ABIKU (Wole Soyinka)

Описание: Abiku (Wole Soyinka)
In contrast to J.P.Clark’s poem in which the ‘abiku’ is being coaxed to stay, here we have the ‘abiku’ impudently and mischievously boasting of his power to overcome all attempts to hold him. Bangles and, sacrifices of goats, cowries, palm oil and sprinkled ash, markings with snail-shells – all these in vain.
Normally, one would expect to pity mothers who have ‘abiku’, but here we’re called to admire the elusiveness of the ‘abiku’. This is understandable when we realise that, though the poem is talking about ‘abiku’, it carries a feeling and theme beyond the traditional ‘abiku’ myth. Organised society, especially traditional society, likes order and uniformity. People with individual strong personalities are considered plagues to the society and various means are used to make them conform to the accepted behaviour. In this situation most people would, of course, take the side of society. But there is also place for admiration of, and sympathy with the strong personality who is able to defy society and live a life according to his principles and nature.
Lines 9-12:
“So when the snail is burnt in his shell
Whet the heated fragment, brand me
Deeply on the breast. You must know him
When Abiku calls again.”
Refer to the branding of a suspected ‘abiku’ with the fragments of a shell burnt with the snail in it. The marking is made so that if the ‘abiku’ comes back to the same mother he will be recognised.
Lines 13-14:
“I am the squirrel teeth, cracked
The riddle of the palm…”
A praise formula – squirrel’s teeth are small, but they will make a hole in a nut which man’s teeth cannot crack.
Line 16:
"The god's swollen foot"
The earth
Lines 17-18:
“Once and the repeated time, ageless
Though I puke…”
Though I vomit like a baby I am so old that my age cannot be known.
Lines 21-24:
“The ground is wet with mourning
White dew suckles flesh-birds
Evening befriends the spider, trapping
Flies in wind-froth;”
A world of nightmare is being created here, a world in which horrible things happen. ‘the ground is wet, not with dew or ordinary water, but ‘with mourning’, i.e. with tears shed by crying mothers who have been plagued by ‘abiku’. ‘Evening befriends the spider’ by hiding its webs, thereby making it easier for them to trap flies. All these images create a picture of horror and the ‘abiku’ appears to flourish in this nightmare world of death and impossibilities. This world is called up again in the last lines.
Lines 26-28:
“… Mothers! I’ll be the
Suppliant snake coiled on the doorstep”
Yours the killing cry.”
The ‘abiku’ compares himself to a snake waiting at the dark doorstep causing the mothers to cry out when he bites them to death. There is here a transfer of the adjective ‘killing’ which describes the mothers being killed, not the ‘cry’.
Lines 29-32:
“The ripest fruit was saddest:
Where I crept, the warmth was cloying.
In the silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping
Mounds from the yolk.”
The images of death are strong here. The ripest fruit should be happiest because it has reached its maturity – but in keeping with the tone of the poem, it is saddest because, naturally, it will be the first to drop from the tree and therefore die; line 30: “Where I crept, the warmth was cloying”, gives the impression that the ‘abiku’ is aware of the ‘cloying warmth’, i.e., the saturating wet warmth of the womb; in lines 31-32:
“In the silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping
Mounds from the yolk.”
note how effectively the poet uses the brief image, ‘shaping mounds from the yolk’ to confirm the rest of the stanza – ‘yolk’ suggest the beginning of life, while ‘mounds’ suggest graves and death. The ‘abiku’ in the womb is ‘shaping’ death out of material life.
This is a difficult poem. But it is a good example of how a poet can compress much meaning into few words. One of the difficulties of the poem is created by our own minds which want to work out logically the meaning of every group of words…. But if you read the poem and allow your imagination rather than your reason to act first you will find that you achieve the deep, emotional meaning of the poem rapidly – the juxtaposition of significant words creates the feelings at once in the imagination, if the imagination is not hindered by reason. You will find that this is the case in most of Wole Soyinka’s poetry.” --- Donatus Ibe Nwoga, 1967