Great West African Poems 2

GREAT WEST AFRICAN POEMS 2
The notes that follow poems are designed to help in the extraction of the meaning of poems and in the appreciation of the technique of the poets.
The general pattern of the notes should be clearly understood. The first line-by-line explanations are those of difficult words or words used in a sense special to the poem; these are followed by interpretations of meaning and comments on the technique of the poetric expression.
Here are some poems from Wole Soyinka, Birago Diop, Kwesi Brew and J.P Clark

Wole Soyinka: He was born in 1934 at Abeokuta, Nigeria. He studied in University of Ibadan and at Leeds University, England where he graduated in English Language and Literature. The SEASON is one of his many poems.

SEASON
Rust is ripeness, rust,
And the wilted corn-plume
Pollen is mating-time when swallows
Weave a dance
Of feathered arrows
Thread corn-stalks in winged
Streaks of light. And we love to hear
Spliced phrases of the wind, to hear
Rasps in the field, where corn-leaves
Pierce like bamboo slivers
Now, garners we,
Awaiting rust on tassels, draw
Long shadows from the dusk, wreathe
The thatch in woods-smoke. Laden stalks
Ride the germ's decay- we await
The promise of the rust

Birago Diop: He was born in 1906 at Dakar, Senegal. He was educated in Senegal and in France where in qualifed in veterinary surgeon. VANITY is one of his many poems he used in expressing the presence of the ancestor.

VANITY
If we tell, gently, gently
All that we shall one day have to tell,
Who then will hear our voices without laughter,
Sad complaining voices of beggars
Who indeed will hear them without laughter?
If we roughly of our torments
Ever increasing from the start of things
What eyes will watch our large mouths
Shaped by the laughter of big children
What eyes will watch our large mouth?
What hearts will listen to our clamoring?
What ear to our pitiful anger
Which grows in us like a tumor
In the black depth of our plaintive throats?
When our Dead comes with their Dead
When they have spoken to us in their clumsy voices;
Just as our ears were deaf
To their cries, to their wild appeals
Just as our ears were deaf
They have left on the earth their cries,
In the air, on the water, where they have traced their signs
For us blind deaf and unworthy Sons
Who see nothing of what they have made
In the air, on the water, where they have traced their signs
And since we did not understand the dead
Since we have never listen to their cries
If we weep, gently, gently
If we cry roughly to our torments
What heart will listen to our clamoring,
What ear to our sobbing hearts?


KWESI BREW: He was born in 1928 at Cape Coast, Ghana, was orphaned at an early age. He had his studies in Ghana. THE MESH is a love poem.

THE MESH
We have come to the cross-roads
And I must either leave or come with you
I lingered over the choice
But in the darkness of my doubt
You lifted the lamp of love
And I saw in your face
The road that I should take

J.P CLARK: John Pepper Clark was born at Delta, Nigeria in 1935. He studied in the university of Ibadan. He is a graduate of English Literature. STREAM SIDE EXCHANGE is a poem about the future put in the simple frame work of childhood anxiety.

STREAM SIDE EXCHANGE
Child:    River bird, river bird
    Sitting all day long
    On the hook over grass
    River bird, river bird,
    Sing to me a song
    Of all that pass
    And say,
    Will mother come back today?
Bird:    You cannot know
    And should not bother;
    Tide and market come and go
    And so shall your mother.

        
       

Poems From Great lIterate of the past

Great West African Poem
 A Poet always has something to say. It might be a straight forward statement about a subject of public interest or it might be an expression of private problem, joy or interest. A Poet writes to communicate meaning and perhaps the first effect a reader do is to extract this statement, the theme of the poem. But it is not the 'subject of the matter' about that makes a poetry. Otherwise poems dealing with the same subject would all be of the same quality, and in any case there would have been no need to write in the poetic form.
The Poet combines technique to produce his meaning and it is on the success of this technique that the beauty of a poem depends.
The concreteness of the details chosen, the diction and choice of words, the imagery and figures of speech, the consonant and vowel sounds of the words, the line movement or rhythm, even the appearance of the words on the page- all these contribute to the meaning of the poem and creates the peculiar BEAUTY.

Gladys Casely- Hayford: She was born in 1904 at Axim, in Ghana to famous Ghanaian lawyer and author, Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford and of the author Adelaide Casely Hayford. Here is are favorite poem

NATIVITY
Within a native hut, ere stirred the dawn,
Unto the Pure One was an infant born,
Wrapped in blue  lappah that His mother dyed,
Laid on His father's home- tanned deerskin hide,
The Babe still slept, by all things glorified.
Spirit of the black bards burst their bonds and sang
'Peace upon the earth' until the heavens rang.
All the black babies who from the earth had fled
Peeped through the clouds- then gathered round His head,
Telling of things a baby needs to do,
When first He opens His eyes on wonder new;
Telling Him that sleep was the sweetest rest,
All comfort came from His black mother's breast.
Their gift was love caught from the springing sod,
Whilst tears and laughter were the gifts of God.
Then all the wise Men of the past stood forth,
Filling the air, East, West, South and North,
And told Him of the joy that wisdom brings
To mortals in their earthly wanderings.
The children of the past shook down each bough,
Wreathed frangipani blossoms for His brow,
They put pink lilies in His mother's hand,
And heaped for both the first fruits of the Land.
His father cut somepalm fonds, that the air
Be coaxed to Zephyrs while He rested there.
Birds trilled their hallelujahs;all the dew
Trembled with laughter, till the Babe laughed too.
Black women brought their love so wise,
And kissed their motherhood into HIS mother's eyes.

R.E.G Armattoe- He was born in 1913 at Denu in the then Gold Coast. He was a medical doctor by proffessin and worked in Northern Ireland for ten years before returning back to his country.
AFRICA
I once saw a maiden dark and comely,
Sittin by the way side, sad and lonely,
Oh! pretty maiden , so dark and comely,
Why sit by the wayside, sad and lonely,
'I am neither sad and lonely'she sad,
'But living, sir, among the deaf and dumb;
Relentlessly watching these shameless dead,
Makes my warm heart grow very cold and numb.'

Dennis Osadebay- Was born in 1911 in Asaba, Nigeria. He studied and worked in Nigeria before going to England to study Law.
YOUNG AFRICA'S PLEA
Don't preserve my customs
As some fine curios
To suit some white historian's tastes.
There's nothing artificial
That beats the natural way
In culture and ideals of life.
Let me play with the white man's ways
Let me work with the blackman's brains
Let my affairs themselves sort out.
Then in sweet rebirth
I'll rise a better man
Not ashamed to face the world.
Those who doubt my talents
In secret fear my strength
They know i am no less a man.
Let them bury their prejudice,
Let them show their noble sides,
Let me have untrammelled growth,
My friends will never know regret
And I, I never once forget.