meets
in his head” represents the gathering of different ethnic groups in south Africa, which was meant
to struggle for the transformation of black people in south Africa.
The lonely boy begins to ask his mother several questions “where did I come from,
“where will I wear long trousers”. These questions are due to the boy’s movement from a state of
ignorance to that of consciousness.
The final line signifies that the boy is now fully mature, and wants to know the reason
why his father was captured and put into jail. He is now in contrast with the white’s injustice and
oppression towards the blacks.
Finally, the poem captures the robotized south African people who experience a
transformation from a state of lack of awareness to that of political consciousness.

Dennis Brutus’ Letter to Martha

“Letters to Martha” is a collection of eighteen poems or letters which attempt to convey the
poet’s displeasing experiences in the Apartheid South Africa prison. The apartheid system in
disfavor of the Blacks, seeks to entrench the Whites’ supremacy over the Blacks. The impact of
the system is well felt when one is convicted and thrown into the aparthied prison which the poet
falls victim and he’s propelled to write to a supposed girlfriend _ Martha, and by extension to the
society at large. This is what gives birth to the poem: “Letters to Martha “.
Dennis starts by relying the experiences from the “mixed feelings; sick relief, the load of
the approaching days apprehension…” that comes with the reality that one has been convicted a
rebel and will soon share and become a part of the “hints of brutality”, dehumanization, human
degradation and other social vices that makes up the Apartheid South Africa prison.
He further says:
“one learn quite soon
that nails and screws
and other sizable bits of metal
must be handed in”.
This implies that soon-to-be prisoners are informed beforehand that brutality is the order of the
day in the prison. Therefore, they need to fortify themselves with “sizable bits of metal” so they
also can stand the test of time.
In letter 3, the poet being new to the way of life of the prisoners, began asking what it is that
incites this reckless violence amongst inmates and also from warders to prisoners:
“by what shrewdness was it instigated?
desire for prestige or lust for power:
or can it _ strange, most strange be love,
strange love?”
It is the norm and tradition of prisoners to transfer aggression on one another by stabbing.

Another very prominent attribute of the prison life is that prisoners begins to find solace in
religion: Christianity to be precised. They are given bibles and the whole idea is said to be “a
way of suggesting reformation”. Religion goes beyond reformation for the weaklings as they
trust it to “invoke divine revenge against a rampaging injustice”. Night prayers and soliloquies
suggests that one is talking to God are a very common habit.
Amongst other displeasing experiences, the height of it all for the poet is homosexuality.
He calls it “the most terrible most rendering pathetic of all a prisoner’s predicament”. It is said of
an inmate “Blue champagne”_ the most popular “girl” who takes turns sleeping with several
other prisoners each night. There are also many others who beg to be slept with.
Beyond gayism is also coprophilism, necrophilism, fellatio and pennis-amputation as
stated in the poem. This eyesores for the poet are what triggers the need to put pen into paper:
“I send this fragments
random pebbles I picked up
from the landscape of my experiences”.
To add to the prison situation is the delay in setting prisoners free. They are held bound for a
very long time and this generates rage and more opposition of the blacks against the apartheid
regime. Hopes of becoming free in days to come begins to die. Soon, they all come to accept
their fate as victims of circumstances and they brace themselves up to” just get used to the idea”.
Such were the fate of those who falls victim of the apartheid system.
The other side of the whole experiences is the bound that conpeers share as “one comes
to welcome the closer contact and understanding one achieves with one’s fellow men, fellow
compeers”. They become intimate in the process of sharing in each other’s empathy:
“Then those who shares one’s lives
and hungers
grew more dear on this account_
Fiks and Jeff and Neville
and the others.”
The poet closes on account of appreciating what freedom is until one falls victim of a
restricted life alongside loneliness. Suddenly, he began to envy the birds and stars of how they
live a carefree life “and their exuberant acrobatics become matters for intrigued speculation and
wonderment.”
Conclusively, the poem is less of style and more of content as the poet seeks to relate his
experiences and devices of South Africa Apartheid system. The system is a subject of
victimization and human degradation of the Blacks. “Letters to Martha” remains a masterwork in
the history of African poems.
The Poet
Dennis Vincent Brutus (1924 - 2009) was a South African poet and journalist and one among his
popular poem is Letter To Martha 17 which shares the inner thoaghts of a prisoner. In this
article, discussion will revolve around the use symbolism, style and setting by the poet.
The Style: In terms of style, Letter To Martha 17 by Dennis Brutus is a 6 stanza poem totaling
29 lines. Brutus structured this poem in free verse with the use of run-on-lines maybe to please
the urgency for freedom as felt by the poem speaker. Besides the line arrangement, soberness
and simplicity in diction are things of note because it doesn’t require much literary expertise for
anyone to comprehend the message of the poem.
The Symbolism: Let’s look at the use of symbolism amongst other poetic devices embodied in
the poem. The “mind” in the poem symbolized the prisoner and his thoughts as seen in line 8 of
the poem “the mind turns upwards/ when it can”; it represented the man unhappy state of
confinement. In line 12, “the arc and fluorescent” were also symbols of limitation (the barricade
of the prisoner) because they made the prisoner so oblivious of all the happenings behind the
prison walls; leaving the victim with imaginations and rhetorical questions.
The Setting: The setting of the poem “Letter To Martha 17” is clearly prison; as a reason or
another, a man landed in prison without access to the freedom he had once taken for granted
while at hand. In the prison, the prisoner in question, had no other means of expanding his
visibility than to embrace the use of his mind’s eyes imaging the freedom enjoyed by sky, cloud,
birds, etc. It must be noted that Brutus accepted that the best freedom for human is in nature. He
indirectly claimed this via the prisoner’s predicament as he revealed the sweetness in the
freedom enjoyed by the birds, the sky, the clouds, etc.
WEEK 9: CENTRAL AFRICAN POETRY
The Cry of the Bird
for Daniel Bourdanné
I wanted to be overcome with silence

I abandoned the woman I love

I closed myself to the bird of hope

That invited me to climb the branches

Of the tree, my double

I created havoc in the space of my garden

I opened up my lands

I found the air that circulates between the panes

Pleasant. I was happy

To be my life’s witch doctor

When the evening rolled out its ghosts

The bird in me awoke again

Its cry spread anguish

In the heart of my kingdom

Nimrod Bena Djangrang

Nimrod Bena Djangrang was born in Koyom, in the south of Chad in 1950. Originally a teacher
of French, history, geography and philosophy in Chad and the Ivory Coast, Nimrod has
published poems and short stories in various periodicals such as Cargo , Mâche- Laurier and
Revue Noire . Translations from French into English by Patrick Williamson

WEEK 11: NORTH AFRICAN POETRY

LITERATURE: ARABIC, NORTH AFRICAN
North African writers convey their ideas in French and Arabic in a variety of literary genres.
The three countries of the Maghrib—Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia—share more than common
geographic boundaries. They all succumbed to foreign invasions in the past and fell victim to the
same colonial power: France. Colonial rule in the countries of the Maghrib differed only in its
strength and its duration, Algeria having endured the longest and most traumatizing occupation.
The French army landed on the coast of Algeria in 1830 and completed its occupation of the
country in 1881. Tunisia was conquered in 1880, and in 1912 Morocco was colonized. Algeria
was a French province from 1848 until it achieved independence in 1962; the other two countries
remained French protectorates until 1956.
In Algeria, Arabic lost its efficacy long before it was declared a foreign language in 1938.
Algerians conceded the fact that the language of the colonizer was the language of bread, but
because it is the language of Islam, Arabic maintained its place in the lives of the people, even
the Berbers, who spoke various Berber dialects. It became primarily the language of religious
teaching and practice. Culturally, Morocco and Tunisia experienced French colonialism in a
more subdued manner because they had centers of Arabic learning—the two mosque
universities, al-Qarawiyyin in Fez and the Zaytuna in Tunis—that safeguarded and continued an
existing cultural tradition. Many schools opted for bilingual instruction, so Arabic was on a par
with French. The linguistic situation in the Maghrib has provoked heated polemics between the
partisans of French and those of Arabic, particularly in Algeria. Although it remains an issue to
the present day due to the growing number of writers expressing themselves in French, it has lost
its political connotation.
The three countries of the Maghrib are similar in the role assumed by traditional Muslim
centers, the zawiyas. Jealous of their power over the population and intent on playing a role in
the political arena, some Zawiya leaders placed themselves in an ambiguous position when they
cooperated with French colonial authorities The French used them to legitimize their presence
and gain the support of the local population. Aided by widespread illiteracy, the zawiyas
maintained their control until they were challenged by the reformists of the Salafiyya movement,
who were increasingly alarmed by the interference of the colonial administration in the religious
affairs of their countries. The Algerian Reda Huhu ridiculed the official imams appointed by the
colonial authorities and even spoke of an "official Islam," in contrast to the "people's Islam" in
his Ma Himar al-Hakim (Conversations with al-Hakim's donkey).
Following in the footsteps of the Salafiyya of the Mashreq, Maghribi intellectuals such as
Allal al-Fasi (1910–1974) in Morocco, Abd al-Hamid Ben Badis (1889–1940) in Algeria, and
Mohammad al-Fadel Ben Ashour (1909–1970) and Mohammad al-Taher Ben Ashour (1879–
1973) in Tunisia confronted the leaders of the zawiyas. Their aim was to prove the compatibility
of Islam and modernity, and the absence of a contradiction between progress, even in a Western
context, and Islam. Their position appealed to the Maghribi youth. Opening up to the West,
however, did not occur without a price, even for the French-educated Maghribis. The clash of the
two civilizations was successfully dramatized by the Moroccan Driss Chraibi in Succession
ouverte (1962; Heirs to the past) and Le passe simple (1983; The simple past), the Algerian
Mouloud Mammeri (1917–1989) in his novel Le sommeil du juste (1955; The sleep of the just),
and the Tunisian Albert Memmi (b. 1920). Memmi endured hardships as a Tunisian Jew caught
between family traditions, colonial policy, and Nazi ideology, which he related in his novel La
statue de sel (1953; The statue of salt).
Maghribi writers writing in French are finally reconciled with their native culture and at
ease in their setting. Some, such as the Algerian Habib Tengour (b. 1947), the Tunisian
Abdelwahhab Meddeb (b. 1946), and the Moroccan Taher Ben Jelloun (b. 1944), dug into their
Arab Islamic history and their folk heritage in search of subject matter for their works.
Independence has, in a certain way, liberated the writers from guilt vis-à-vis their adoption of the
French language.
The 1980s witnessed an explosion of production in the Maghrib in various literary
genres, in prose and in verse, and in Arabic and French. Particularly prominent in this trend are
the women writers. They are slowly filling a space that for many years was dominated by the
lone presence of the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar (b. 1936). Approaching the women's world
from a feminist angle, her writings shed much of their traditionally romantic outlook on gender
relations and with L'amour, la fantasia (1985; Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade) and Ombre
sultane (1987; A sister to Scheherazade), she achieved a new depth by mixing history and
fiction. Although Djebar has given a voice to Algerian women through films and plays, her
greatest contribution is in fiction. Her latest novel, La femme sans sepulture (2002; Woman
without a shroud) is a somewhat fictionalized biography of an Algerian woman who fought
during the war of independence. Algeria's now long list of other women writing in French
includes established names such as Leila Sebbar (b. 1941), Aicha Lemsine (b. 1942), and Anna
Greki (1931–1966), and new names such as Hawa Djabali (b. 1949), Miriam Ben (b. 1928) and,
more recently, Nina Bouraoui (b. 1967).
Women writing in Arabic, on the other hand, have relied more on poetry to express
themselves. One of the early poets, Ahlam Mustaghanmi (b. 1953), has recently turned to fiction,
publishing two novels, Dhakirat al-jasad (1996; Memory of the flesh) and its sequel Fawda al-
Hawas (1998; The chaos of the senses). In Tunisia, Hélé Béji (b. 1948) contrasted traditional and
modern cultures in her first novel, L'oeil du jour (1985; The eye of day). Women writing in
Arabic who preceded her include Hind Azzouz (b. 1926), Nadjia Thamer (b. 1926), Arusiyya
Naluti (b. 1950), and the poet Zoubeida Béchir (b. 1938). Contributing to the feminist debate in
the Arab world, Zahra al-Jlasi (b. 1950) published al-Nas al-Muʾannath (2000; The feminine
text). In Morocco, Khanatha Bannounah (b. 1940) has contributed four collections of short
stories and two novels, al-Nar wa al-Ikhtiyar (1968; Fire and choice) and al-Ghad wa al-Ghadab
(1981; The future and the fury). A new generation of women novelists is slowly making
headway but many have not published more than a single novel.
 The boundaries of the Maghribi writers have expanded tremendously, both
geographically and culturally. Consequently, it is impossible to ignore the growing presence of
Maghribi literature outside the countries of the Maghrib, both in Europe and in the Americas.
Many writers live and work outside the Maghrib, and come into contact with various cultures.
The Tunisian Mustafa Tlili brings his experience in the United States to his novels, and the
writings of a Tunisian residing in Canada, Hédi Bouraoui (b. 1932), reveal a rich canvas on
which multiple Western cultures intertwine with Maghribi folklore. Majid el-Houssi bridges
Italian and Tunisian cultures in his poetry and fiction.
It is important to mention the role that private publishing houses in the Maghrib have
played in the promotion of Maghribi literature. Although they impose a financial burden on
aspiring young writers who publish their works at their own expense, they nevertheless provide
them with greater freedom of expression and accelerate the publication process with the
elimination of bureaucracy.
The writings of the Maghribis have echoed during the last two decades the concerns of
the population and the social ills in Morocco that contribute to clandestine immigration, as
dramatized in Youssouf Amin Elalamy's Les clandestins (2000; The clandestines). The rejection
of both the Islamists and the government in power in Algeria has fallen on the shoulders of
women novelists struggling to secure their rights in a society where they are constantly
victimized. Many of the more political writers have so far been the authors of a single work, so it
is difficult to assess their literary future.
Whereas more writers in Algeria are resorting to the French language as their medium of
expression, the scene in Morocco seems well balanced between Arabic and French, with the
scale tilting in favor of Arabic. New fiction works of great literary value are being published,
among them Ahmad alTawfiq's novels in which he reconciles Arab and Berber traditions, Izz ed-
dine Tazi's huge literary production, and the numerous works of Mohammad Shukri, Mubarak
Rabi, and Bensalem Himmish. The change in leadership in Morocco after 1999 led to the release
of many prisoners who published books describing their experiences in what came to be called
prison literature. In contrast, francophone literature in present-day Tunisia is not a strong trend
and offers no clear direction. Except for Hélé Béji (b.1948) and to a lesser extent Moncef
Ghachem (b. 1947), few have established a reputation beyond Tunisia's borders.

Forms and Themes

The form of oral poems is not limited to set patterns of lines or rhythms. A good number of them
are literally songs containing poetic elements such as rhyme, assonance, and alliteration.
However, when transcribed and printed in European languages, oral poetry resembles free verse.
Repetition is a common device of the praise poem, whose rhythm can reflect the tonal qualities
of certain African languages. Written poetry of the colonial era borrows from oral poetry and
European style; there is a modernist quality to the body of twentieth century African poetry—
most notably the absence of rhyme. The Hausa oral poem “Ali, Lion of the World!” uses
repetition effectively, as does modernist Cheney-Coker in “The Hunger of the Suffering Man”
(1980).
A functional art, African poetry in its oral and written forms has addressed a variety of
themes, including worldview, mysticism, values, religion, nature, negritude, personal
relationships, anticolonialism, pan-Africanism, neocolonialism, urbanism, migration, exile, the
African diaspora, and patriarchy, as well as such universals as valor, birth, death, betrayal, and
love. Religious poetry is exemplified by Islamic influences in such languages as Arabic, Hausa,
and Swahili and in Ifa oral verses. A primary motif is the spiritual world, often reflected in a
praise or evocation of ancestors.
Imagery in African poetry frequently evokes the natural environment, as in Brutus’s
“Robben Island Sequence,” in which the poet alludes to “the blood on the light sand by the sea,”
ironically blending imprisonment and seascape. Neto implies the hardships of colonization in
“The African Train” through the image of “the rigorous African hill,” and another lusophone
writer, Sousa, suggests pan-Africanism in “Let My People Go,” with references to “Negro
spirituals,” Paul Robeson, and Marian Anderson. Negritude is observable in U Tam’si’s “Brush
Fire” (1957): “my race/ it flows here and there a river.”
Furthermore, the sometimes problematic experience of westernization is echoed in
Macgoye’s “Mathenge” (1984), which juxtaposes cultural memory and Western modernity: “the
neon light, the photo flash.” Similarly, Zimunya contrasts the urban and rural in “Kisimiso,”
which describes a son “boastful of his experiences in the city of knives and crooks.” African
poets have also mined their experiences outside the continent, suggested in Anyidoho’s “The
Taino in 1992” (1993), which remembers “a hurricane of Arawak sounds” in the Caribbean.
Gender themes appear in a line from a Zulu woman’s oral self-praise poem, “I am she who cuts
across the game reserve,” and in the straightforward poem “Abortion,” by an Egyptian poet born
in the 1960’s, Iman Mirsal, who evokes the image “lots of foetuses.” Acholonu’s “Water
Woman” blends orality with natural imagery evoking a “daughter of the river.”
Although most of the poetry in European languages uses standard grammar, Nigerian
Ezenwa-Ohaeto composed “I Wan Bi President” (1988) in pidgin; earlier poets Casely-Hayford
and Nigerian Frank Aig-Imoukhuede also wrote in africanized English. For the most part,
African poets writing after the independence era have remolded free-verse forms and have
borrowed or incorporated elements of oral poetry, using folklore, songs, rhythms, words, or
concepts from indigenous languages. Osundare uses animal imagery in Waiting Laughters
(1989): Ah! Aramonda [wonder of wonders]The mouth has swallowed somethingToo hard for
the mill of the stomach.
 Furthermore, certain poets, who valorize African languages, compose initially in
indigenous languages, such as Kenyan Gitahi Gititi (Gikuyu) and Eritrean (Tigrinya) Reesom
Haile.
Modern African poets have strived for a poetic voice that recognizes orality and
evocative metaphors, demonstrating how the imposed colonial languages along with African
mother tongues can be honed to express relevant social and cultural images. Because written
poetry may also be performed, African poets have worked for a balance between abstract and
accessible metaphors in order to continue the functional and communal art of their poetic
forebears.