African Poetry

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. (181) 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. (61) 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. (16) 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 lso a nations 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 in dependence, the bitterness returns again and again. The unforgettable colonial past comes angrily alive in a poem 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 using the literary device of personification thus: This is what I am mpty 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. (Narasimhaiah, 137) 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. (Narasimhaiah, 137) Nigerian poet , the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinkas 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 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 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 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 injustice 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 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. (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, Desolate 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 back ailing 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. (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 rich warm glow in the East, And my day will soon be here. (Iyengar, 30) Deification of Africa is a fit topic for many African p oets. Perhaps this is their reaction 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 have 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 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. (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 wear them under our old garments after we have washed ourselves.. ( The Anvil and the Hammer) gain, Sew the old days for me my father Sew them so that I may wear 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 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. (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. Brews 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 leave the sifting sands of self- seeking and deceit nd erect far mightier mansions on the rock of healthy soil. (Iyengar, 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 imagery and the underlying thought of universal brotherhood celebrate the oneness of the human family. To c ite 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.