By Obinna Chilekezi
Poetry has been part of our lives in Africa since time immemorial. Poetry is seen and witnessed in our everyday life activities since the time of our forbearers. It held and still holds a strong place in our marriage, our dances, celebrations, even more in funerals. Coming to think of it, you see poetry in the language of a boy wooing a girl to be his lover.
This is why in observing the Acoli of Northern Uganda in the 1940s and 1950s, as recorded by a pioneer modern African poet, p’Bitek (1974) wrote:
“The young men in a curved interlock their legs, bend forward and play on their half gourds as they sing and move their bodies to the rhythms of the drums. The girls lined up before the boys swing their bodies in the movement. If the young man is pleased with the performance of any girly, he leaves his place in the line and holds her right hand high, while whispering a few words of love in her ears”.
Poetry has been a source of relieve in time of great stress whether written or oral, however mostly oral poetry or what we call oralture. It gives relief, joy, hope above all happiness. It is role as earlier acknowledged permeate all facets of our existence. Hence, to paraphrase the words of the great African writer, Chinua Achebe, poetry can be likened to the palm oil which the people use to eat the yams!
It is sad and unfortunate that when the colonialist came to Africa, they found our use of words strange, which though they did not understand. Little wonder then that Smith and Dale commenting on the dance-song of the Ila-speaking people of Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) arrogantly stated that “it is not easy, even for one well acquainted with the language to translate the songs. They abound in words and phrases without meaning, like ‘Hi-triddly hi-hi’.
There have been changes across the globe presently on such assertion. For instance, later, Evans-Pritchard writing on Azande Poetry, another African community, asserted “All songs have meanings but the degree of meaning varies. The meaning is not doubtful in their creator’s mind, for they refer to persons and events known to him. The meaning conveyed to those who sing or hear them depends upon the degree to which they are acquainted with the person or happenings referred to”.
Furthermore, Evans-Pritchard observed, “Meaning in both its qualities of sound and sense undergoes many phonetic and grammatical changes. Generally speaking we can say that it is the melody and not the sense which matters, or, as we can say in common parlance, it is the tune which matters and not the words”.
It is this meaning that has being running in poetry of Africa till date. Take for instance the work of an upcoming poetry from The Gambia, Marie Jawo writing on the destruction of the land by locusts as below-
“Swarm of hot voices like bees
perched on all available leaves
seconds later, the veggies all gone
our beautiful savannah a desert
great famine brewed for tomorrow”.
The locusts could be interpreted as the bad governance in Africa which has brought more of destruction than development. Yet, the people live with them, talk about this in their songs and poetry a soothing palm to their pains.
Africa has suffered a lot of calamities starting from the colonial period, down to the present time of bad governance. Africa has suffered from natural catstrophes, famine, diseases, all these recorded in its poetry. And poetry has helped the people to cope with such pains. It has helped indeed as could be seen in verses coming out of the Continent. Those beautiful soothing words and their healing impact, telling the people that tomorrow will be better and there is a greater tomorrow.
Surely, tomorrow will be better
And there is indeed, a greater tomorrow!
References:
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1965). The position of women in savage societies, London.
The essay was published first as Dance in the journal Africa in 1927; Jawo, Marie (2022).
Only a Silent Outburst (a collection of poems) unpublished.
Smith, G. B. and Dale, A. M. (1920). The Ila-speaking people of Northern Rhodesia. London.
Obinna Chilekezi lives in Lagos Nigeria and is an insurance practitioner with background in librarianship. His poems and stories have appeared in newspapers, journals and anthologies. His published collections of poems are Songs of a stranger at the smiling coast (Kraft Books) and Calligramme (Emotion Books).
One of his insurance textbook won the African Insurance Organisation Book Award in 2016. He has
travelled intensively in his West African sub-region and dreams of travelling too to other parts of the
world.
You can reach him at:
https://www.facebook.com/obinna.chilekezi.9
ugobichi@yahoo.com
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