Freetown By Sly Cheney Coker

FREETOWN BY SLY CHENEY COKER

 

 

 

     Africa I have long been away from you

                                    Wandering like a Fulani cow

                                    But every night

                                    Amidst the horrors of highway deaths

                        5          and the menace of neon-eyed gods

                                    I feel the warmth of your arms

                                    Centrifugal mother reaching out to your sons

                                    We with our different designs innumerable facets

                                    But all calling you mother womb of the earth

                        10       Liking your image but hating our differences

                                    Because we have become the shame of your race

                                    And now on this third anniversary of my flight

                                    My heart becomes a citadel of disgust

                                    And I am unable to write the poem of your life

                                               

                        15       my creation haunts me behind the mythical dream

                                    My river dammed by the poisonous weeds in its bed

                                    And I think of my brother “with black skin and white masks”

                                    (I myself am one heh heh heh)

                                    My sisters who plaster their skins with cosmetics

                        20       To look whiter than the snows of Europe

                                    But listen to the suffering of our hearts

                                    There are those who when they come to plead

                                    Say makes us black Englishmen decorated Afro-Saxons

                                    Creole masters leading native races

                        25       but we African wandering urchins

                                    Who will return one day?

                                    Say oh listen Africa

                                    The tom toms of the revolution

                                    Beat in our hearts at night

                        30       Make us the seven hundred parts of your race

                                    Stretching from the east to the west

                                    But united inside your womb

                                    Because I have dreams in the shadows of Freetown

                                    Crashing under the yoke of its ferocious civilization. 

 

CONTENT ANALYSIS OF THE POEM

 

Freetown is an indictment on the sociopolitical state of Africa. It is an exile’s assessment of the role of mothers in Africa and the bad attitudes of its inhabitants. The poet is a political fugitive wandering through foreign lands like the nomadic Fulani.

 

In spite of his endangered state captured in the metaphorical dangers the Fulani cow’s encounters on the way, the poet can still feel the beautiful warmness of Africa and its environment. The continent has been like the mother hen giving cover to all and drawing all to it, although we pull to different directions.

 

The succeeding lines show the poet’s disdain for some Africans who are not living to her ideals, that is, “mythical dream” of Africa. Africa leaders use the platform of Africa to talk of unity when it suits them but hammer on our difference most of the time. This is because we are not proud of Africa and do not work towards her glory.

 

The poet’s calls us “children of shame” to mother Africa. The poet is utterly disgusted at the state of things that he cannot compose himself. The poet then takes a list of Africans who borrow from the whites to the detriment of their Africans.

 

These and the unpatriotic Creole leaders at the corridors of power that do not make the dream of the social activities who want a dignified role for Africa to be a reality. The present yoke of oppression and derailment notwithstanding, the poet commends Africa as a continent of diverse people and prays for unity in spite of our numerous but pitiable and avoidable differences.

POETIC DEVICES

 

(I)                Apostrophe: Africa, in the poem is addressed as if she were listening to the poet.

(II)             Simile: Line 2 “Wandering like Fulani cow”.

(III)           Personification: Line 6 “…warmth of your arms”.

(IV)          Metaphor: Line 5, “neon-eyed”; line 9, “…warmth of the earth”, Line 13, “Citadel of disgust”; line 16; “poisonous weeds”, line 25, “wandering urchins” and line 33, “shadows of Freetown”.

(V)             Hyperbole: Lines 17, “and I think of my brothers with black skin and white masks”, 20, “to look whiter than the snows of Europe”, “and 23, “but we Africans wandering urchins”.

(VI)          Onomatopoeia: The words, “shadows” in line 33, “ferocious”, in line 34, “horrors”, in line 4, line 25, “wandering urchins” are sounds.

(VII)        Allusion: Line 20, “snows of Europe”, line 2, “Fulani cow” and line 23, “Afro-Saxons”.

THEMES

 

(i)                Unity in diversity

(ii)              Social difference

(iii)            Theme of social discontent

MOOD

 

The mood in the poem is that of nostalgia, disgust and regret. His kinsmen on the other hand worship and imitate the Whitman's way of life. This disappoints him greatly.