The Piano and The Drums by Gabriel Okara

GABRIEL OKARA:-

Gabriel Imomotimi Gbaingbain Okara (1921-2019) was a pioneering Nigerian poet, novelist and playwright. He is renowned as the first major English language black African poet and the inaugural modernist writer from Anglophone Africa. Okara attributed his flourishing literary career to his time at Government College Umuahia, where he encountered and drew inspiration from the works of Shakespeare and other literary giants.

Okara gained acclaim for his seminal novel "The Voice" (1964), and poetry collections like "The Fisherman's Invocation" (1978) and "The Dreamer, His Vision" (2005). His writing skillfully incorporated African ideas, beliefs, stories, and imagery, earning him the moniker "the Nigerian Negritudist." Brenda Marie Osbey, editor of his Collected Poems, stated that "It is with publication of Gabriel Okara's first poem that Nigerian literature in English and modern African poetry in this language can be said truly to have begun."

Notable achievements include his poem "The Call of the River Nun" winning an award at the 1953 Nigerian Festival of Arts. His poetry featured in the influential Black Orpheus literary magazine, and by 1960 he was renowned as an accomplished literary craftsman with works translated into numerous languages. "Piano and Drums" and the widely anthologized "You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed" are among his most celebrated poems. Beyond poetry and fiction, Okara also wrote plays and contributed to broadcasting, though many of his unpublished manuscripts were tragically lost during the Nigerian Civil War.

Awards:-

• Awards Best All-Round Entry In Poetry at the Nigerian Festival of Arts, for "The Call of the River Nun" (1953) (Olatunbosun) 
• Commonwealth Poetry Prize, for The Fisherman's Invocation (1979) (Augoye) 
• NLNG Prize, for The Dreamer, His Vision (2005) (Gabriel Okara (1921-2019)) 
• Pan African Writers' Association Honorary Membership Award (2009) (Osagie) 
• Gabriel Okara Literary Festival (2017) (Ajeluorou)

Notable Works:-

• The Voice (1964) 
• The Fisherman's Invocation (1978) 
• Little Snake and Little Frog (1981) 
• An Adventure to Juju Island (1992) 
• The Dreamer, His Vision (2005) 
• As I See It (2006) Collected Poems (2016)

     'THE PIANO AND THE DRUMS':- 

When at break of day at a riverside I hear jungle drums telegraphing the mystic rhythm, urgent, raw like bleeding flesh, 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. And my blood ripples, turns torrent, topples the years and at once I’m in my mother’s laps a suckling; 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. Then I hear a wailing piano solo speaking of complex ways in tear- furrowed concerto; of far away lands and new horizons with coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint, crescendo, but lost in the labyrinth of its complexities, it ends in the middle of a phrase at a daggerpoint And I lost in the morning mist of an age at a riverside keep wandering in the mystic rhythm of jungle drums and concerto.In the poem, "The Piano and the Drums," the speaker compares the traditional African lifestyle with modern ways. The poem spans from ancient times to the present day, highlighting the impact of foreign cultures on Africans. The main idea centers on how outside influences have changed African traditions. Okara uses music to symbolize this change, showing how it affects the speaker. Ultimately, the poem mourns the loss of African purity due to the intrusion of civilization. Gabriel Okara expresses his sorrow over the erosion of African customs through the art of poetry. The poem transports the reader to a primal riverside setting at dawn, where the pounding of ancient jungle drums emerges, visceral and raw like "bleeding flesh." This mystic, primordial rhythm evokes visions of predatory animals and crouched hunters, representing traditional African life's innate wildness and spiritual connection to nature.As the drumbeat courses through the speaker's veins, they are psychologically transported back through ancestral memory to their most primal origins - being cradled as an infant by their mother. The drums' cadence carries them along simple, uncomplicated paths forged by "naked warmth of hurrying feet," allowing them to exist harmoniously amidst lush natural surroundings of "green leaves and wild flowers."But this idyllic reverie is shattered by the jarring intrusion of a "wailing piano solo" that represents the complexity and foreign influences of the civilized world encroaching on African culture. The piano's nuanced music evokes distant lands and new horizons, yet the speaker finds themselves "lost in the labyrinth" of its complexity, which "ends in the middle of a phrase at a daggerpoint" - an abrupt, violent severing.Ultimately, the speaker is suspended between two realms - the mystic "jungle drums" of their African heritage, and the unfamiliar modern "concerto" of outside cultures. They are left spiritually "wandering," unable to fully inhabit either sphere. The poem laments this sense of displacement and cultural upheaval wrought by colonialism's disruption of traditional ancestral ways of life.Okara poetically captures the profound loss and sorrow as organic African identity and cosmic unity with the natural world was shattered by the discordance of modernization's "innovations." The archetypal drumbeat gradually subsumed by the piano's "complexities" serves as a metaphor for urbanization's erosion of tribal culture and environmental harmony. His words give powerful voice to the painful ambiguities of navigating inevitable societal changes while still yearning for a primal, prelapsarian wholeness.

Symbols:

• The drums symbolize traditional African culture, values, and communal ways of life - associated with rhythm, dance, ceremony, and unity with the natural world.

• The piano represents the imposition of European/Western cultural influences and modernization - linked to individualism, discord, complexity, and the loss of ancestral identity.

Themes:

• Cultural identity - The poem explores the friction between age-old communal lifestyles and the individualistic nature of modern society, lamenting the loss of cultural purity.

• Colonialism/Imperialism - Okara portrays the encroachment of Western culture on Africa in a negative light, as an erosive force stripping away traditional values and cosmic harmony.  

• Modernity - The advent of modernization brings both perceived benefits (education, technology) and detriments (uprootedness, identity crisis), deftly depicted through metaphor.

Structure:  

• The poem comprises two contrasting sections - the "drums" portion nostalgically evokes the rhythms of communal African village life, while the "piano" section represents the present-day chaos and displacement.

Language:

• Rhythmic, musical language mirrors the drumbeat's pulse, shifting to discordant tones with the jarring piano imagery.

• Employs powerful visualizations - vividly rendering the sights and sounds of ancestral gatherings amidst nature.

Through his astute symbolism of drums and piano, Okara deftly explores the complex themes of cultural change, eroded identity, and colonialism's seismic impact on traditional African societies. The structured juxtaposition amplifies the tension between a venerated past and an unsettling, unfamiliar present.