Ms Paine
9 English
Name:_______________
Unit:: Third-World and
Indigenous Literature
Page 1 of 20
POEMS IN THIS HANDOUT
1. “Jacob’s Ladder” – Chris Abani (Nigeria)
2. “Night Song City” – Denis Brutus (South Africa)
3. “Telephone Conversation” – Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
4. “Slum Dwelling” – Jack Davis (indigenous Australia)
5. “We Are Going” - Oodgeroo Noonuccal (indigenous Australia)
6. “Yout Rebels” – Linton Kwesi Johnson (England/ Caribbean)
7. “Nightfall in Soweto” - Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali (South Africa)
Poetry Handout_08
Page 2 of 20
Jacob’s Ladder
Chris Abani (Nigeria)
Release, alive, from Kiri Kiri*
is rare.
They hand you what is left of
your personal belongings
in a polythene bag. Everything
they did not want.
You step out and stand in the
sun thawing like a side of beef
from a freezer. Yet you are afraid
to proceed more than a few
steps from the gate. Convinced you
will be shot in the back.
Or that people will recoil from you
knowing you carry the stench
of death on your now paler skin.
But nothing happens.
A gentle breeze ruffles your shirt and
a dog menaces a parked car.
The smell of frying plantain,
carried gently hurts inexplicably.
Cold, sweet Coca-Cola stings you
to tears.
*Kiri Kiri – Nigerian prison where political prisoners are imprisoned for protesting against the government.
Chris Abani is from Nigeria and wrote his first novel at the age of 16. Two years later (1985) he was imprisoned on the grounds
that this work had served as a blueprint for the failed coup of General Vatsa. In 1987, while at university, his activities as a
member of a guerrilla theatre group which performed plays in front of government offices resulted in a further year’s imprisonment
in the Kiri Kiri maximum security prison. A play, Song of a Broken Flute, which he wrote in 1990 for the convocation ceremony of
his university, led to a third period of incarceration, under threat of death, for a further eighteen months. Many of his prison
companions did not survive.
(from http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/features/exile/abani.asp accessed November 2008)
Poetry Handout_08
Page 3 of 20
Nightsong City
Dennis Brutus (South Africa)
Sleep well, my love, sleep well:
the harbour lights glaze over restless docks,
police cars cockroach through the tunnel streets;
from the shanties creaking iron-sheets
violence like a bug-infested rag is tossed
and fear is immanent as sound in the wind-swung bell;
the long day’s anger pants from sand and rocks;
but for this breathing night at least,
my land, my love, sleep well.
Dennis Brutus (b. 1924), poet, distinguished educator, and Freedom Fighter, was
born in Zimbabwe of South African parents and educated in South Africa. Known as
the "singing voice of the South African Liberation Movement", Brutus’s political
campaigns led to his being banned from all political and social activity and his
subsequent arrest and incarceration on Robben Island, where he spent time
breaking stones with Nelson Mandela. He left South Africa in 1966 and made his
home in England until 1983 when he won the right to stay in the United States as a
political refugee.
(from: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/cca/images/wsf/Brutus.htm accessed November 2008)
Poetry Handout_08
Page 4 of 20
Telephone Conversation
Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. "Madam," I warned,
"I hate a wasted journey--I am African."
Silence. Silenced transmission of
Pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was foully.
"HOW DARK?" . . . I had not misheard . . . "ARE YOU LIGHT
OR VERY DARK?" Button B, Button A. Stench
Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
Red booth. Red pillar box. Red double-tiered
Omnibus squelching tar. It was real! Shamed
By ill-mannered silence, surrender
Pushed dumbfounded to beg simplification.
Considerate she was, varying the emphasis-"ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT?" Revelation came.
"You mean--like plain or milk chocolate?"
Her assent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. Rapidly, wave-length adjusted,
I chose. "West African sepia"--and as afterthought,
"Down in my passport." Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness clanged her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece. "WHAT'S THAT?" conceding
"DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS." "Like brunette."
"THAT'S DARK, ISN'T IT?" "Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but, madam, you should see
The rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet
Are a peroxide blond. Friction, caused-Foolishly, madam--by sitting down, has turned
My bottom raven black--One moment, madam!"--sensing
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
About my ears--"Madam," I pleaded, "wouldn't you rather
See for yourself?"
Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July 1934 at Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria. After preparatory university
studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he continued at the University of Leeds, where, later, in 1973, he took
his doctorate. During the six years spent in England, he was a dramaturgist at the Royal Court Theatre in London 19581959. In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller bursary and returned to Nigeria to study African drama.. During the civil
war in Nigeria, Soyinka appealed in an article for cease-fire. For this he was arrested in 1967, accused of conspiring
with the Biafra rebels, and was held as a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969. Soyinka has published about 20
works: drama, novels and poetry. He writes in English and his literary language is marked by great scope and richness
of words. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986
(from: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-bio.html accessed November 2008)
Poetry Handout_08
Page 5 of 20
Slum Dwelling
Jack Davis (Indigenous Australian)
Big brown eyes, little dark Australian boy
Playing with a broken toy.
This environment his alone,
This is where a seed is sown.
Can this child at the age of three
Rise above this poverty?
The walls all cracked and faded, bare.
The glassless windows stare and stare
Like the half-dead eyes of a dying race…
A sad but strange, compelling place.
Jack Davis, Aboriginal Elder, born in Perth in
1917. The fourth child in a family of eleven, he
spent his childhood in the mill town of Yarloop. He
worked for several yeas as a stockman in the north
before returning to Perth and settling into full-time
writing and a long life of service to the Aboriginal
cause. As well as being a distinguished poet,
Davis is also a highly-regarded playwright and
author. He died in 2000.
(From: Black Life published 1992)
Poetry Handout_08
Page 6 of 20
We Are Going
Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Indigenous Australian)
They came into the little town
A semi-naked band subdued and silent,
All that remained of their tribe.
They came here to the place of their old bora ground
Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.
Notice of estate agent reads: "Rubbish May Be Tipped Here".
Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.
They sit and are confused, they cannot say their thoughts:
"We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the
strangers.
We belong here, we are of the old ways.
We are the corroboree and the bora ground,
We are the old sacred ceremonies, the laws of the elders.
We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends
told.
We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the
wandering camp fires.
We are the lightning-bolt over Gaphembah Hill
Quick and terrible,
And the Thunder after him, that loud fellow.
We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.
We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires
burn low.
We are nature and the past, all the old ways
Gone now and scattered.
The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.
The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from
this place.
The bora ring is gone.
The corroboree is gone
And we are going.
Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920-1993). Known for most of her life as the writer, painter and political activist, Kath Walker,
Oodgeroo in 1988 resumed her traditional name and returned her MBE in protest at the condition of her people in the year of
Australia's Bicentenary celebrations. Oodgeroo shared with her father the Dreaming totem the carpet snake (Kabul) and his
sense of injustice. Leaving school at the age of 13, Oodgeroo worked as a domestic servant until 1939,when she
volunteered for service in the Australian Women's Army Service. Between 1961 and 1970, Oodgeroo achieved national
prominence not only as the Queensland State Secretary of the Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islanders (CAATSI), but through her highly popular poetry and writing. With her 1964 collection of verse We Are
Going,Oodgeroo became the first published Aboriginal woman. Oodgeroo was involved with many Aboriginal rights
organisations. These organisations included the National Tribal Council, the Aboriginal Arts Board, the Aboriginal Housing
Committee, and the Queensland Aboriginal Advancement League. Oodgeroo spent her last days on Stradbroke Island
where she established a cultural and environmental education centre known as Moongalba (resting-place).
(From: http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~davidt/redlandbay/oodgeroo.htm accessed November 2008)
Poetry Handout_08
Page 7 of 20
Yout Rebels
Linton Kwesi Johnson (England/ Caribbean)
Yout Rebels
a bran new breed of blacks
have now emerged,
leadin on the rough scene,
breakin away,
takin the day,
saying to capital nevah
movin fahwod evah.
they can only be
new in age
but not in rage,
not needin
the soft and
shallow councilin
of the soot-brained
sage in chain;
wreckin thin-shelled words
movin always fahwood.
young blood
yout rebels:
new shapes
shaping
new patterns
creatin new links
linkin
blood risin surely
carvin a new path,
movin fahwod to freedom
Linton Kwesi Johnson is arguably the most influential Black British
poet. He is a London-based acclaimed writer, political activist and
musician. Born in Chapeltown, Jamaica. He moved to Britain in 1963
with his mother and read sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of
London.
Widely acknowledged as the Father of "Dub" Poetry, a term he coined to
describe the way a number of reggae DJs blended music and verse,
Johnson was a member of the Black Panther movement and holds
fellowships at two British universities
(from <http://www.thenewblackmagazine.com/view.aspx?index=725)
Poetry Handout_08
Page 8 of 20
Nighfall in Soweto
Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali (South Africa)
Nightfall comes like
a dreaded disease
seeping through the pores
of a healthy body
and ravaging it beyong repair.
A murderer's hand
lurking in the shadows,
clasping the dagger
strikes down the helpless victim
I am the victim.
I am slaughtered every night in the streets
I am cornered by the fear
gnawing at my timid heart;
In my helplessness I languish.
Man has ceased to be man
Man has become beast
man has become prey.
I am the quarry to be run down
by the maruading beast let loose
by cruel nightfall from his cage of death.
Where is my refuge?
Where am I safe?
Not in my matchbox house
where I barracade myself against nightfall
I tremble at his crunching footsteps,
I quake at his deafening knock at the door
Open Up! he barks like a rabid dog.
Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali (born 1940) is a South African poet. He has
written in both Zulu and English. He studied at Columbia University.
Mtshali worked as a messenger in Soweto before he became a poet, and
his first book, Sounds of a Cowhide Drum (1971), explores both the
banality and extremity of apartheid through the eyes of working men of
South Africa, even while it recalls the energy of those Mtshali frequently
calls simply "ancestors." It was published with a preface by Nadine
Gordimer. Sounds of a Cowhide Drum was one of the first books of
poems by a black South African poet to be widely distributed, and
provoked considerable debate among the white South African population,
but it was extremely successful, making a considerable profit for its white
publisher, Lionel Abrahams.
(from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Mbuyiseni_Mtshali accessed
November, 2008)
Nightfall Nightfall!
Why were you ever created?
Why can't it be daytime?
Daytime forever more?
“apartheid” - discrimination based on race and the colour of skin. Until 1991 the White government of
South Africa ran a system of apartheid whereby Black people were given less access to employment, health
and education and were kept separate from the White population For instance, black people could not from
a fountain if it said “White only”. (From: < http://www.stepin.org/glossary.php accessed November 2008
Poetry Handout_08
Page 9 of 20
CA
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FINISHED!
STEP 4: SYNTHESIS
Look at your answers to Steps 1 to 3.
Now using these responses,
answer this question:
How does the poet
use certain techniques... to communicate
a message/ or create a specific mood …
in their poem?
STEP 3: ANALYSIS (Poetry Techniques)
What poetry techniques does the poet use? Why?
Can you identify each technique used in the poem and select a suitable ex-
ample quotation?
(Techniques can include: rhyme, assonance, alliteration, rhythm, imagery such as metaphors, similes, personification, structure, colloquial language)
Now explain why you think the poet has used this technique?
STEP 2: FEELING (Tone/ Emotion/ Mood)
How does this poem make you feel? Why?
Find quotations from the poem that demonstrate this mood.
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING (Subject Matter/ Purpose/ Message/ Idea)
What is this poem describing?
What do you think the poet’s purpose is in writing this poem? Why?
Page 10 of 20
Ms Paine - 9 English
TITLE OF POEM:
___________________________
POET:
___________________________
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
____________________________
FINISHED!
Now using the original
Poetry Triangle to guide
you, analyze a poem by
filling in the blank spaces in this diagram.
____________________________
STEP 3: ANALYSIS (Poetry Techniques)
STEP 2: FEELING (Tone/ Emotion/ Mood)
CA
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STEP 4: SYNTHESIS
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING (Subject Matter/ Purpose/ Message/ Idea)
Ms Paine - 9 English
Page 11 of 20
TITLE OF POEM:
___________________________
POET:
___________________________
FINISHED!
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
____________________________
Now using the original
Poetry Triangle to guide
you, analyze a poem by
filling in the blank spaces in this diagram.
____________________________
STEP 3: ANALYSIS (Poetry Techniques)
STEP 2: FEELING (Tone/ Emotion/ Mood)
CA
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STEP 4: SYNTHESIS
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING (Subject Matter/ Purpose/ Message/ Idea)
Ms Paine - 9 English
Page 12 of 20
TITLE OF POEM:
___________________________
POET:
___________________________
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
____________________________
FINISHED!
Now using the original
Poetry Triangle to guide
you, analyze a poem by
filling in the blank spaces in this diagram.
____________________________
STEP 3: ANALYSIS (Poetry Techniques)
STEP 2: FEELING (Tone/ Emotion/ Mood)
CA
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STEP 4: SYNTHESIS
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING (Subject Matter/ Purpose/ Message/ Idea)
Ms Paine - 9 English
Page 13 of 20
TITLE OF POEM:
___________________________
POET:
___________________________
FINISHED!
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
____________________________
Now using the original
Poetry Triangle to guide
you, analyze a poem by
filling in the blank spaces in this diagram.
____________________________
STEP 3: ANALYSIS (Poetry Techniques)
STEP 2: FEELING (Tone/ Emotion/ Mood)
CA
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STEP 4: SYNTHESIS
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING (Subject Matter/ Purpose/ Message/ Idea)
Ms Paine - 9 English
Page 14 of 20
TITLE OF POEM:
___________________________
POET:
___________________________
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
____________________________
FINISHED!
Now using the original
Poetry Triangle to guide
you, analyze a poem by
filling in the blank spaces in this diagram.
____________________________
STEP 3: ANALYSIS (Poetry Techniques)
STEP 2: FEELING (Tone/ Emotion/ Mood)
CA
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STEP 4: SYNTHESIS
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING (Subject Matter/ Purpose/ Message/ Idea)
Ms Paine - 9 English
Page 15 of 20
TITLE OF POEM:
___________________________
POET:
___________________________
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
____________________________
FINISHED!
Now using the original
Poetry Triangle to guide
you, analyze a poem by
filling in the blank spaces in this diagram.
____________________________
STEP 3: ANALYSIS (Poetry Techniques)
STEP 2: FEELING (Tone/ Emotion/ Mood)
CA
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CL
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STEP 4: SYNTHESIS
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING (Subject Matter/ Purpose/ Message/ Idea)
Ms Paine - 9 English
Page 16 of 20
TITLE OF POEM:
___________________________
POET:
___________________________
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
____________________________
FINISHED!
Now using the original
Poetry Triangle to guide
you, analyze a poem by
filling in the blank spaces in this diagram.
____________________________
STEP 3: ANALYSIS (Poetry Techniques)
STEP 2: FEELING (Tone/ Emotion/ Mood)
CA
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CL
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STEP 4: SYNTHESIS
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING (Subject Matter/ Purpose/ Message/ Idea)
Ms Paine - 9 English
Page 17 of 20
TITLE OF POEM:
___________________________
POET:
___________________________
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
____________________________
FINISHED!
Now using the original
Poetry Triangle to guide
you, analyze a poem by
filling in the blank spaces in this diagram.
____________________________
STEP 3: ANALYSIS (Poetry Techniques)
STEP 2: FEELING (Tone/ Emotion/ Mood)
CA
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CL
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STEP 4: SYNTHESIS
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING (Subject Matter/ Purpose/ Message/ Idea)
Ms Paine - 9 English
Page 18 of 20
TITLE OF POEM:
___________________________
POET:
___________________________
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
____________________________
FINISHED!
Now using the original
Poetry Triangle to guide
you, analyze a poem by
filling in the blank spaces in this diagram.
____________________________
STEP 3: ANALYSIS (Poetry Techniques)
STEP 2: FEELING (Tone/ Emotion/ Mood)
CA
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CL
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STEP 4: SYNTHESIS
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING (Subject Matter/ Purpose/ Message/ Idea)
Ms Paine - 9 English
Page 19 of 20
TITLE OF POEM:
___________________________
POET:
___________________________
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
____________________________
FINISHED!
Now using the original
Poetry Triangle to guide
you, analyze a poem by
filling in the blank spaces in this diagram.
____________________________
STEP 3: ANALYSIS (Poetry Techniques)
STEP 2: FEELING (Tone/ Emotion/ Mood)
CA
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CL
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STEP 4: SYNTHESIS
STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING (Subject Matter/ Purpose/ Message/ Idea)
Ms Paine - 9 English
Page 20 of 20