The Song of the Women of My Land By Oumar Farouk Sesay

 

 “The Song of the Women of My Land”

 

-Oumar Farouk Sesay

 

 

    Like a sculptor chipping away at bits of wood

    Time chisels away bits of their memory

 

    It strips away Lyrics of the song of the women of my land

    Leaving only a fading tune echoing the song

   

    They sang in the forlorn fields

    About their lives; songs

    Of how they ploughed the terrain of their minds-cape

    For memories of Lyrics lost in the vast void of time

    In those days when a song beheld their lives:

    When servitude cuffed the ankles of their souls,

    And dereliction decapitated the epic of their lives.

 

    With a song, they sponged off their anguish,

    To behold their collective pains,

    To celebrate their gains,

    Give Lyrics to the tune of their lives,

    Cheat the tyrant of time,

    And commune with yet unborn

    To give meaning to an epoch lost of antiquity,

 

    Yet time strips the Lyrics and scars the tune,

    Leaving a dying song

    Dead!

    Like the women who died long ago,

    Leaving the song to tell the story of their lives

 

    Today the tune roams the forlorn fields

    Like their souls looking for Lyrics

 

 

    A brief biography of the poet

      Oumar Farouk Sesay was born in Por Lomo, Sierra Leone, on July 19, 1960. He studied political science and philosophy at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone.  Sesay was resident playwright of BIA Burch Theater in the eighties.  He has written several plays and served as a columnist for multiple newspapers.  He has been published in many anthologies of Sierra Leone poets, including Lice in the Lion’s Mane his first volume of poems.  Salute to the Remains of a Peasant was published in 2007 in the US.  He is married with two daughters.  Some of his notable poems include: “The cry”, “He did not die that day”. “Poem of things and other things”,“Some Breakers”, A Bird”, “Our cemeteries” etc.  His first novel, Landscape of Memories was published in 2015 by SLWS.

 

 Setting/Background of the poem

Content Analysis/subject matter

      This poem “The Song of the Women of My Land” explores the plight of the women in Sierra Leone, in the wake of colonialism and slave trade. Sierra Leone is a small country along the coast of West Africa, bounded in the north by Guinea, and by Liberia in the south.  It is a nation with deep historical connections to the United States.  During the time of slave trade thousands of Sierra Leoneans especially the women and able bodied men were brought to South Carolina and Georgia during the Atlantic slave trade.

Women are said to have experienced untold trauma and hardship during this time, and the persona laments bitterly about their problem.  The memory of the condition of those women drives the persona crazy.  The poem is written in a feminist point of view, exploring the problem of social inequality among women.  This poem both addresses conditions of women during decade old civil war and the Atlantic slave trade and their unforgettable memories.

             In stanza one and two, line 1-4, the persona begins with a tone of lamentation, as he compares just the way an art work is cut down, “into pieces”, of wood to the way time has eroded the memory of the women in Sierra Leone, for the citizens have forgotten so soon. “It strips away Lyrics of the song of the women of my land/leaving only a fading time echoing the song”.  This implies that time has made people to forget the trauma experienced by these women and they barely remember.

           In stanza three, line 5-11, the persona himself personally remembers their suffering during the time of slave trade, and how the women captured sing in “forlorn fields/ about their lives” as they work in the plantation farm.  The song they sing is a song of sorrow, anguish and suffering, “While servitude cuffed the ankles of their souls and dereliction decapitated the epoch of their lives”. This also means those women who refuse to cooperate with the slave masters are cut down and their lives come to nothing.

            In stanza four, lines 12-18, the poet makes us understand that those women sing song of sorrow in the field of hopelessness to cast off their anguish “to behold their collective pain and “to celebrate their gains”.  In doing so, their current condition will not have any enormous effect on them but rather it will reduce it, that is, “cheat the tyranny of time/and commune with yet unborn/to give meaning to an epoch lost of antiquity”.  Here the persona submits that the only way to keep the ugly experiences of the women alive in the land, and not forget them is to communicate it to the unborn children to add more meaning to their lost battle in the past.

           In the last stanza, line 19-23, the persona also complains and laments that time has caused us to forget their pains and suffering and the scar or the injury they suffered while trying to resist their captors, thereby “leaving a dying song”.  The “song” in the poem which represents the memory is said to be “dead/like the women who died in the process while struggling to survive’, “leaving the song to tell the story of their lives”.

           In conclusion, the poet leaves us with sorrowful mood when he says in the last two line that their cry for lives that were cut short are roaming the land of hopelessness “like their souls looking for Lyrics”.  This could also mean revenge for what colonialism and slave trade have done to Africa.

 

 

 Themes

 Effects of Colonialism and Slave Trade to Africa

          The poem addresses the plight of women in Sierra Leone and their experience in the hands of slave drivers.  During this era, women were not only the victims of colonial greed, but men also tasted their bitter pill.  Those women are said to have experienced great anguish and suffering during this period, as the persona laments bitterly.  The memory of the condition of those women propels the poet to write in honoring their great feat.

 

           However, the persona captures the suffering, and trauma those women experienced in form of ageing art work that is useless and valueless that will soon be eroded from the mother earth.  Hence “like a sculptor chipping away at bit of wood time chisels away bits of their memory”.  The Citizens have suddenly forgotten their suffering and they have failed to acknowledge their pains and inhuman humiliation done to them by the slave masters.  We refuse “to behold their collective pain/to celebrate their gains”.  This means they laid down their lives to even generation yet unborn to gain freedom.

 

Anguish and Traumatic Experience

     “The Song of the Women of My Land” by Oumar Farouk Sesay explores the traumatic experience encountered by Sierra Leonean women as a result of 20^th century, slavery and slave trade.  The poem is meant to acknowledge the effort they put in place to free the land of future dehumanization “when servitude cuffed the ankles of their souls land dereliction decapitated the epic of their lives”.

  Those women did not just suffer from daily humiliation but some of them lost their lives in the struggle.  Hence “Dead/like the women who died long ago/leaving the song to tell the story of their song.  “Even the Sierra Leone citizens seem to forget the women’s imparts as “yet time strips the Iyric and scars the tune, leaving a dying song”.  This implies that what is left about their lives and existence is the scars and the bitter tale about them, how they plough the slave driver’s plantation farms, singing painful and hopeless song in the field,, and “to day the tune roams the forlorn fields like their souls looking for Iyrics.”

 

Suffering and Loss of human dignity

         There is no law in the world that permits slavery and slave trade, even war is seen as a leveler. This poem therefore condemns it and sees such act as tantamount to loss of human dignity.  The “song” in the title of the poem is a song of suffering, anguish and painful past.  They have not only lost their precious lives but also the memories of their painful experience are beginning to wear off, as no one sees to remember them.  Their captors who captured them have dehumanized and treated them as sub-human.  The only weapon at their disposal is a song which helps ease their pains in order to “cheat the tyranny of time” / and commune with yet unborn” to tell them the story about the women’s lives.

 

Poetic Device

1. Simile: Line 1:  “like a sculptor chipping away at bit of wood”. Line 22: “like the women who died long ago” Line 25: “like their souls looking for Iyrics”Here the persons compares the conditions of those women to different things.

 2.  Alliteration: line 5: “… in the forlorn fields”.

Line 11: “and dereliction decapitated”.

Line 12: “with a song, they sponged off…”

Line 16: “cheat the tyranny of time:

 3.  Assonance: line 14: “To celebrate their gains

Line 16:  “The tyranny of time

Line 19: “Strips the Lyrics

 4.  Personification:  In the poem, the memory of these women who suffered daily humiliation is being treated as human, such personification include:

Line 16: “cheat the tyranny of time

 Line 10: “when servitude cuffed the ankles of their souls

Line 20: “leaving a dying song”

Line 23: “Leaving the song to tell the story of their lives”

Line 24: “Today the tune roams the forlorn fields” This personification attempts to give human attributes to non-human objects so as to make them act or behave like humans.

 5.  Hyperbole:  The use of exaggeration in the poem helps to heighten the anguish experienced by the women such examples include:

Line 2:  “Time chisels away bits of their memory”. Line 17: “And commune with yet unborn”.  Here time is said to possess the ability to cut memory, and also communicate with the unborn children.

 6.  Rhyme:  The poem makes use of end rhyme to show musicality.  Such examples include:

Line 13-`4 “To behold their collective pain” To celebrate their gains”

Line 15-16: “Give Lyrics to the tune of their lives” “Cheat tyranny of Lime”

Line 24-25: “Today the tune roams the forlorn field”

Like their souls looking for Lyrics” 

 

7.     Repetition:  “There is a repetition of few words or lines for the sake of emphasis in the poem. “Song”  “lives”, “time” for instance, are repeated frequently, “forlorn field” also is repeated in line 5 and 24

 8.    Paradox: There is a self contradictory expression with deeper underlining

       Meaning in line 23:  “leaving the song to tell the story of their lives”.

 9.    Metaphor:  Metaphors are amply observable in the poem, beginning with

  the title.

(a) “The song” in the title is a metaphor for act of adulation, appreciation for the heroic experience of the women in Sierra Leone.  It is the song of pains and anguish and even suffering.  The songs also help the women to calm their pains.

(b) “They sang in forlorn fields” is a metaphor for hopelessness and helplessness.

     “The song” in line 12 is a metaphor for endurance and acceptances of daily

 humiliation.

(c) “Cheat the tyranny of time” is a metaphor for the need to resist the violent act done to the women as their freedom of movement has also been denied of them.

(d) “Like a sculptor chipping away” is a metaphor for forgetfulness.  It implies that we have completely forgotten the memories of those women. The persona also buttresses this point in the last two lines of the poem; He says.”  Today the tune roams the forlorn fields like their souls looking for Lyrics.

10. Symbolism/Imagery:  The presentation of mental images to express a central idea is seen in the poem.  From the title of the poem, readers are prone to create a mental picture as they read through the poem.  The “song” in the title of the poem is symbolic of the ugly experience of the women in the land.  There is auditory image in line 5-7, 12-15 as the person hears their song of anguish and pain as they toil along on the plantation farm.  Even the last two lines re-echo this as their tone move to and fro searching for freedom.

 11. Tone:  The tone of the poem is cynical, that is, the persona believes in the worse that happened to the Sierra Leone women.  The poet sounds cynical because he seems to have superior knowledge of their experience in the captors’ den.  The reference to “when servitude cuffed the ankles of their souls/with a song, they sponged off their anguish/to behold their collective pain/to celebrate their gains/cheat the tyranny of time” equally brings out the poet’s tone of cynicism

 12.  Mood:  The state of mind of the persona is that of sadness and pessimism

 13. Euphemism:  “They sang in the forlorn fields” about their lives, song” meaning that those women morn their hopelessness in a lonely field about their lives. 

 14.  Language and structure of the poem:  The poet’s choice of words is simple and the entire poem in complex, as the poet makes use of far-fetched imagery.  Anyway, there are some words that can give a clue to what the persona has in mind to say.  The poem is divided into 6 stanzas of unequal length and 25 lines Line 1-4 explains what happened to the women in the land, and line 5-11 explores how they manage to survive the pain and anguish they experienced, while the remaining lines reveal to us that these women lost their lives leaving their memories to roam the earth.

 

 

LIKELY WAEC/NECO EXAMINATION QUESTIONS

 

1.       Discuss how “The Song of the Women of my Land” by Oumar Farouk Sesay echo the travails and anguish experienced by Sierra Leone women

2.       Give a detailed account of the poem “The Song of the Women of my Land”

3.       Examine the theme of loss of human dignity and suffering in the poem.

4.       Assess the use of metaphor and personification in the poem.

5.       Discuss any four (4) poetic devices in the poem

6.       “When servitude cuffed the ankles of their souls”, Explain  fully what the

  Poet meant by the above line.

7.       “The poem explores the condition of Sierra Leonean women”.  Discuss

8.       Examine the language and structure of the poem.

9.       Discuss any two (2) major themes in the poem.

10.                          Discuss the tone or the attitude of the persona towards the subject matter in the poem.