This blog is in response to a task assigned by Yesha ma’am based on Gabriel Okara’s African poem ‘The Piano and The Drums’. This blog deals with an assigned class activity to write any one theme in class based on our understanding and the same is published in a blog under the title of class activity. Also this blog carries the detailed information, summary and analysis of the poem.
THE PIANO AND THE DRUMS BY GABRIEL OKARA
About Gabriel Okara-
Gabriel Imomotimi Okara (24 April 1921 – 25 March 2019) was a Nigerian poet and novelist who was born in Bumoundi in Nigeria. The first Modernist poet of Anglophone Africa, he is best known for his early experimental novel, The Voice (1964). In his poems and his prose, Okara drew on African thought, religion, folklore and imagery and he has been called "the Nigerian Negritudism". He was awarded the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1979 for The Fisherman's Invocation.
One of Okara's most famous poems is "Piano and Drums". Another popular poem, "You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed", is a frequent feature of anthologies. Okara was very concerned with what happens when the ancient culture of Africa is faced with modern Western Culture, as in his poem "Once Upon a Time".
Title/ Symbols in poem-
The poet uses two musical instruments Piano and Drums to symbolize two different cultures. It evokes cultural dichotomy in the poem and it forms the tiles of the poem also. The poet uses the "piano" to symbolize the western culture, and the drums to symbolize African culture. The poem is basically a postcolonial poem which exhibits the dilemma in the citizens of the colonized region when the new, opposite and complex culture is imposed upon them.
Background of the Poem:
This poem brings out the post- Independence attitude of elites who instead of going back to their traditions and cultures get stuck to the western civilization and begin the period of neo- colonialism. Which results in a collapse of African culture. Poet uses drums, a symbol of African culture which is lost by Piano, symbol of western/ white- masters culture. In African cultures drums play an important role, it begins their traditional ceremonies. These drums are called ‘djembe’ which means to stay true to the history. READ MORE ABOUT THE CONNECTION OF DRUMS AND AFRICA.
Wole Soyinka and D. O Fagunwa in
“The Forest of a Thousand Daemons”
page seven say “like the sonorous proverb
do we drum agidigbo (drum), it is the
wise who dance to it, and the learned
who understand its language.”
Structure of the poem-
The poem is divided into Four stanzas of 29 lines. It is written in simple, visual and intelligible language. It has no consistent rhyming scheme, hence one can say that it is mainly a free verse. The mood of the poem is dilemma, mixed feeling and confusion; it had a sober tone of lamentation.
Stanza 1 | African nature/ climate/ environment and occupation |
Stanza 2 | Reminiscent of childhood, the rawness of Africa, Satire to white world. |
Stanza 3 | Piano/ White Culture and its complexities, Lost African traditional culture |
Stanza 4 | Dilemma/ Confusion/ lost between two different or hybrid cultures in Africa in the Postcolonial period. |
About the Poem-
The poem ‘The Piano and The Drums’ was published in ‘Collected Poems (edited and with an introduction by Brenda Marie Osbey)’ in 2016 in Part I: Early poems. The setting of the poem appears to be the poet's village and it is a typical African countryside as the poet refers to ‘riverside’.
The poem begins with a speaker sitting on the riverside at dawn. He hears ‘jungle drums’ which have ‘mystic rhythm’, some supernatural strength, and are raw which connect the speaker to the nature and culture of pre- colonial Africa. He describes the hunting occupation of African people. The traditional drums and its beating gives strength and power to Africans to hunt and fight with wild animals like leopards and panthers.
In the second stanza the poet is nostalgic about his infancy when he used to suckle in her mother’s lap. Which can be read as his connection with his motherland. He describes the rawness and connection of Africa with nature through ‘paths with no innovation’, he walked on the paths which were not tarred as in western culture, satire of their materialistic and civilized life.
In the third stanza poet/ speaker is hearing ‘wailing piano’, emergence or beginning of colonization. Through the use of complex musical technical words like ‘concerto’, ‘diminuendo’, ‘counterpoint’, ‘crescendo’, he is exhibiting the complexity of western civilization and culture. He deploys them to emphasize the difficulty in understanding this new sound.
During the last stanza of the poem, the speaker laments on the level of confusion the new sound brings when it mixes with the drums. The speaker finds himself lost between the amalgamation to two completely opposite cultures.
Glossary:
- Telegraphing- send (someone) a message by telegraph.
- Pounce- spring or swoop suddenly so as to catch prey by animal
- Spears- a weapon
- Torrent-a strong and fast-moving stream of water or other liquid.
- Topples- overbalance or cause to overbalance and fall.
- Suckling- baby who feeds through breast
- Wailing- crying
- Coaxing- persistent gentle
- Diminuendo- a decrease in loudness in a piece of music.
- Counterpoint-the technique of setting, writing, or playing a melody or melodies in conjunction with another, according to fixed rules
- Crescendo- the loudest point reached in a gradually increasing sound.
- Labyrinth- a complicated irregular network of passages or paths in which it is difficult to find one's way; a maze.
- Dagger-point- The point or tip of a dagger.
Poem Analysis-
The poem brings the difference between the normal lifestyle of Africans and that of the modern world. The central theme of the poem talks on the effect of foreign culture on Africans.
In the very first stanza poets describe the jungle drums sending ‘urgent’ and ‘raw’ messages to remind the speaker about his culture and tradition, the natural and rustic African environment where he lived his youth days before the effect of western civilization. It's a message to a son of Africa who has lost his own identity to get connected or in remembrance of his native land which is scared by Western world. The rhythms of these jungle drums raises his memories of hunters with spears stalking leopards and panthers.
With the rhythms of drums and memories of youth days, the speaker gets nostalgic about his childhood days, as a baby sucking her mother’s breast in the comfortable lap, playing in the streets of mother land. He recollects his walk on the raw ‘paths with no innovation’, simple African life. With the same recollection it seems like Poet is being satiric to the western world for their innovations and development. As Africa is using ‘rugged and untarred path which is surrounded by nature.
In the third stanza poets use the imagery of ‘wailing piano’. The piano is a musical instrument which is played individually which suggests isolation. And the use of complex terms like ‘diminuendo’, ‘crescendo’ suggests the complexities of the western civilization and the world. With the musical imagery of a concerto, the poet- speaker paints a culture that is in disarray (disorganization) despite its advancement. The piano (western world) silently tries to blend in counterpoint with the rhythm of the drums (Africans) to create a sweet melody but this attempt ends up producing discordant music, which symbolizes the impossibility of living two diverse cultures together. The "coaxing" blend of the conflicting melodies results in a dissonant tune whereby the speaker becomes lost in its "complexities".
The last stanza of the poem brings the dilemma in the speaker/ poet. The amalgamation of the two cultures has confused Africa as well as poets which culture to be adapted, there is no one in its fullest. In the end of the poem also the speaker is on the same spot ‘riverside', lost in the ‘mist’ of the two incompatible cultures. So, the poet-speaker is caught in a tangled in between his African roots and past, and his exposure to modern civilization through education.
The end of the poem has no end to the confusion of the poet/ speaker of the citizens of this tangled culture. They aren't able to balance between the two opposite cultures. They struggle to cope up with the hybridity.
Themes of Poem:
- Celebration Of nature
- no place like motherland/ home
- living a double standard lifestyle
- acculturation
- Inferiority
- cultural obliteration
- cultural conflict
- Innocent
- Neo colonialism
- cultural orientation
- Nature
- loss of Identity laws of Africa's perfect state dependence
- dilemma
Class Activity: Motherland in the poem ‘The piano and The Drums’ by Gabriel Okara.
As the blog discusses the whole poem, it will talk briefly about the importance of mother land.
Motherland: one’s native country; mother country.
We also have a Sanskrit shloka which suggests the importance of Ramayana about mother and motherland.
“जननी जन्मभूमिश्च स्वर्गादपि गरीयसी|”
Translation- One’s mother and motherland are superior to the highest heavens.
In the first two stanzas of the poem we see the speaker poet being nostalgic about his youthful period and his childhood in the raw of Africa before the white/ western world started encroaching on their region. Sitting riverside in nature he recollects the origin, tradition, culture and occupation of Africa.
‘jungle drums’, ‘mystic rhythm’, ‘hunters crouch with spears poised’, ‘paths with no innovations’, ‘naked warmth of hurrying feet’, ‘green leaves and wild flowers pulsing’,
are the phrases from the poem which suggests the speaker/ poet's memory for his motherland and love for his nation.
Currently (in poem) African culture is affected or overpowered by the western culture which is destroying the serenity, beauty and harmony of the African environment. Poet is also lured by the western culture and the ‘jungle drums’ that is his root culture/ motherland is calling him through ‘telegraphing’.
‘Their colonial education taught them to see Britain as the motherland.’
Which can also be read in present time, that is in post- colonial period and is applicable to all the one-time colonized countries.
Some useful reading material.
I hope this blog is useful. Thanks for visiting.
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