Thursday 27 November 2008

Half Caste

Click here to hear John Agard reading his poem Half Caste

Wednesday 26 November 2008

Not My Business

Everything You Need to Know About: Not My Business
Niyi Osundare: Not My Business

This poem is about shared responsibility and the way that tyranny grows if no one opposes it. It is composed, simply, of three stories about victims of the oppressors, followed by the experience of the speaker in the poem. The poet is Nigerian but the situation in the poem could be from many countries. It echoes, in its four parts, a statement by Pastor Martin Niemöller, who opposed the Nazis. Speaking later to many audiences he would conclude with these words, more or less:

“First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

The oppressors are not specified, only identified by the pronoun “they” - but we suppose them to be the agents of the state, perhaps soldiers or police officers. The first story is Akanni's - he is seized in the morning, beaten then taken away in a jeep. We do not know if he ever returned.
The second victim is Danladi - whose family is awoken at night. Danladi is away for a long time (though there is a hint that this person eventually comes back). Last comes Chinwe, who has been an exemplary worker (she has a “stainless record”) but finds that she has been given the sack without any warning or reason.

After each of these three accounts, the speaker in the poem asks what business it is of his (or hers) - with the implication that these people's experiences are not connected to him. The speaker's only concern is for the next meal (“the yam” in “my savouring mouth”).
The poem ends with a knock on the door, and the oppressors' jeep parked outside. There seems some justice in the timing of the appearance of the jeep: “As I sat down to eat my yam”.
The poet makes it clear that the oppressors thrive when their victims act only for themselves - if they organize, then they can be stronger. Niyi Osundare also criticizes the character in the poem for thinking only of food - or perhaps understands that, in a poor country, hunger is a powerful weapon of the tyrant.

It is easy to take for granted the freedoms some of us enjoy in liberal democracies. But these are not found everywhere. There are housing estates, places of work and even schools where these basic liberties may be lost for some reason - anywhere where bullies find that their victims do not stand up for themselves or resist their power. Osundare makes it clear that it is always our business.

The poem has a very clear structure - we are told the time of each of the episodes and what happened, followed by the refrain: “What business of mine is it...?” Except for the last occasion - because it is obvious now that it (the state terror) is everyone's business. And now it is more obviously the speaker's business. We do not yet know what “they” have in store for this next victim, but we do not suppose it to be pleasant. And it turns out that merely to keep quiet and try not to be noticed is no guarantee of safety. Why not? Because the oppressors are not reasonable people who pick only on the troublemakers - they sustain a reign of terror by the randomness of their persecution of harmless or innocent people.

The names and the reference to the “yam” tell us that the poem has an African setting but apart from these details the scenes could happen in any place where the people suffer under tyranny.
How does the poet show that we are always wrong to say that bad things are not our business, so long as they happen to other people?

Do you think that the speaker in this poem is meant to be the poet? Give reasons for your answer.

In the west it may be easy to take our freedom for granted. Does this poem make you think more seriously about it?

How does the poet use the chorus in the first three verses to make his point?

He has always been a vehement champion of the right to free speech and is a strong believer in the power of words, saying, "to utter is to alter". Osundare is renowned for his commitment to socially relevant art and artistic activism and has written several open letters to the President of Nigeria (Olusegun Obasanjo), whom Osundare has often publicly criticised.

Osundare believes that there is no choice for the African poet but to be political:

"You cannot keep quiet about the situation in the kind of countries we find ourselves in, in Africa. When you wake up and there is no running water, when you have a massive power outage for days and nights, no food on the table, no hospital for the sick, no peace of mind; when the image of the ruler you see everywhere is that of a dictator with a gun in his hand; and, on the international level, when you live in a world in which your continent is consigned to the margin, a world in which the colour of your skin is a constant disadvantage, everywhere you go - then there is no other way than to write about this, in an attempt to change the situation for the better."

Under the rule of the dictator General Abacha (1993-1998), Osundare regularly contributed poems to a Nigerian national newspaper (now part of the collection Songs of the Season) that criticised the regime and commented upon the lives of people in Nigeria. As a result he was frequently visited by Security Agents and asked to explain his poems and to whom they referred.

"By that time I realized that the Nigerian security apparatus had become quite 'sophisticated', quite 'literate' indeed!

"A couple of my students at the University of Ibadan had become informers; a few even came to my classes wired. And when I was reading abroad, someone trailed me from city to city. At home, my letters were frequently intercepted."

In 1997, he accepted a teaching and research post at the University of New Orleans.
He is a holder of numerous awards for his poetry, as well as the Fonlon/Nichols award for "excellence in literary creativity combined with significant contributions to Human Rights in Africa".

The Man He Killed

Everything You Need To Know About: The Man He Killed

About the poet:

Hardy lived from 1840 to 1928. He was the son of a mason, from Dorset, in the s.w. of England. He studied to be an architect, and worked as one for many years. He also began to write prose fiction. Hardy eventually published many novels, such as Jude the Obscure and Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

When Hardy no longer needed to write prose fiction for a living - the royalties from his work gave him plenty of money – he started writing poetry. He had always preferred poetry and believed that he was better as a poet. He wrote verse throughout his life, but did not publish until 1898. Hardy certainly made up for lost time, eventually publishing six collections of verse.
Hardy died in 1928, aged 87. He had asked to be laid beside his first wife, Emma, but his body was buried in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. Only his heart was placed in Emma's grave.

About the poem:

This poem was written at the time of the Boer War, but there is nothing in it that refers to any particular conflict - it could refer to any war. The poem appears as one half of a conversation. The speaker tells about how he killed another man in battle, and reflects on how much he and his victim had in common, and how little reason they had to fight each other.

The title is slightly odd, as Hardy uses the third-person pronoun "He", though the poem is narrated in the first person. The "He" of the title (the "I" of the poem) is the soldier who tries to explain (and perhaps justify) his killing of another man in battle.

The poem in detail:

In the 1st stanza the narrator establishes the common ground between himself and his victim: the two could have shared a lot with each other. This idea is in striking contrast to that in the 2nd stanza: the circumstances in which the men did meet. "Ranged as infantry" suggests that the men are not natural foes but have been "ranged", e.g. set against each other. The phrase "as he at me" indicates the shared circumstance.

In the 3rd stanza the narrator gives his reason for shooting the man. The conversational style of the poem enables Hardy to repeat the word "because", which gives the impression of hesitation and doubt, on the part of the narrator. He cannot think of a reason to kill him, but when he does ("because he was my foe") it is utterly unbelievable. "Of course" and "That's clear enough" are blatantly ironic: it is not "clear" to the reader, and the pretence of assurance on the narrator's is destroyed by his admission beginning "although..."

The real reason for the victim's enlistment in the army, like the narrator's, is far from being connected with patriotic idealism and belief in his country's cause. The soldier's joining was "Off-hand like" and possibly the result of economic necessity: he was unemployed and had already sold off his possessions. He did not enlist for any other reason.

The narrator concludes with a repetition of the contrast between his treatment of the man he killed and how he might have shared his time with him. He says war is "quaint and curious", as if to say, a funny old thing. This tends to show war as more acceptable, but the events narrated in the poem, as well as the reader's general knowledge of war, make it clear that conflict is far from "quaint and curious". Hardy uses the words with heavy irony, knowing full well how inaccurate the description is.

This is a rather bitter poem showing the stupidity of war, and demolishing belief in the patriotic motives of those who confront one another in battle. The narrator finds no good reason for his action. The short lines, simple rhyme scheme, and everyday language make the piece almost nursery rhyme like in simplicity, again in ironic contrast to its subject.

The first thing to note about the poem is that it is written as is spoken - like Browning's My Last Duchess, it is a monologue. It is not just colloquial (like speech) in style and vocabulary. It even has inverted commas (speech marks) to show that it is meant to be spoken.

The vocabulary is very simple - most of the words are familiar or everyday terms, apart from dialect expressions, like "sat us down", "nipperkin" (a small measure of drink) or "traps" (possessions), and the abbreviation "'list" for "enlist" (join up, become a soldier in the army).

The poem is written in a simple metre and a tight ABAB rhyme scheme. Most of the lines are end stopped - but Hardy suggests the soldier's doubt at one point by using "although" to run on to the next line.

The structure of the poem is clever - the speaker ends up with the same comment he makes at the start: that war makes people fight when their natural behaviour would be to share a drink together.

Responding to the poem:

Does Hardy share the views of the speaker in the poem? Why does the soldier say that war is "quaint and curious"? Does Hardy want the reader to agree with this view?
How different and how similar are the two men in the poem? What do they have in common?

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