Gobriel Okara's Poems

Gobriel Okara's Poems

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Introduction 

Cultural conflict is one of the most striking points in African poetry. In African what is culture and tradition that seems uncultured or peculiar to the western. African poet Gobriel Okara focuses the ice cold attitude of Europeans to the African culture. In African what is traditional and cultured and humorous to Europeans. They also represent the African culture in humiliated sense. Gabriel Jibaba Okara was born on 24 April in 1921. He is a Nigerian poet and novelist who were born in Bomoundi in Bayelsa state, Nigeria. He was awarded the commonwealth poetry award in 1979. His most famous poem is "Piano and Drums". His famous poem is "You laughed & laughed & laughed". It's a frequent feature of anthologies.

Okara is worried about the attack of Western culturemover the African ancient culture. His poem "Once upon a time" deals with the same theme. Also his novel' The Voice ' depicts this theme. Its protagonist Okara, like many post colonial. Africans is hunted by society and society by his own ideals. Unfortunately many of Okara' s manuscripts have been destroyed in the civil war. Gabriel Okara was born in Nigeria when there was a British colony and, indeed, it would be nearly forty years before his country was to gain independence in October 1960.During his life, Okara did jobs like, initially working as a book binder, journalist, radio broadcaster and newspaper editor. He has also travelled to the USA where he helped raise money for Nigeria by giving poetry mrecitals.

Okara’s poems tend reflect the problems that African nations face as they are torn between the culture of their European colonists and their traditional African heritage. He also looks at the traumatic effect that colonization and Decolonization can have on the self and a one's sense of personal identity. For example Okara often depicts characters suffering from 'Culture shock' as they are torn between these two irreconcilable cultures. On the one hand there is Christianity and the definite material benefits such as classroom education and well paid jobs that the European way of life offers, while on the other hand, there is the unspoken expectation that the 'true' African was allegiance to his original tribal culture and should embrace these 'roots'. This contrast is summed up nicely by another African poet called Mabel segue in the following lines:

“Here we stand

Infants overblown

Packed between two

civilizations

Finding the balance

irksome”.

As a result of this divide Okara seems to suggest many modern Africans do not know ‘who they are’ or ‘what they should be’. His poem ‘Once Upon a Time’ clearly describes the problems that can arise when the culture of ancient Africa & Modern Europe clash leaving people without a clear sense of how to behave & where to look for Once Upon a Time Okara examines the contrast between the modern culture and his African ancient culture. He wants Africans to be positive for their right future. Okara’s work, like other poets work deals with the theme of Negritude. In addition to recurrent anger at the atrocities of slavery and colonization Negritude worship anything African and use scintillating rhythms or vibrant descriptors to personifying or indeed defying their homeland.

‘Once Upon Time’ was written as a conversation of father and son. It is Okara’s style tomexplain what happens when a traditional African culture meets the forces of the western way of life. I think the poem ridicules the fake personalities of many people and to try and get then to return to a natural and innocent state. If we compose ‘Once Upon a Time’ and ‘Coleridge Jackson’, we find that both the poems show how black people have been treated in western society by racist individuals. The poem discusses the conversation between what seems to be a father wants to learn from his son how to go back to normality and no longer be fake. The poem ‘Once Upon a Time’ starts by the father telling his son how the people or they used to laugh with their hearts. I think that the word ‘they’ refers to western people who are while the poems description gives the impression of genuine emotion given off by the people. The poet further says that now they only laugh with their teeth, while their ice back cold eyes search behind his shadow’. This indicates fake negative and false feelings and it is a very cold description. This affects the tone of the poem that now becomes sinister and bitter. The lines….

‘ They used to shake hands with their hearts’

Shows

true and genuine emotion the first stanza

presents the reality…

"Now they only shake hands without hearts

while their left hands search

my empty pockets”.

The above lines again deal with the precedence of the people. The stanza three explain more about the changes he has noticed in this false people. But the phases ‘Feel at home’! Come again, but then the poet goes on to say that he will come again ‘Once’, Twice’ but there will ‘Be no more trice’ ‘for then I find doors shut on me’. This shows that the falseness is seen in human being everywhere.

In stanza four there is the adaptations and solutions that the man has found to counter the problems. It begins by saving that the man has ’learned many things’, already suggesting that he has changed to fit in. The poet explainsthe things he has learn. He says that he has learn to ‘Wear’ the faces and informs that he wears faces for different situations. For example, he tells us that he has an

‘office face’,

‘Street face’ and ‘Host face’.

The stanza five deals with the fake attributes to go along with the fake looks. This poem has many repetitions. The poet says that he has also ‘learned to laugh with only his teeth’ and ‘shakes hand without his heart’. The poet  criticizes the western ways that is adopted. The man seems to be the man that is ashamed of himself and is confessing to his son how for the fake attitudes have developed. The sixth and seventh stanza shows the

regret as he says….

"I want to be what I used to be

when I was like you’ I want”.

Showing that he wants to be honest and truthful again. Mystic Drum The Mystic Drum is Okara’s love lyric. The Mystic Drum evinces a tripartite ritual pattern of imitation from innocence through intimacy to experience. By comparison to the way of zone as manifested in the experience of Zen master, Chin Yuan Wei Asian this pattern resolves itself into an emotional and epistemic logical journey from conventional knowledge through more intimate knowledge to learn of experience empowers the lover to understand that beneath the surface attractiveness of what we know very well may lie an abyss of the unknown and unknowable belching darkness. But experience teaches us at this stage of substantial knowledge not to expose ourselves to the dangers of being beholden to this unknown and unknowable reality by keeping our passions under strict control including the prudent decision to ‘pack’ the ‘Mystic Drum’ of our innocence and evanescence making sure that it does not ‘beat so loud anymore’.

Okara mentions in one of his interviews that “The Mystic Drum” is essentially a have poem: “This was a lady I loved and she coyly was not responding directly but, I adored her. Her demeanor seemed to mask her true feelings; at a distance, she seemed adoring however on coming closer, she was after all, not what she seemed.” This lady may stand as an emblem that represents the lure of western life; how it seemed appealing at first but later seemed distasteful to the poet.

The Mystic Drum and Lines:

“The mystic drum beat in my inside

and fishes danced in the rivers

and men and women danced on land

to the rhythm of my drum”

“But standing behind a tree

with leaves around her waist

she only smiled with a shake of her

head.”

“The drum in African poems generally stands for the spiritual pulse of traditional African life. The poet asserts that first as the drum beat inside him fishes danced in the rivers and man and women danced on the land to the rhythm of the drum. But standing behind the tree there stood an outsider who smiled with an air of indifference at the richness of their culture; however the drum still continued to beat rippling the air with quickened tempo compelling the dead to dance and sing with their shadows. The ancestral glory overpowers other considerations: so powerful is the Mystic drum, that it brings back even the dead alive. The rhythm of the drum is the aching for an ideal Nigerian state of harmony. The outsider is used in the poem for western imperialism that was looked down upon anything Eastern, nonwestern, alien and therefore incomprehensible for their own good as the other.

The African culture is so much in tune with nature that the Mystic drum invokes the sun, the moon, the river gods and the trees began to dance. The gap finally gets bridged between humanity and nature, the animal world and human world, the hydrosphere and lithosphere that fishes turned men, and men became fishes. But later as the Mystic drum stopped beating, men became men, and fishes became fishes. Life now became dry, logical and mechanical thanks to western scientific imperialism and everything found its place. Leaves started sprouting on the woman she started to flourish on the land. Gradually her roots struck the ground. Spreading a kind of parched rationalism smoke issued from her lips and her lips parted in smile.

 The term ‘smoke’ is also suggestive of the pollution caused by industrialization and also the clouding of morals ultimately the speaker was left in belching darkness, completely cut off from the heart of his culture and he packed the Mystic drum not to beat loudly anymore. The ‘belching darkness’ alludes to the futility and hollowness the imposed existence. The outside at first only has an objective role standing behind a tree. Eventually, she intrudes and tries to behave their spiritual life. The leaves around her waist are very much suggestive of eve who adorned the same after losing her innocence. Leaves stop growing on the trees but only sprout on her head implying deforestation. The refrain reminds us again and again that this Eve turns out to be the eve of Nigerian damnation. Rukhaya M.k.

Were I to Choose

“When Adam broke the stone

and red streams reged down to

gather in the womb,

an angel calmed the storm”,

“And I, the breath mewed

in Cain, unbliniking gaze

at the world without

from the brink of an age”.

Gabriel is immersed in folk tradition and ballad influences of tradition and culture are found in his poem. His poems are regional as well as universal. His poems are sometimes lyrical and full of music. The poem ‘Were I to choose’ is reminiscent of yeast poem called “Adam’s Curse.” The poet has tried to compare Adam’s toiling in the soil with the Negros working in the soil. They broke the stone themselves which was their very foundation. The red streams are symbolized for the multilingual diversity that reaches the womb Africa. Cain in this poem metaphorically represents the next generation. ‘I’ in Okara’s poems generally refers to the tribe. The poet implies that he is currently imprisoned in the present generation and the crisis of identity of generation. The earlier generations gaze would not go beyond; but he does and to him the world is looked at from the brink.

The poem is written in 1950, the period of Nigerian independence, the poet sees his ancestorstheir slavery, their groping lips, the breasts molted by heartrending suffering. The poet’s vision goes outside and backgrounds. The memory is like a thread going through his ears. The poet compares Cain with modern man, Cain was a wonderer and if he was caught by anybody, he would be definitely slain. Similar is the condition of the modern uneducated man who does not pass any aim. The poet, at the age of 31, is multilingual and thinks about the medium of his instruction. The tower of Babel symbolizes unity. When the ‘Tower of Babel’ was constructed, God

cursed the concerned people. The people wanted to construct a great tower signifying oneness and around it people would stand united. They wanted to speak the same language but God despised themact. There is no proper foundation or structure mremaining. His world has deteriorated to ‘world of bones’.

"And O of this dark halo

were the tired head free.

And when the harmattan

of days has parched the throat

and skin, and sucked the

fever of the head away".

Then the massive dark descends, and flesh and bone are razed. And (O were I to choose) I’d cheatthe worms and silence seek in stone”. The poet now wants to free himself from the imprisonment of this dark ‘halo’ who is generally considered as ‘blessed; but seems dark to him. His conflict is not being able to choose from the languages. He is torn between worlds. The poet likens his predicament with mingling with dust during the month December to February in Nigeria. The throat is dry and he is unable to speak out. He is delirious ass the flames of torture are burning his existence. The colonial period has made the poet an amalgam of European and African cultures, and now he finds himself in a no man’s land. He relishes the idea of resolving the crisis by seeking refuge in the silence of the grave. He then would be cheating the worms because he would enjoy that state of affairs.

Conclusion:

Gabriel Okara in the above discussed poems discusses the same problem of loss of his ancient heritage due to the invasion of western culture. He considers the invasion as an enemy whom it is not easy to conquer. During to the British imperialism the South African culture, the poet’s ancient heritage was ruined. The poet is worried about his country men who are torn between the two cultures but cannot accept one.