THEMES Loss of value – The poem portrays the high rate of decadence in African cultural value which is being taken over by that of America and the western world. Backwardness – The backwardness in politics and administration, education, health and economy of Africa is bitterly expressed in the poem by the poetic persona when… Continue reading Vanity – Themes
Category: —AFRICAN—
Vanity – figures of speech, mood, tone and structure
POETIC DEVICE/FIGURES OF SPEECH Rhetorical question --- the poem itself is a rhetorical question. Each stanza harbours not less than two of this. E.g. – “who indeed will hear then with laughter?” what ear to our sobbing hearts” Metaphor – The word “beggar” is used to compare Africans to people who are impoverished and are… Continue reading Vanity – figures of speech, mood, tone and structure
Details of the Poem, Vanity by Birago Diop
Details of the Poem, Vanity by Birago Diop BACKGROUND The title, “Vanity”, literary means having immense interest in one’s appearance, achievement or material things. But, as the title of this poem, it figuratively refers to Africans’ penchant attitude towards material things often imported from the western world at the expense of African culture, value… Continue reading Details of the Poem, Vanity by Birago Diop
The Anvil and The Hammer by Kofi Awonoor
The Anvil and The Hammer Caught between the anvil and the hammer In the forging house of a new life Transforming the pangs that delivered me Into the joy of new songs The trapping of the past, tender and tenuous Woven with fibre of sisal and Washed in the blood of the goat in… Continue reading The Anvil and The Hammer by Kofi Awonoor
The Dining Table by Gbanabom Hallowell
The Dining Table Dinner tonight comes with gun wounds. Our desert tongues lick the vegetable blood—the pepper strong enough to push scorpions up our heads. Guests look into the oceans of bowls as vegetables die on their tongues. The table that gathers us is an island where guerillas walk the land while crocodiles… Continue reading The Dining Table by Gbanabom Hallowell
Piano and Drums by Gabriel Okara
Piano and Drums When at break of day at a riverside I hear 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,… Continue reading Piano and Drums by Gabriel Okara
Vanity by Birago Diop
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 cry roughly of our torments Ever increasing from the start of things What eyes will watch our… Continue reading Vanity by Birago Diop
Litionary 