The piano and The Drums by Gabriel Okara

 This blog is in response to a task assigned by Yesha ma’am based on The Piano and The Drums by Gabriel Okara.

About poet :

Gabriel Okara is a Nigerian poet and novelist whose work has been translated into several languages. After his first poem, “The Call of the River Nun,” won an award at the Nigerian Festival of Arts in 1953, several of his poems were featured in the Nigerian literary journal Black Orpheus. In his poetry, Okara draws from Nigerian folklore and religion while exploring extremes within daily life through circular patterns. In addition to a novel, and several books of adult poetry, including The Fisherman’s Invocation (1978), Okara has published two collections of children’s poetry, Little Snake and Little Frog (1992) and An Adventure to Juju Island (1992).

About 'The Piano and The Drums' :

In the poem, the piano and the drums, the poetic persona shows the difference between the normal lifestyle of Africans and that of the modern world. The setting of the poem, as is seen in the poem, dates from the advent of civilization to the modern time. The central theme of the poem hinges on the effect of foreign culture to Africans. This theme he elaborates using the effect of music on the poetic persona as an analogy. The poem tries to emphasize the purity of African content before the interference of civilization.

In essence, Gabriel Okara perceives the desecration of the African way of life from the musical perspective, and comes out to lament about it through the instrument of 

Analysis of the poem, The piano and The Drums 

Stanza One : 

In this stanza, the poetic persona speaks of the sound of the jungle drum. This sound of the drum he feels is mystical, that is, there are so many supernatural things that come with it. The sound of the drum to him, creates agility, strength and quickness of action. This can be seen from lines 3 to 4 as he runs into imagination to the primordial time picturing what this sound would do to the jungle residents:

“… Speaking of

Primal youth and the beginning

I see the panther ready to pounce

The leopard snarling about to leap

And the hunters crouch with spears poised”

 All is action and natural. The poetic persona with a straight use of imagery and comprehensible words draws the readers’ attention to the fact that everything about this sound is in their natural states using words like, “riverside, jungle, raw, fresh,” names of animal in the jungle – natural habitat, and the last line of the stanza speaking of a hunter with spear ready to strike and hunt.

Everything about this stanza depicts the freshness of nature and life as of the old.

Stanza Two : 

Once again, the poetic persona remembers of years back when he was still an infant in his mother’s laps suckling her breast (lines 9 to 11). Suddenly, he is walking the paths of the village with no new ideas of a way of life different from the one he is born into:

“At once I’m walking simple

Paths with no innovations,

Rugged, fashioned with the naked

Warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts

In green leaves and wild flowers pulsing.”

Stanza Three : 

Then, here in stanza three, reality changed as the poetic persona came in contact with a different sound from a faraway land:

“Then I hear a wailing piano

Solo speaking of complex ways in

Tear-furrowed concerto;

Of far-away lands”

The change in the sound came with a different instrument other than African native drum, and it also produces a sound that is different with so many musical technicalities which the poetic persona expresses with musical dictions in words like, “concerto, diminuendo, crescendo.” He deploys them to emphasize the difficulty in understanding this new sound

 “… but lost in the labyrinth

Of its complexities…”

Consequently, in the last four lines, the poetic persona laments on the level of confusion the new sound brings when it mixes with the drums:

 “And I lost in the morning mist

Of an age at a riverside keep

Wandering in the mystic rhythm

Of jungle drums and the concerto” 

On a general note, the poet discusses the confusion that is created when western culture mixes with African culture. Any attempt to unify the two results in confusion and disorder. Therefore, one is keenly advised to abhor such a lifestyle. If you want to be African, be it, otherwise, live like the white man.

The poetic persona is not against choosing any of the cultures, but don’t mix them together. Indirectly, he warns us against becoming whiter than the white themselves or more civilized than civilization.

Themes of the poem The Piano and The Drums : 

Celebration of nature :–

 In stanza one, the way the poetic persona expresses the details of the jungle drum depicts his appreciation of the normal natural environment of things.

No place like home: –

 Although, this theme cannot be identified on a surface level in the poem, but, when the poetic persona laments over the confusion that emanates from the contact of the two instruments: piano and drum (African lifestyle and western lifestyle), he shows how comfortable one can be at home with the things and way of life that he is familiar with. There was no confusion when it was all African and their drums until civilization came.

Living a double standard lifestyle :– 

By emphasizing the confusion that comes out from the marriage of the piano and drum sounds, the poetic persona tells us that living two contracting lives can only breed confusion and complexities.

Acculturation: – 

The notion of acculturation is brought into the poem with the contact of the piano and the drums. Acculturation is when two distinct cultures meet and start to adopt and absorb each other’s norms.

Cultural conflicts :–

 The poem also shows that two distinct cultures cannot stay together as any such attempt will result in conflict of norms, traditions and beliefs. For instance, as many analyst has proposed, the conflicts in Nigeria that appear in the forms of ethnicity(tribalism), favoritism, nepotism, nonchalant attitude to public work and so on, is as a result of the incompatibility of the three major tribes in Nigeria and the many others. However, irrespective of these abnormalities, Nigeria still calls for unity in diversity.

Structures of the poem, Piano and The Drums :

It is a poem of three stanzas with 29 lines. It has no consistent rhyming scheme, hence one can say that it is mainly a free verse.

Thank you