African Poetry Essay

RICAN songTruthful and resultful human experience forms the basis for written expression in any branch of literature. Conv oculusd through a language of international exchange, it washbasin reach a wider audience for whom it becomes a subroutineful reference in times of need. The English language attained international prominence due to some(prenominal) reasons one of the most important beingness colonization. As in other countries of the Commonwealth, English was imposed on Anglophone Africa as a means of easy conversation and administrative convenience.It is a historical irony that the same language serves the Afri enkindle writer in voicing his thoughts and contacts to the world at large. While discussing the future of English, Simeon hall porter observes, It will adopt to meet new needs and in that incessant reshaping and adaptation, every speaker and writer consciously or unconsciously will mulct some part. (181) Today, the prediction of Porter came true of African wri ting in English. It brought strength and appeal to the English language by adding a large cooking stove 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 spiritualist 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. (61) It is applaudable that the writers of Africa succeeded in accomplishing the above task cast by Achebe, which is by any means not an easy one.Their successful integration of indigenous experience and expression in an alien tongue accredited worldwide acclaim. Their success proved, as critics wish well Srinivasa Iyengar pointed out, A shot in the arm of modern English Literature has had to come from West Africans like Amos Tutuola, Wole Soyin ka and Gabriel Okara. (16) The social occasion 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 comely 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 alsoa nations news report 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 h arshest 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 song by Kenyas 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 thats mine with that practiced, long-drawn, insulting sneer. (quoted in Iyengar, 30) In a poem entitled If you want to know me Noemia De Sousa writes ruefully of Africa, by effectively use the literary device of personification thusThis is what I amempty sockets despairing of possessing of life a mouth torn open in an suffer 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. (Narasimhaiah, 137) The much-brutalized Dark clean 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 score between the conspiratorial whispers and the winds singing. a twig in the courtyard snaps and report of a gun is down the stairsstood. (Narasimhaiah, 137) Nigerian poet , the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinkas masterful irony skilfully 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 ladys query regarding his darkness thus HOW DARK? I had not misheard Are you light OR VERY DARK (Narasimhaiah, 149).The ill- mannered silence between the ii is filled with images such as stench of false breath of public- hide-and-speak, Red booth, R ed- 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 Rubadiris poem A Negro Labourer in Liverpool Here his hope is the shovel And his fulfillment resignation. (Narasimhaiah, 134) One of the most important phases in African poetry is Negritude, a powerful literary movement founded by Aime Cesaire of Senegal.Among other things, the Negritude poets favoured the theme of glorification of Africa. They worshipped anything African in scintillating rhymes. Anger at inequity meted out to the colonized Africa is also one of the oft-repeated themes of their poetry. Heres an example from David Diops poem Africa. Africa, my Africa Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs. Is this you, this impale 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 Af rica your Africa.That grows again patiently obstinately And its fruit gradually acquires The bitter taste of liberty. (Narasimhaiah, 153) 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, rot Your face gleams up Beneath me in the dusk Abandoned A wounded dove Helpless Beneath the knife of love. (Quoted in Theroux, 2) Great feeling for Africa is felt in Abioseh Nicols poem The Meaning of Africa thus Africa, you were once just a name to me So I came backsailing big bucks 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. (Quoted in Povey, 39) A poets affirmation of his love for Africa shines radiantly through the following verses. Dark Africa My dawn is here Behold I see A copious warm glow in the East, And my day will soon be here. (Iyengar, 30) Deification of Africa is a fit topic for many African poets. Perhaps this is their reception to the self glorification and the civilizing zeal of the imperial powers of Europe.Bernard Dadies 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 excite carried the World since the dawn of time And my laugh over the World, through the night creates The Day. (Narasimhaiah, 122) In Africa, the advent of the white mans civilizing mission displaced scores of native societies from their own cultural roots.The impact of the spread of Christianity combined with actual benefits such as classroom education and well-paid jobs forced many Africans abandon their own corporate trust 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 t ribal 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 civilizationsFinding the balance irksome. (Quoted in Povey, 39) 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. (Quoted in Gleason, 143) 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 behave 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 adopt them For the feast that is coming. (Quoted in Theroux, 4) He accomplishes the same excellence of evolving extended rhythms in poems like The Long Jou rney and My Song. Poetic excellence and rare innovative originative 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 aBroken monody. (quoted in Walsh, 48) Images that can evoke a situation beyond hope which are reminiscent of Eliots war poetry are visible in the following verses from K. brewages poem The Search. The past is but the cinders Of the present The future The smoke That escaped Into the cloud- bound sky.(quoted in Walsh, 50) 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 poets words such as, You must submit the sifting sands of self- seeking and deceitand erect far mightier mansions on the rock of healthy soil. (Iyenga r, 36)Lenrie Peters poems are short on the print but deep on ones mind like the one cited below Open the gates To East and West Bring in all Thats good and best. The memorable lines of Peters poem On a wet September Morning with their sheer beauty of imagination 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 blastSwamping the lamentation of the horn Then the heraldic drums In slow crescendo boost 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. espite 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 opportuniti es, the African poet has effortless creative capacity.It is an enriching combination of rich oral literature, native experience and trade 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.