Edward Kamau Brathwaite: Limbo

This poem tells the story of slavery in a rhyming, rhythmic dance. It is ambitious and
complex. There are two narratives running in parallel:

 the actions of the dance, and

 the history of a people which is being enacted.

Going down and under the limbo stick is likened to the slaves' going down into the hold of
the ship, which carries them into slavery. In Roman Catholic tradition, limbo is a place to
which the souls of people go, if they are not good enough for heaven or bad enough for hell,
between which limbo lies; it has come to mean any unpleasant place, or a state (of mind or
body) from which it is difficult to escape. The story of slavery told in the poem is very easy
to follow, yet full of vivid detail and lively action.

The poem has a very strong beat, suggesting the dance it describes: where the word limbo
appears as a complete line, it should be spoken slowly, the first syllable extended and both
syllables stressed: Lím-bó. While the italics give the refrain (or chorus) which reminds us of
the dance, the rest of the poem tells the story enacted in the dance: these lines are beautifully
rhythmic, and almost every syllable is stressed, until the very last line, where the rhythm is
broken, suggesting the completion of the dance, and the end of the narrative.

This poem is suited to dramatic performance - there is the dancing under the limbo pole
(difficult for most Europeans) and the acting out of the voyage into slavery. The poem can be
chanted or sung, with a rhythmic accompaniment to bring out the drama in it (percussion,
generally, is appropriate but drums, specifically, are ideal: in fact, the text refers to the
“drummer” and the “music”).

What do you find interesting in

 the way the poem appears on the page

 sound effects in the poem
 repetition in the poem
 the way the limbo dance tells the story of slavery

Is this a serious or comic poem? Is it optimistic or pessimistic?

Tatamkhulu Afrika: Nothing's Changed

This poem depicts a society where rich and poor are divided. In the apartheid era of racial
segregation in South Africa, where the poem is set, laws, enforced by the police, kept apart
black and white people. The poet looks at attempts to change this system, and shows how
they are ineffective, making no real difference. Jackie Fielding writes:

“I had always assumed that the poem was written post-apartheid and reflected the bitterness
that knowing “one's place” in society is so deeply ingrained that the I-persona can't bring
himself to accept his new-found freedom under Mandela. I also find it interesting that the
poet is not South African and not black.”
“District Six” is the name of a poor area of Cape Town (one of South Africa's two capital
cities; the other is Pretoria). This area was bulldozed as a slum in 1966, but never properly
rebuilt. Although there is no sign there, the poet can feel that this is where he is: “...my feet
know/and my hands.”

Similarly the “up-market” inn (“brash with glass” and the bright sign ,“flaring like a flag”,
which shows its name) is meant for white customers only. There is no sign to show this (as
there would have been under apartheid) but black and coloured people, being poor, will not
be allowed past the “guard at the gatepost”. The “whites only inn” is elegant, with linen
tablecloths and a “single rose” on each table. It is contrasted with the fast-food “working
man's cafe” which sells the local snack (“bunny chows”). There is no tablecloth, just a plastic
top, and there is nowhere to wash one's hands after eating: “wipe your fingers on your jeans”.
In the third stanza the sense of contrast is most clear: the smart inn “squats” amid “grass and
weeds”.

Perhaps the most important image in the poem is that of the “glass” which shuts out the
speaker in the poem. It is a symbol of the divisions of colour, and class - often the same thing
in South Africa. As he backs away from it at the end of the poem, Afrika sees himself as a
“boy again”, who has left the imprint of his “small, mean mouth” on the glass. He wants “a
stone, a bomb” to break the glass - he may wish literally to break the window of this inn, but
this is clearly meant in a symbolic sense. He wants to break down the system, which
separates white and black, rich and poor, in South Africa.

The title of the poem suggests not just that things have not changed, but a disappointment that
an expected change has not happened. The poem uses the technique of contrast to explore the
theme of inequality. It has a clear structure of eight-line stanzas. The lines are short, of
varying length, but usually with two stressed syllables. The poet assumes that the reader
knows South Africa, referring to places, plants and local food. The poem is obviously about
the unfairness of a country where “Nothing's changed”. But this protest could also apply to
other countries where those in power resist progress and deny justice to the common people.

 What does the poet think about change in his home country?
 How does the poem contrast the rich and the poor in South Africa?
 Why does the poet write about two places where people buy food?
 Comment on the image of the plate-glass window to show how poor people are shut
out of things in South Africa. What does the poet want to do to change this?

Grace Nichols: Island Man

The subtitle really explains this simple poem - it tells of a man from the Caribbean, who lives
in London but always thinks of his home.

The poem opens with daybreak, as the island man seems to hear the sound of surf - and
perhaps to imagine he sees it, since we are told the colour. This is followed by simple images:

 the fishermen pushing their boat out,

 the sun climbing in the sky,
 the island, emerald green.
The island man always returns to the island, in his mind, but in thinking of it he must
“always” come “back” literally to his immediate surroundings - hearing the traffic on
London's North Circular Road.

Grace Nichols ends the poem with the image of coming up out of the sea - but the reality is
the bed, and the waves are only the folds of a “crumpled pillow”. The last line of the poem is
presented as the harsh reality.

Many Afro-Caribbeans in Britain live a split existence. They may yearn for the warmth and
simple pleasures of the islands they think of as home, yet they find themselves, with friends
and family, in a cold northern climate. This poem neatly captures this division - between a
fantasy of the simple life and the working daily reality. But perhaps it is not really a serious
choice - if one were to stay on the island, then one would bring one's problems there, too. In
fact, this man is like most other British people - he does not relish work, but faces up to it.

After reading the whole poem, one sees that it is ambiguous - the island is both in the
Caribbean and Great Britain.

Grace Nichols also challenges us to think about where home really lies. Is it

 the place we dream about,

 the place where we, our friends and family live, or
 the place where we do our work?

The poem is written as free verse - it is a quite loose sequence of vivid images. The poet
relies on effects of sound - contrasting the breaking of the surf with the roar of traffic. There
are a few rhymes and repetitions. Grace Nichols also refers to colour - blue for surf (surely an
error - the surf is the white foam of the blue sea), emerald (green) for the island and grey for
the traffic.

 Is this poem about the Caribbean or London?

 Why does the title have more than one meaning?
 Is this poem about a real wish for sun and surf or just an escapist fantasy?
 What do you find interesting in the images of this poem?

Imtiaz Dharker: Blessing

This poem is about water: in a hot country, where the supply is inadequate, the poet sees
water as a gift from a god. When a pipe bursts, the flood which follows is like a miracle, but
the “blessing” is ambiguous - it is such accidents which at other times cause the supply to be
so little.

The opening lines of the poem compare human skin to a seedpod, drying out till it cracks.
Why? Because there is “never enough water”. Ms. Dharker asks the reader to imagine it
dripping slowly into a cup. When the “municipal pipe” (the main pipe supplying a town)
bursts, it is seen as unexpected good luck (a “sudden rush of fortune”), and everyone rushes
to help themselves. But the end of the poem reminds us of the sun, which causes skin to crack
“like a pod” - today's blessing is tomorrow's drought. The poet celebrates the joyous sense
with which the people, especially the children, come to life when there is, for once, more than
“enough water”.

The poem has a single central metaphor - the giving of water as a “blessing” from a “kindly
god”. The religious metaphor is repeated, as the bursting of the pipe becomes a “rush of
fortune”, and the people who come to claim the water are described as a “congregation”
(people gathering for worship).

The water is a source of other metaphors - fortune is seen as a “rush” (like water rushing out
of the burst pipe), and the sound of the flow is matched by that of the people who seek it -
their tongues are a “roar”, like the gushing water. Most tellingly of all, water is likened to
“silver” which “crashes to the ground”. In India (where Ms. Dharker lives), in Pakistan (from
where she comes) and in other Asian countries, it is common for wealthy people to throw
silver coins to the ground, for the poor to pick up. The water from the burst pipe is like this -
a short-lived “blessing for a few”. But there is no regular supply of “silver”. And finally, the
light from the sun is seen as “liquid” - yet the sun aggravates the problems of drought.

The poem is written in unrhymed lines, mostly brief, some of which run on, while others are
end-stopped, creating an effect of natural speech. The poet writes lists for the people (“man
woman/child”) and the vessels they bring (“. ..with pots/brass, copper, aluminium,/plastic
buckets”). The poem appeals to the reader's senses, with references to the dripping noise of
water (as if the hearer is waiting for there to be enough to drink) and the flashing sunlight.

We have a clear sense of the writer's world - in her culture water is valued, as life depends
upon the supply: in the west, we take it for granted. This is a culture in which belief in “a
kindly god” is seen as natural, but the poet does not express this in terms of any established
religion (note the lower-case “g” on “god”). She suggests a vague and general religious
belief, or superstition. The poem ends with a picture of children - “naked” and “screaming”.
The sense of their beauty (“highlights polished to perfection”) is balanced by the idea of their
fragility, as the “blessing sings/over their small bones”.

 How does this poem present water as the source of life?

 “There is never enough water” - do readers in the west take water too much for
granted?
 Why does Imtiaz Dharker call the poem Blessing?
 Why might the poet end by mentioning the “small bones” of the children?

Lawrence Ferlinghetti:
Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes

The poem's title alerts us to the simple contrast that is its subject. “Beautiful people” is
perhaps written with a mild sense of irony - as this phrase was originally coined by the hippie
movement in 1967 (maybe earlier) to refer to the “flower children” who shared the counter-
culture ideals of peace and love. The couple in the poem are not beautiful people in this sense
but wealthy and elegant.

The poem is deceptively simple - in places it is written as if in bright primary colours, so we

read of the “yellow garbage truck” and the “red plastic blazers”, we get exact details of time
and place, and we see the precise position of the four people: all waiting at a stoplight and the
garbage collectors looking down (literally but not metaphorically) into the “elegant open
Mercedes” and the matching couple in it. The details of their dress and hair could be
directions for a film-maker.

Ferlinghetti contrasts the people in various ways. The wealthy couple are on their way to the
man's place of work, while the “scavengers” are coming home, having worked through the
early hours. The couple in the Mercedes are clean and cool; the scavengers are dirty. But
while one scavenger is old, hunched and with grey hair, the other is about the same age as the
Mercedes driver and, like him, has long hair and sunglasses. The older man is depicted as the
opposite of beautiful - he is compared both to a gargoyle (an ugly grotesque caricature used
to decorate mediaeval churches, and ward off evil spirits) and to Quasimodo (the name means
“almost human”) the main character in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The poem moves to an ambiguous conclusion. The two scavengers see the young couple, not
as real people, but as characters in a “TV ad/in which everything is always possible” - as if,
that is, with determination and effort, the scavengers could change their own lifestyle for the
better. But the adjective “odorless” suggests that this is a fantasy - and their smelly truck is
the reality.

The poem also considers the fundamental American belief that “all men are created equal” -
and the red light is democratic, because it stops everyone. It holds them together “as if
anything at all were possible/between them”. They are separated by a “small gulf” and the
gulf is “in the high seas of democracy” - which suggests that, with courage and effort, anyone
can cross it. But the poet started this statement with “as if” - and we do not know if this is an
illusion or a real possibility.

The form of the poem is striking on the page - Ferlinghetti begins a new line with a capital
letter, but splits most lines to mark pauses, while he omits punctuation other than hyphens in
compound-words, full stops in abbreviations and occasional ampersands (the & symbol).

The poem challenges the reader - are we like the cool couple or the scavengers? And which is
better to be? Of which couple does the poet seem to approve more? TV ads may be
“odorless” but without garbage collectors, we would be overwhelmed by unpleasant smells -
especially in the heat of San Francisco. The garbage truck and the Mercedes in a way become
symbols for public service and for private enterprise.

 How does this poem show the gap between rich and poor?
 Does the poet really think “everything is always possible”, or is this an illusion?
 Why does the poet call the couple in the Mercedes “beautiful people”? How does he
use this phrase in a different sense from what it originally meant? Does the poet
approve more of the scavengers or the beautiful people?
 What do you think of how the poem looks on the page? Does this help you as you
read it?
 Perhaps a modern society needs both architects and street-cleaners. But is it right that
we should pay them so unequally? Which would you miss the most if they stopped
working?

Nissim Ezekiel: Night of the Scorpion

In this poem Nissim Ezekiel recalls “the night” his “mother was stung by a scorpion”. The
poem is not really about the scorpion or its sting, but contrasts the reactions of family,
neighbours and his father, with the mother's dignity and courage. The scorpion
(sympathetically) is shown as sheltering from ten hours of rain, but so fearful of people that it
“risk(s) the rain again” after stinging the poet's mother.

What follows is an account of various superstitious reactions:

 the peasants' efforts to “paralyse the Evil One” (the devil, who is identified with the
scorpion);
 the peasants' belief that the creature's movements make the poison move in his
victim's blood;
 their hope that this suffering may be a cleansing from some sin in the past (“your
previous birth”) or still to come (“your next birth”).

The poison is even seen as making the poet's mother better through her suffering: “May the
poison purify your flesh/of desire and the spirit of ambition/they said”. The poet's father
normally does not share such superstitions (he is “sceptic, rationalist” - a doubter of
superstition and a believer in scientific reason). But he is now worse than the other peasants,
as he tries “every curse and blessing” as well as every possible antidote of which he can
think. The “holy man” performs “rites” (religious ritual actions) but the only effective relief
comes with time: “After twenty hours it lost its sting”.

The conclusion of the poem is its most effective part: where everyone else has been
concerned for the mother, who has been in too much pain to talk (she “twisted...groaning on a
mat”) she thinks of her children, and thanks God the scorpion has spared them (the sting
might be fatal to a smaller person; certainly a child would be less able to bear the pain).

Ezekiel's poetic technique is quite simple here. The most obvious point to make is the
contrast between the very long first section, detailing the frantic responses of everyone but
the mother, and the simple, brief, understated account of her selfless courage in the second
section. The lines are of irregular length and unrhymed but there is a loose pattern of two
stresses in each line; the lines are not end-stopped but run on (this is sometimes known as
enjambement).

Instead of metaphor or simile the images are of what was literally present (the candles and the
lanterns and the shadows on the walls). The poem is in the form of a short narrative. One
final interesting feature to note is the repeated use of reported (indirect) speech - we are told
what people said, but not necessarily in their exact words, and never enclosed in speech
marks. The poem may surprise us in the insight it gives into another culture: compare
Ezekiel's account with what would happen if your mother were stung by a scorpion (or, if this
seems a bit unlikely, bitten by an adder, say).

Some comments about Nissim Ezekiel that you might find helpful in relation to Night of the
Scorpion are these: he writes in a free style and colloquial manner (like ordinary speech); he
makes direct statements and employs few images.

 The title of the poem seems more fitting almost to an old horror film - do you think it
is a suitable title for the poem that follows?
 How do the people try to make sense of the scorpion's attack, or even see it as a good
thing?
  Are scorpions really evil? Does the poet share the peasants' view of a “diabolic”
animal?
 How does the attack bring out different qualities in the father and the mother?
 What does the poem teach us about the beliefs of people in the poet's home culture?
 In what way is this a poem rather than a short story broken into lines?
 How does the poet make use of what people said, to bring the poem to life?

Chinua Achebe: Vultures

This is one of the most challenging poems in the anthology. The vultures of the title are real
birds of prey but (like William Blake's Tyger) more important, perhaps, for what they
represent - people of a certain kind. Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian writer, but has a traditional
English-speaking liberal education: the poem is written in a highly literate manner with a
close eye for detail.

The poem introduces us to the vultures and their unpleasant diet; in spite of this, they appear
to care for each other. From this Achebe goes on to note how even the worst of human beings
show some touches of humanity - the concentration camp commandant, having spent the day
burning human corpses, buys chocolate for his “tender offspring” (child or children). This
leads to an ambiguous conclusion:

 on the one hand, Achebe tells us to “praise bounteous providence” that even the worst
of creatures has a little goodness, “a tiny glow-worm tenderness”;
 on the other hand, he concludes in despair, it is the little bit of “kindred love” (love of
one's own kind or relations) which permits the “perpetuity of evil” (allows it to
survive, because the evil person can think himself to be not completely depraved).

We are reminded, perhaps, by the words about the “Commandant at Belsen”, that Adolf
Hitler was said to love children and animals.

The poem is in the form of free verse, in short lines which are not end-stopped and have no
pattern of stress or metre. Achebe moves from

 images of things which are actually present,

 to the imagined scene of the commandant picking up chocolate for his children,
 to the final section of the poem in which appears the conventional metaphor of the
“glow-worm tenderness” in the “icy caverns of a cruel heart”.

In studying this poem, you should spend a lot of time in making sure you understand all of
the unfamiliar vocabulary. Look out, also, for familiar words which are used in surprising
ways, because of their context. For example, we read of the commandant “going home...with
fumes of human roast clinging rebelliously to his hairy nostrils” - it is as if he wants to get rid
of the smell (put it out of nose and mind) but the smell refuses to go away, rebelling against
his authority: something he cannot command.

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As you think or write about the first part of the poem, you should try to describe in your own
words the different things on which the vultures feed, while looking for the evidence of the
birds' love for each other. Like William Blake's Tyger, the vulture is a creature about which
we will have ideas before we read; because it feasts on corpses, it has come to symbolize
anyone or anything that benefits by another's suffering. (The vultures here are shown far less
sympathetically, for example, than the scorpion in Nissim Ezekiel's poem.)

 Is this poem really about vultures at all or does the poet use them only to make
comments on some kinds of people?
 How does the poet try to make the reader feel disgust towards the vultures? Is this
fair?
 The ending of this poem is highly ambiguous - the poet recommends both “praise” for
“providence” and then “despair” (because the little bit of goodness in otherwise evil
things allows them to keep going, in “perpetuity”). Which of these conclusions do you
think the poet feels more strongly, if either?
 Chinua Achebe refers to Belsen, the Nazi death camp - do you think this is a powerful
way of suggesting evil, or might readers now and in the future not know what Belsen
is or what happened there? (Some younger readers may know of it mainly because
Anne Frank died there, at the age of 15.)

Denise Levertov: What Were They Like?

This is a famous poem, written in 1971, as a protest against the Vietnamese War (1954-1975.
This was originally a civil war between communist North and capitalist South Vietnam; the
south received support from western countries, notably the USA. In 1973 President Nixon
withdrew the US forces, in 1975 the armies of North Vietnam were victorious, and the
country was reunited the following year. More recently, Vietnam has adopted democratic
government and opened itself up to visitors from the west.) Denise Levertov protested in
public against the war, and spent time in jail. In the poem, inspired by the violence of the US
bombing campaign, she imagines a future in which the people have been destroyed and there
is no record or memory of their culture. (In the light of the Nazis' genocide of European Jews,
this was not an unreasonable fear.) In fact, the people and culture of Vietnam are thriving
today but attempted genocide (now we call it “ethnic cleansing”) has devastated Cambodia,
Ruanda and Burundi and the former Yugoslavia.

The poem is in the form of a series of questions, as a future visitor might pose them to a
cultural historian. The questions are mostly straightforward, but the answers are quite
subversive. Together they create a sympathetic portrait of a gentle, simple peasant people,
living a dignified if humble life amid the paddy fields. This contrasts with the violent effects
of war, as children are killed, bones are charred and people scream as bombs smash the paddy
fields. The final lines of the poem show how utterly the people have been forgotten - the
report of their singing (of which there is no record) is hopelessly vague - it resembled,
supposedly, “the flight of moths in moonlight” - but no one knows, since it is silent now.
Happily the reader today can readily find examples of Vietnamese song, and we can satisfy
ourselves that it is nothing like the flight of moths in moonlight.

The poem shows the Vietnamese as rather childlike, innocent and vulnerable - a way of
seeing them that seemed to be confirmed by some events in the war, lie the destruction of the
forests with napalm, and by the notorious photographic image of a naked burning child
running from her devastated village. But the people of Vietnam eventually proved more
resilient than in this well-meaning but rather patronising western view. On the other hand, it
was protests like that in the poem that changed US public opinion, so that President Nixon
withdrew their forces from combat - which helped the Northern Communist forces win the
war, and reunite Vietnam by force.

 This poem became very well-known when it was first published - but the poet's fears
for Vietnam have not come true (though things that are perhaps just as bad have
happened in Cambodia, Ruanda-Burundi and the former Yugoslavia). Does it still
have anything to say to us or has history made it irrelevant?
 What do you think of the question and answer format in the poem?
 Do you think that Vietnamese people would like to be depicted as gentle peasants
who know only “rice and bamboo”? You may have some Vietnamese friends - so you
could ask them. Is it ever a good idea for people from one culture to try to describe
another, or is there a risk of stereotyping and patronizing?
 How might singing be like “the flight of moths in moonlight”? Does this mean
anything or is it pretentious and misleading? You might check this by finding out
what traditional Vietnamese music is really like.
 This poem is not about individuals but about big political events. What do you think
of the way the poet presents history and politics here?