Showing posts with label kofi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kofi. Show all posts

Saturday, 4 February 2017

This is another African poem that focuses its subject on the conflict of culture_ sharing the same theme with the poem titled "Piano and Drums" by Gabriel Okara.

One can hear the poem speaker's willingness to balance both culture or lifestyle by saying in line 11-12 "Sew the old days for us, our fathers/ That we can wear them under our new garment". The issue of colonialism is not out the picture in this poem "The Anvil and The Hammer" by Kofi Awoonor. The alien culture came into Africa via colonialism to mix with the ways of the Africans. The speaker in the poem found himself between the two opposite lifestyles which made him liken himself to an iron to be reshaped by the anvil and the hammer.


The poem is said to be cultural inclined with a colonial setting. Structurally, The Anvil and The Hammer by Kofi Awoonor is a free verse; a free verse is a poem that does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme,
or any other musical pattern. "Vanity" by Birago Diop loudly spoke of African cultural degeneration and the poem is structurally a free verse and the poem titled "Piano and Drums" by Gabriel Okara loudly spoke of cultural dilemma and it's in a free verse form. The Anvil and The Hammer by Kofi Awoonor has a total of 21 lines divided into 5 unequal stanzas.

Stanza 1 shows the poem speaker standing between African and European culture. Stanza 2 explains how the past has suddenly been redesigned in the present with "paved streets" "jargon of a new dialectic". Stanza 3 calls for balance between African and European culture by sustaining the African culture while living the European way of life. Stanza 4, the poem speaker considered the believed inferiority of African culture as a mere rumour instead he lifted the African norms and believes in presence of civilization. Stanza 5 say and I quote:
"And listen to the reverberation of our songs
In the splash and moan of the sea"

Also Read: What Are The Themes In The Anvil And The Hammer By Kofi Awoonor

Few among the figures of speech in the poem are:-

(1) Repetition; we see words like "new" "songs" "washed" (2) Personification; seen in line 21 "the splash and moan of the sea" (3) Symbolism; where the title of the poem symbolizes African and European. "The Anvil" represent the African culture while "The Hammer" represent the European culture. (4) Imagery; both sight and sound instances are "listen to the reverberation of our songs" which is in line 20, "The trapping of the past, tender and tenuous" in line 5, "we lift high the banner of the land" in line 19. (5) Metaphor;

  • 8 Metaphors in the Anvil and the Hammer by Kofi Awoonor
  • Compare And Contrast Piano And Drums With The Anvil And The Hammer

Kofi Awoonor Williams will never be forgotten among the passionate voices for African literature. His collection of poems are widely read not only among Africans but all lovers of literature in the whole wide world. He was born in Wheta, Ghana. Attended Achimota School, the University of Ghana and the University College in London. Few of his works are The House By The Sea (1978), Rediscovery And Other Poems (1964), etc.

READ MORE POETIC ANALYSIS>>>

Samuel C. Enunwa aka samueldpoetry
(the Leo with wings flying)

Saturday, 11 July 2015

This post tends to point at few themes in the Kofi Awoonor's "The Anvil And The Hammer"; in order to get larger discussion about the poem [check complete analysis of the anvil and the hammer by kofi awoonor]

"Caught between the anvil and the hammer
In the forging house of a new life,
Transforming the pangs that delivered me
Into the joy of new songs
The trapping of the past, tender and tenuous
Woven with fibre of sisal and
Washed in the blood of the goat in the fetish hut
Are laced with the flimsy glories of paved streets
The jargon of a new dialectic comes with the
Charisma of the perpetual search on the outlaw’s ..." is a two stanza poem with a political setting.

Simple languages and imageries of the poem help the symbolisms embedded within. The candid tone of the poem speaker proved a feeling of triumph.

Let's take this moment to enjoy the Theme of Cultural Contrast (which can also be called Clash of
Culture or Cultural Disparity or Conflict of Culture or any other name used to refer to the mixture of two different lifestyles). Like the poem "Piano And Drums" by Gabriel Okara, the persona in the poem "The Anvil and The Hammer" by Kofi Awoonor experienced two different ways of life (the African and the Western) which he puts thus in line 1-2:
"Caught between the anvil and the hammer
In the forging house of a new life"

The impact or implication of the contrast led to the poem's title "The Anvil And The Hammer" because they are instrument for creation. With the use of symbolism, where the words "anvil" and "hammer" are made to symbolize both African believe system and Non-African believe system, the voice in the poem shows that the contrasting cultures have reshaped or remolded him; it is not a surprise that the line 3 begins with the word "transforming".

The poem also has the Theme of Cultural Colonization. The act of colonization in Africa went beyond commercial exploitation; if silently examined, such act has an everlasting effect on Africa and Africans in general. Even long after colonization the culture of the colonial masters remains indelible in Africa and can never be wiped since it has been sown a "new garment" called civilization. The poem speaker referred metaphorically to the embraced new culture in line 2 as "a new life" and in line 9 "The jargon of a new dialectic". Because the poem speaker could not find a wayout of his cultural colonization, he resigned to the adoption of the past in present.

The theme of Adoption of Past In Present (rediscovery). In the poem "The Anvil And The Hammer" by Kofi Awoonor who died in the year 2013 at the age seventy eight, one can clearly see that the theme of the adoption of past in present revealed how undeniable the past was in the new life of the poem speaker to the extent he urged his ancestors in the opening line of stanza 2: "Sew the old days for us, our fathers/ That we can wear them under our new garment/ After we have washed ourselves in/ The whirlpools of many rivers' estuary".
The theme of Past in Present shows that Kofi Awoonor in this poem followed the opinion of Dennis Osadebay who in his poem titled "Young Africa's Plea" believed the merger of both cultures would make him a better man:
"Let me play with the white man's ways
Let me work with the black man's brains
Let my affairs themselves sort out
Then in sweet rebirth
I'll rise a better man"
(extracted from the poem "Young Africa's Plea" by Dennis Osadebay)

MUST NOT MISS:-

  • 8-metaphors-in-the-anvil-and-the-hammer-by-kofi-awoonor
  • compare-and-contrast-piano-and-drums-by-gabriel-okara-with-the-anvil-and-the-hammer-by-kofi-awoonor
  • analysis-of-the-cathedral-by-kofi-awoonor
  • song-of-sorrow-1-and-2-by-kofi-awoonor-imagery

READ MORE POETIC>>>

Samuel C. Enunwa aka samueldpoetry
(the Leo in the sky high)

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