African Literature Poem

Hello readers:) 

                       This is a response blog on a task given by my teacher. It was related to African literature. 

             In this blog I am given to analyse the thematic studies of Two poems one is You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed by Gabriel Okara and second is Live Burial by Wole Soyinka. 

You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed

Gabriel Okara

"The straight word never runs away from the crooked word"

Gabriel Imomotimi Okara 

24 April 1921 – 25 March 2019

was a Nigerian poet and novelist who was born in Bumoundi in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. The first modernist poet of Anglophone Africa, he is best known for his early experimental novel, The Voice (1964), and his award-winning poetry, published in The Fisherman's Invocation (1978) and The Dreamer, His Vision (2005). In both his poems and his prose, Okara drew on African thought, religion, folklore and imagery, and he has been called "the Nigerian Negritude".According to Brenda Marie Osbey, editor of his Collected Poems, "It is with publication of Gabriel Okara's first poem that Nigerian literature in English and modern African poetry in this language can be said truly to have begun."

Poem

In your ears my song

is motor car misfiring

stopping with a choking cough;

and you laughed and laughed and laughed.

In your eyes my ante-

natal walk was inhuman, passing

your ‘omnivorous understanding’

and you laughed and laughed and laughed

You laughed at my song,

you laughed at my walk.

Then I danced my magic dance

to the rhythm of talking drums pleading, but you shut your eyes

and laughed and laughed and laughed

And then I opened my mystic

inside wide like the sky,

instead you entered your

car and laughed and laughed and laughed

You laughed at my dance,

you laughed at my inside.

You laughed and laughed and laughed.

But your laughter was ice-block

laughter and it froze your inside froze

your voice froze your ears

froze your eyes and froze your tongue.

And now it’s my turn to laugh;

but my laughter is not

ice-block laughter. For I

know not cars, know not ice-blocks.

My laughter is the fire

of the eye of the sky, the fire

of the earth, the fire of the air,

the fie of the seas and the

rivers fishes animals trees

and it thawed your inside,

thawed your voice, thawed your

ears, thawed your eyes and

thawed your tongue.

So a meek wonder held

your shadow and you whispered;

‘Why so?’

And I answered:

‘Because my fathers and I

are owned by the living

warmth of the earth

through our naked feet.’

Themes

1.Racism

: a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race (Merriam Webster) 

racism, also called racialism, the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races”; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others. The term is also applied to political, economic, or legal institutions and systems that engage in or perpetuate discrimination on the basis of race or otherwise reinforce racial inequalities in wealth and income, education, health care, civil rights, and other areas. Such institutional, structural, or systemic racism became a particular focus of scholarly investigation in the 1980s with the emergence of critical race theory, an offshoot of the critical legal studies movement. Since the late 20th century the notion of biological race has been recognized as a cultural invention, entirely without scientific basis.

In this poem it was about how they (white) people laughed on their physical structure and for their screen they laughed on their culture also. They can't understand others culture because they consider they are superior and other are inferior. 

2.Cultural Conflict 

A cultural conflict is a dislike, hostility, or struggle between communities who have different philosophies and ways of living, resulting in contradictory aspirations and behaviors. The notion originates from sociological conflict theories and anthropological concepts of intercultural relations.

In this poem it was conflict of culture and race and he was give the example of their song is for them car misfiring they are laughed on their physical structure their walk is inhuman for them laughed on their dance poet try to said that their culture is different from African culture they have the mindset like their culture is more civilized and better than African culture so they are laughed on this was the cultural conflict. 

3.Modernism

Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, and social organization which reflected the newly emerging industrial world, including features such as urbanization, architecture, new technologies, and war. Artists attempted to depart from traditional forms of art, which they considered outdated or obsolete. The poet Ezra Pound's 1934 injunction to "Make it New" was the touchstone of the movement's approach.

In this poem it was about modernism with the context of using cars. In the first stanza their song is for white people. It was like car's misfiring. 

4.Colonialism

Western colonialism, a political-economic phenomenon whereby various European nations explored, conquered, settled, and exploited large areas of the world.

Colonialism is defined as “control by one power over a dependent area or people.” It occurs when one nation subjugates another, conquering its population and exploiting it, often while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people. By 1914, a large majority of the world's nations had been colonized by Europeans at some point.

The concept of colonialism is closely linked to that of imperialism, which is the policy or ethos of using power and influence to control another nation or people that underlies colonialism.

Colonialism was describe in three ways like it was about Physical torture, mental torture, and traits of being inferior as slave and inferior then white they face physical torture. 

5.Nationalism

Nationalism came into the focus of philosophical debate three decades ago, in the nineties, partly in consequence of rather spectacular and troubling nationalist clashes. Surges of nationalism tend to present a morally ambiguous, and for this reason often fascinating, picture. “National awakening” and struggles for political independence are often both heroic and cruel; the formation of a recognizably national state often responds to deep popular sentiment but sometimes yields inhuman consequences, from violent expulsion and “cleansing” of non-nationals to organized mass murder. The moral debate on nationalism reflects a deep moral tension between solidarity with oppressed national groups on the one hand and repulsion in the face of crimes perpetrated in the name of nationalism on the other. Moreover, the issue of nationalism points to a wider domain of problems related to the treatment of ethnic and cultural differences within democratic polity, arguably among the most pressing problems of contemporary political theory.

In the stanza five poet describe the richness of their African land connect that they are original and in poem last three stanza he was try to say that Or pretending that their culture is rich then white and pretending his nation. 

 

For another poem and themes click here