CHANCO STUDY GUIDE

TO

VARIOUS POETS

THE UNSUNG SONG

African Poetry

M.S.C.E. ENGLISH LITERATURE

Lilongwe Girls’ Secondary School Edition

 PART 5: POETRY

• Persona – role, character, Explain.

qualities, personality, 5. How is love related to goodness and
• Setting – place, location, joy?
situation, scenery, site, set,
surroundings, background DEAR LORD 2
• Declaration – statement, By Irene Chipeta-Zimba
announcement, speech,
pronouncement My love like a cloud
• Assure – promise, guarantee, Blown away
give surety, pledge, swear Within minutes
• Sigh – exhale (i.e. breathe out, But your love
puff out, blow out) noisily, Like the sun
Remains true
LOVE 1 Ages and worlds
By Jullia Mambo
QUESTIONS:
Nothing is good without you 1. Compare the two types of love in this
For you refresh like sleep poem.
Full of sweet dreams; 2. How is the love in stanza I shown to
You are a gentle wind be unreliable?
Sighing from fresh roses 3. Explain what is meant by ages and
worlds? How does the simile help in
You are my joy forever understanding this?
For your tenderness 4. How do clouds affect the sun?
Keeps flowing like 5. Would you say that the persona has
An all season spring love or not? Why then does God love
Running down a rock the persona?

1. Mention 4 words from stanza 1 that

show that love is a pleasant MY LOVE 3
experience. by Benjamin Chunda
2. Have you ever experienced a sweet
dream? How did you feel when you Though you are far away
woke up? Where eyes cannot reach
3. What makes the tenderness described My dreams are always there
in stanza 2 pleasantly assuring? If Paradise is made up
4. The structure of each stanza is: Of love and beauty;
declaration followed by justification You are my Paradise
or explanation. In stanza 1 the
declaration is: Nothing is good Though the road be long;
without you. State the declaration in If people can reach the moon
stanza 2. According to these Why shouldn't I reach you?
declarations, do you think this love is
from a human being or from God? QUESTIONS:
 1. How do dreams reach the 2. How can love be forgotten?
faraway places? 3. Gold…Rivers... Honey... And milk...
2. Three words in stanza 2 show These are four words at the
that the person is very pleased beginning of lines in stanza 2. What
with his or her love. Which are characteristics of each of these make
these? it a suitable image of love?
3. If paradise...you are my 4. How is the structure of stanza 3
Paradise. What similarities ac different from that of stanza 1 and
drawn between the loved one and How does this suggest that the
Paradise? problem has not been resolved?
4. According to the poem, which is 5. Which of these best describe what
more important: reaching the love is: a mere feeling; tangible
moon or reaching the loved power... drives people mad;
person? intangible power...stronger than
5. What makes the persona certain death. Explain.
that he/she will reach where the
loved one is? THE LAST ACT 5
by Anthony Nazombe
LOVE 4
by Lydia Maideni After the curtain call
The actors go their separate ways
Sighs are sounds; they go into the air; Never to meet again in this experience.
Cries are voices, they fade into nothing;
Tears are water, they go into the sea. Only skeletons remain
But I have always wondered: To haunt the stage
When love is forgotten, where does it And stir memories
go?
Beloved, I desired you that moment
Gold is dug from mines, But you would not come; and
Rivers descend from mountains, I sat on this rock, throat burning
Honey is extracted from beehives,
And milk is from udders; Soon hounds were on the trail
But where can I find love? And the hunted who must come to drink
Perished by the stream
Is love a mere feeling?
Can this feeling be resisted? QUESTIONS:
Is love a tangible power 1. What is referred to as this experience?
That drives people mad? 2. Was the experience real or made up?
Or is it an intangible power 3. Mention two words which show that
That is stronger than death? the memories are unpleasant?
4. What complaint is registered in stanza
QUESTIONS: 3?
1. What three things mentioned 5. Who do you think are referred to as
in stanza 1 disappear and cannot hounds?
be traced? Is love like these 6. From stanza 3 can you identify the
things? one who perished by the stream?
BRING SUNSHINE 6
by Matilda Luhanga 1. How is beauty described through the
senses of hearing, smell and sight?
For long I have gazed 2. How does the presence of a beauty
At your sullen cloud heal pain and sorrow?
To bring me sunshine 3. How does the persona compare the
attraction of the beauty to him/her to
My thoughts hover about that of an only child to a widow?
Like an eagle in the sky 4. Have you ever felt like this about a
Not sure where to go person close to your heart? Do you
think such feelings come from love
Remove the grey shroud or from mere infatuation?
And come and wrap me 5. Write a poem, or sing a song you
In your velvet embrace know that expresses similar feelings.

QUESTIONS:
1. How does a sullen cloud look?
2. Can a sullen cloud bring about
sunshine? How?
3. Why are the persona's thoughts
hovering about? Where will they
settle? When will this be?
4. Look at the first line of each stanza.
How is the last stanza different from
the other stanzas?
5. What two words in stanza 1 does grey
shroud (i.e. covering or veil) refer
back to?
6. How would you feel if you were
wrapped in velvet embrace?
7. The title is 'Bring Sunshine'. Do you
think this has been used figuratively
or literally?
8. Who or what is the you(r) being
addressed in the poem?

MY BEAUTY 7
by Guyce H. Bvalani

Your voice is sweet music for my ear

Your presence perfumes my days
And your smile heals pain and sorrow

A painter gets tired of his masterpiece

And her only child can tire out a widow
But never will I tire of gazing at you
EXORCISM SONG OF NYAVITIMA 9
by Anthony Nazombe by Zondiwe Mbano

May I not see you again? Once upon a time

Nor dance to your tune There was love, and love
Bound by your spell Whispered only sweetness

I have met you before The sun rose bright

In another form And cool rivers mirrored
Your claws betray you White clouds sailing high

I was a child then Love is like a tree growing

Led by the hand in a sleepwalk Which soon bears flowers
Blind to the wreckage at your feet Pouring out aroma of beauty

These platforms and Winds sigh in the trees

The luminous wood on your face And high trill in the branches
Make no difference As day passes and night comes

QUESTIONS: In the night there are moths

1. What emotion does the tone in That plant ravenous grubs
stanza I reveal? What do you To gnaw away at the roots
think it means to dance: to
someone else's tune? Children, if you see love wilting
2. Do you think the spell that bound Do not ask questions; only
the person was from the power of Remember once upon a time
beauty or witch-craft?
3. Although the subject (person) has • Nya signifies that the name is of
come in another form, what has a woman, especially one who is
not changed? How does this grown-up and, in most cases,
reveal about his/her character? married.
4. Make no difference (final stanza) • Vitima means sorrows.
to what? What is the persona
trying to say? QUESTIONS:
5. State three reasons given in 1. Which words in the first stanza show
stanza 3 that explain why the that this is a tale?
person made a mistake at first. 2. How are the following, suns, cool
6. What in stanza 4 shows that the rivers, and a tree imagery of love?
persona now sees clearly and is 3. Which two things mentioned in stanza
not likely to repeat the mistakes 4 show that love is calm and
he made before? How is this peaceful?
strengthened by the dramatic 4. What two things bring about wilting?
start in stanza 1? 5. What life experiences are moths in
7. What does exorcism mean in this stanza 5 a metaphor of? How do
poem? these destroy a love relationship?
6. Would you trust love when it whispers
 only sweetness? How does this by Jayne O Banda
poem serve as a warning to young
people? Hazel was only nine months
7. How does the last line show that this When college called me
poem has an endless structure, like a And I left with a heavy heart
circle?
Thank you, Lord, for my man
MARRIAGE 10 A pillar of love towering over
by Herbert B Kapota Jeers, taunts and sleepless nights

It is like an oxcart Now open your hearts, beloved

Where one ox is fast For before long I will flood you
While the other is slow With love in arrears of three rains
Drover throws the whip
QUESTIONS:
It is like a moving car 1. How did the persona feel as she left
Sometimes slow uphill for college?
Sometimes fast downhill 2. Who jeered and taunted the man?
Driver step on the brakes What do you think they said to him?
Why?
Inside are the young 3. How did the man respond to these
Innocent souls entrusted to us people? If you were the man, what
To nurture and transport home would you have said?
Drover goads us, stop us 4. Mention two words in stanza 2 that
show the man is strong and reliable.
QUESTIONS: 5. For how long was the woman away?
1. What will happen to the oxcart How will she compensate for this?
with oxen at different speeds?
2. How will the drover's whip DEAR MOTHER 12
help correct this situation? by Elizabeth Makhala-
3. In stanza 2, what will the brakes help NyaMatcherenga
to correct?
4. According to stanza 3, what Dear mother, if only you had known
responsibility do the parents have in How I wish you were still alive
marriage? Would they succeed in So we could be together on this day
their responsibility if they get
divorced? Little did I know what you meant to me
5. A drover moves cattle or sheep from If only you had waited for this day
one #ace to another. Who or what is To receive big parcels of my love
referred to as the drover or driver in
this poem? My dear mother you went so early
6. How is the oxcart and car, as used in But I still send you flowers of love
the poem, appropriate metaphors for On this special day, Mother's day
marriage?
QUESTIONS:
PILLAR OF LOVE 11 1. When is Mothers' Day in Malawi?
What does the day commemorate?
2. What would the persona have done if WOMAN 14
the mother were alive? by Chris Mwawa
3. 'But I still send . . . Is this possible?
Explain. On her back
4. What do you do for your mother, She carries
parents, or guardians on this day? A young baby.
5. Do you think the day should be
renamed Parents' Day? Explain. On her head
A big calabash
MAMA 13 Full of water.
by Thomas Khumuwa
In front of her
You walked the nine miles • Is a burden
Of pain and hope to Golgotha Of another one
Coming soon.
And the next arduous twenty
You walked me to adulthood With long strides
The man ahead
For all the gruelling walk Shouts at her:
I adore you sweet Mama 'Quick woman!"

QUESTIONS: 1. What three things has the woman

1. What pain and hope is there? What carried?
does Golgotha symbolise? 2. What two things done by the man
2. An arduous activity involves a great show that he is not considerate to the
deal of effort and strength. Why do woman?
you think the next 20 miles are 3. Mention things the woman should
described as arduous? have done to solve her problems?
3. Between the nine miles and the 4. If you were the man, what would you
twenty, which do you think is the have done to show a loving and
most difficult period for the mother? caring attitude to your wife?
Why? 5. Describe your experiences of violence
4. Which two words show that the against women? What should men
persona greatly appreciates the role and women do to overcome these
played by the mother? problems?

WHY THE OLD WOMAN LIMPS 15 milk to buy soap,

By Lupenga Mphande Feeds and washes the children, and
tethers the goat.
Do you know why the old woman sings? In the evening she tells stories of old at
She is sixty years old with six the fireside:
grandchildren to look after I know why the old woman sings.
While her sons and their wives are gone
south to dig gold. Do you know when the old woman
Each day she milks the goat, sells the Sleeps?
She rests with the day, at night she end?
thinks of 7. If you met her sons and their wives
Tomorrow: she's to feed the children and what advice would you give them?
graze the goat. Why?
She's to weed the garden, water the
seedlings beans, FEEDING 16
The thatch has to be mended, the by Steve Chimombo
barnyard cleared,
Maize pounded, chaff winnowed, millet Come, let us both eat
ground, fire lit... The freshly cooked nsima.
I do not know when the old woman Come, let us both drink
sleeps. The freshly brewed thobwa,
Product of finger millet,
Do you know why the old woman Maize flour and water.
limps? May their mingling slake
She goes to fetch water in the morning Our thirsting spirits.
And the well is five miles away, May the yeast sprout in us
Goes to fetch firewood with her axe' New life and new hopes.
And the forest is five miles the other
way, Come, let us take some
Goes to the fields to look for pumpkin Of this food and drink
leaves And pour libations thrice
Leaving the goat tethered to the tree At the nearest rain shrine,
And hurries home to the children to To fill the ancestral spirits,
cook: I know why the old woman limps. To intoxicate them all with
The spirit of the new woman.
QUESTIONS:
1. What situation has led to the QUESTIONS:
grandmother having to keep six (From Part Three of Breaking the Bead-
grandchildren? What modern problems strings)
have led to many children having to be 1. What is the other person being invited
brought up by their grandparents, uncles to eat and drink?
or aunts? 2. Why is the fact that the food and drink
2. What does the grandmother do in are produced from millet, maize and
order to provide for the family? water important? Would it be the same if
3. What activity does she do which is they were imported foods and drinks?
usually done by grandparents? Why does 3....slake our thirsting spirits. How does
she sing? this show that the thirst that needs to be
4. Out of the tasks in stanza 2, which quenched is not very much physical?
ones will she do personally, and which What do you think this thirst is? Explain.
ones is she likely to ask others to do for 4. How will partaking in this bring
her? newness and real satisfaction?
5. Why do you think the old woman 5. Look at the first line in each stanza.
limps? How do these lines introduce aspects of
6. Examine the structure of the poem. love, sharing and worship?
How does each stanza begin and 6. Which other beings are involved in
the sharing of food and drinks?
7. What will characterize the spirit of the
new woman?

AUNT MAO 17
by Anthony Nazombe

The riddle that makes

The dutiful cock crow
Yields its knot to fingers
That knead the earth

You must wake up

With the dew
Face the morning wind
With childless hands at the back

This ear now hard of hearing

Has seen many tobacco rolls
Dry skins of maize cobs
From yester year's harvest

Yours are hard-bitten toes

Defying stumps and stone-pricks
Hoes diminished by rust and age
Handles polished by sweat and sand

QUESTIONS:
1. Mention two words from the first
stanza which refer to something very
difficult to solve.
2. What word used in the first stanza To love someone
means the opposite of lazy? What a commitment!
3. What time for waking up is
recommended in stanza 2? If there is Christ on the ancient tree
no child, why are the hands at the Have patience with us
back?
4. How does the woman carry her For days are so many
tobacco cigar? Use a pen to Fewer the hairs of a bull.
demonstrate this.
5. Mention three things from the last Some day we shall know;
stanza which show that Aunt Mao Then love shall drive us
lives a rather hard life.
And love shall steer us
TRAIN TO BALAKA 18 Like wheels of a train
by Zondiwe Mbano
QUESTIONS:
A train puffs round 1. Identify two verbs in stanza 1 and 3
And up the slopes which show that the train is moving
slowly and with difficulty?
Its stubborn will, steel 2. From stanza 2 and 3, pick out words
Wheels that carry it along that give a sound similar to
squeaking when you read them.
So many wheels squeak 3. A noisome thing is disgusting.
Under its millipede body! Mention two things in stanza 4 and 5
which are disgusting.
A boy sits, sucking mango 4. Scrambles in... How did the woman
After mango, while belching enter the train?
5. Identify words from stanzas 6 to 9
And green flies swarm which show that:
The coach: so noisome! (a) the woman is very poor
(b) the baby is very healthy
A young woman scrambles in 6. Who is to blame for the woman's
Her beauty drowned in poverty condition? Why?
7. Why is Christ mentioned in the poem?
Only a worn out wrapper How does Christ compare with the
From breasts to above knees. roving sower?
8. Days are so many/Fewer the hairs of
In her hands, a smiling baby a bull.' What argument or plea does
Nude and round like a pumpkin: this proverb support? Explain.
9. What characteristics of wheels of a
A fruit thriving in the wild, train make them appropriate imagery
Lord, where is the sower? for love?

The roving sower who never LEADERS OF TOMORROW

Deigns to come back and tend. by George Pungulani
You leaders of tomorrow spear? What activities is she engaged
On what comer stones in?
Are you going to build? 3. Did the rich man see the spear? Why
is the man wasting away?
Running away from school 4. What do you think the spear
Where true leaders are baked symbolises? What is the banquet to
You hide in dark comers which the whole world is invited?

Can one find happiness LORD HEAR OUR CRY 21

In sex, drink and smoke by John E.B. Matope
The very hams of death?
Hoes wear out
QUESTIONS: Not because of farming
1. Who are leaders of tomorrow? 2. But digging graves
Mention two things they do which will
not help them to be leaders? Hymns are learnt
3. ...true leaders are baked...Why is the Not in churches
verb 'baked' a good metaphor of the But at graveyards
process of preparing leaders?
4. Mention the three things in which they Hospitals are there
seek happiness. Will they find it? Not for healing people
5. Why are sex, drink and smoke But keeping them to die
described as “horns of death”? What
dangers does each of these pose to At the end of the day
life? The coffin seller
Has a happy profit
THE SPEAR 20
by Christopher Matewere Lord, we cry to You
Every day every night
My children, open your eyes and see Hear our prayers, Lord
The spear is vanquishing the world
QUESTIONS:
A woman seeking money in the dark 1. Mention three things described in the
Does not see the spear poised to strike poem that do not happen the way
they normally should?
A rich man wastes away in a poshy ward 2. Why does the coffin seller have a
Nourished only by drips and penicillins happy profit? Would you say he is in
good business? Explain.
The spear is inviting the whole world 3. Do you think these people have much
To a banquet underneath the earth time for farming and attending church
services? Why is it so?
QUESTIONS: 4. To show that the Lord has heard the
1. What are the children told to do in prayers, what is He being implored
order to see the spear? Is the spear to do?
visible?
2. Why does the woman not see the SONG OF TEARS 22
by Lackson J Chatha
Brother I warned you once And so
But you said life was great If you were pushed
To scale the limits of nature
I saw them in your house To reach Songani Lookout -
Swimming into the rooms From the wrong end
Bottom upwards, east and not west
Now I am left alone crying You might as well succeed!
How can they all disappear?
QUESTIONS:
QUESTIONS: 1. Mention the things that make Songani
1. What did the brother mean when he Lookout daunting?
said life is great? Have you ever felt 2. But if you were exposed/ or marooned
that life is great? In what situation How would this situation force you
did you feel so? to reach the top? Describe an
2. I saw them.../Swimming ... Who are experience that motivated you to
they? What were they actually doing fight hard in order to succeed,
in the rooms? 3. Men have swum ...deep end of Lake
3. What has happened to the brother? Malawi...What life experiences do
Now where are those who were you think are being referred to here?
swimming into the rooms? What examples of success are
4. What message do you get from this achieved?
poem? 4. To climb to Songani lookout from
bottom upwards would involve scaling a
SONGANI LOOKOUT 23 cliff or precipice. How do the moss and
By Felix Mnthali crags make the climbing almost
impossible? What life obstacles are
It looks daunting, doesn't it? similar to moss and crags?
With its moss, slippery moss 5. What life experiences can push people
With its crags, biting, sharp to scale the limits of nature? Mention
Blood-letting crags. men and women who succeeded in
situations that looked impossible?
But if you were exposed 6. How can this poem encourage you as
Or marooned a scholar, or as an aspirant after a
On that perpendicular, mossy greyness - profession such as teaching,
If you were pushed or pinned journalism or engineering?
To that perpendicular craggy majesty
You would force yourself CHASING PAGES
And no doubt succeed by Linda C. W. Saidi
In reaching the top!
I have walked a long way
Men have swam During these few past rains
From the deep end
Of Lake Malawi - Those ahead are still walking
Not only defying the lake Those behind are still walking
But achieving success
Mothers leaving crying babies 6. Sometimes pupils riot and destroy
Newly weds deserting spouses school property when there is a
drastic change in their conditions. Is
This madness of chasing pages this a proper way to resolve a
Where can one find a cure for it? problem? Instead what should be
QUESTIONS: done? Write a poem about the
1. What do past rains refer to? conditions in the school.
2. Why are those ahead and those behind
still walking? Where are they going? HONEYBIRD 26
3. Would you say the action by mothers by Zondiwe Mbano
and spouses in stanza 3 is good?
4. What is this thing that is referred to as Honey-bird you lure me
the ...madness of chasing pages? Away from the morning fire
Why is it referred to as such? To the cold wet forest.
5. What will happen if the cure is found?
Would you be amongst those people On my shoulder, I carry an axe
lining up for the cue? Why? In my hands, a spear and clubs;
Across the fields to the forest,
DOMASI COLLEGE 25 Honey-bird you lure me on.
by Ndekhane Kalumba Through the forest, up the slopes
The desire for honey, like a fire
You have become a dream In the blood, drives me on.
Of fresh chambo from coals
Of chicken from the grill My knees weak with fatigue, and
A smell of blood in my nostrils,
Those straight as a pencil I look up the high mountain;
Started talking about weight Honey-bird you lure me on
After a week in the dining
QUESTIONS:
Blow back our old cays 1. What circumstances described in the
Kind wind of the mountain first three lines make the call of the
Remove the scourge of beans honey-bird not pleasant?
2. What tools and weapons does the
QUESTIONS: persona carry? Does he/she expect to
1. What was the diet like before? find honey or something dangerous?
2. Is a person described as straight as a 3. Why does the persona endure the hard
pencil thin, slim, fat, or plump? and tiresome walk?
3 . . . . Talking about weight. Were they 4. Have you ever felt a fire in your
talking about how to slim or how to put blood? How did it feel?
on weight? 5. State two things which show that the
4. What differences do you see in the persona is very tired.
way the last stanza is constructed and 6. Do the last two lines promise rest or a
the first two? farther long and hard walk? Explain.
5. What is it that is described as the 7. What do you think the honey-bird
scourge of beans? What is the stands for? Explain.
person praying for?
THE SERPENT 27 And fresh maize
by Sophie Jobe
With shoulders upright
You came with smiles And marching as to war
And a sweet tongue He has always been
While showering gifts The source of wonders among men
Always emerging from nowhere
Breaking hard hearts To stand where we needed him
And levelling deep valleys At the moment we needed him
You took me to your nest
What would Malawians
Going to bed at midnight Around the mining towns
And waking at cockcrow Of Selukwe, Shabani, Guinea Fowl
Is the torture I now earn Have done without him?

Hot tears flood my cheeks I see him now

My bones fail to hold me In his white coat
When I think of my home Stethoscope slung on his shoulders
Muttering 'Oh Yes'
QUESTIONS: Through rows of patients
1. What specific things did the serpent In the hospital at Camper Down
do to attract the persona?
2. What is this nest that the persona was I see him again
taken to? Sundays this time
3. Mention problems the persona Right in front of the congregation
experienced when he/she went to the and to this day up there in
nest. Mbulunji, a tower of strength
4. How did the persona react to these To the Church of Central Africa
problems? Why does the persona Presbyterian
think of his/her home?
5. Have you experienced a situation Will our children ever follow
when you regretted .taking The love that sends a man
someone's advice? Explain. At the break of day
6. What does the serpent symbolise? To gather the choicest maize
Explain why you think so? The choicest fruit
And wait close to the roadside
MY UNCLE E. P. MTUNGAMBERA To emerge quietly
HARAWA 28 As the van to Zomba comes in view?
By Felix Mnthali
Don't call it perfect timing:
Don't call it perfect timing He has always been
When my uncle emerges Where he was to be
From nowhere At the minute he was to be
Leading a procession Like his ancestor Kajimerere
Of men, women and children Who it is said
Bearing groundnuts, potatoes Explained his origins by saying
'I grew out of this land.' Wetlands of a lake
Countryside; I see your beauty
QUESTIONS: My Nyamwezi homeland
1. What did Uncle Harawa bring?
2. What specific things do you think he QUESTIONS:
did for Malawians around the mining 1. Are the Nyamwezi tall or short
towns? What was Uncle people?
Harawa before he came home? 3. 2. What makes the new moon look
What does he do in the church at beautiful?
Mbulunji in Rumphi? 3. Mention characteristics of the
4. I see him now...I see him again... Does Nyamwezi that make them beautiful?
the writer actually see him, or does 4. Do you sometimes feel nostalgia for
he simply remember what he saw? your home? Describe beautiful things
Explain. you remember at your home. 5. Sing a
5. What specific things did he do in song about the beauty of home, eg.
preparation for the journey to Kwathu ku Mlangeni...
Zomba? How does this demonstrate
love? How might children of today LAKE KAZUNI 30
not understand this love? Would you by Zondiwe Mbano
agree with this? Why?
6. Read the line in the last stanza that Lap, lap ripples of Kazuni
explains the meaning of Kajimerere. Lap against your muddy shore
7. Would you say Uncle Harawa is a
seer who foresees where and when Lap and listen to the roaring storm
people need him? Or would you say he Tearing down the youthful boughs
is a man who is always full of love and
zeal to serve others? Lap and listen to a dove's dirge
8. Write a poem about someone who did All her brood smashed by the storm
something special for you, or
someone who loves to serve others Lap and listen to a widow wailing
Her man capsized by the battering storm
THE NYAMWEZI 29
Andrew Bwenkha Thawe Lap and listen to trumpeting elephants
Thunder and hail on Vwaza Marsh
Putting my head into the clouds,
True image of a young Nyamwezi; Lap, lap you muddy water
Beautiful as a new moon Can't reflect my louring cloud

Robust legs, thick lips Lap, lap ripples of Kazuni

And a tender dark skin: Lap against your shaking reeds
Oh, true Nyamwezi!
QUESTIONS:
Sweet soft language, 1. From stanza 2 and 3, state what the
Full of song and wisdom: storm has done?
Oh, my Nyamwezi! 2. From stanza 3 and 4, pick out two
words which mean the same as
 mourning. Salutary, and over stones
3. Why can't the water reflect the
lowering clouds? It leaps sportively like
4. What do these metaphors stand for: A hare; then spreads out
storm and lowering cloud?
5. Look at the marking (') of the beat in Effervescently. Little waves
the stanzas. Ripple out, and out, and out

'Lap and 'listen to a 'widow 'wailing Then disappear. And slowly

Her 'man cap'sized by the 'battering With calm ardour, the water
'storm
Traces its windy course
'Lap and 'listen to 'trumpeting 'elephants Down to the hungry lake
'Thunder and 'hail on 'Vwaza 'Marsh
Up the valley and beyond
Now read the lines while stamping the The wind is a madman
ground on each beat. Mark the
remaining stanza with four beats in July wind charging at nothing
each line. And craven grass and leaves

THE LINGADZI 31 (At Kongwe Rasp and rattle in terror.

Mission ) A hill with horns rises high
By Zondiwe Mbano
Piercing the scowling sky.
Indeed this river is lovely Under the mellifluous water
So lovely and peaceful.
Crabs skulk sideways
The water purls tunes Around the mossy crags.

I am listless today,
Feel cold and listless.

I must rest on this rock,

It's warm on this rock

That never stirs or shifts.

Come Nellie, my poetry,

It's broad and warm

Under the lambent sun.

And what have we

To fear on the rock!

There's nothing to fear

Under the lambent sun Dowa, 1978
 Dotolololo-tolo, Dotolotolotolo
1. Describe the structure of the poem in Dotolo rebuffs ticks
terms of numbers of sections, stanzas And ticks rebuff Dotolo
in each section, and lines in each
stanza Then time for old English:
2. Generally what does each section deal One deck you see the man
with? Is he coming? This means
3. Describe the lovely and peaceful
imagery contained in section 1. When I called Nyaukandawire
4. Is the hungry lake part of the peaceful She turned into an anthill,
imagery? Explain. Therefore Dotolo is a god
5 Describe the metaphors of violence,
fear and danger contained in section
2. How does the mellifluous water
contrast with the crabs in it?
6. Pick out metaphors of power, love,
warmth and security contained in
section 3.
7. In spite of the dangers in the water
and around, why does the persona
declare that there is nothing to fear?

DOTOLO 32
(A Dotolo nawo mwe)
by Zondiwe Mbano

People of Ekwendeni
And of areas around
Forget not Dotolo

His hair cut and combed

Leaving a straight ridge
Like a crest of white

Dotolo in the market

Patrolling, and no thief
No litter-bug would dare

Dotolo down the street

Dancing classic malipenga
Like Soliyamu of Nkamanga

His shirt and short ironed

To razor-sharpness, his stick
Spinning like a fast wheel
Children, we listened to him Down the Mpatamanga your rapids
The teacher from Nkamanga Challenge thoughts to harness you
Bewitched for his learning
You calmly meander the Lower Shire
He was our Ekwendeni While crocodiles patrol your banks
More than the Asian stores
Full of biscuits and sweets 1. What means of transport is the prince
using to go to war?
But one day some men came 2. Pick out two words from stanza 1 that
Saying he was their brother describe a person of royal birth.
And they were taking him .3. Why would it be difficult to harness
the river at Mpatamanga?
No one stopped our Dotolo going 4. Despite the calmness, what dangers
And soon dusty winds blew word are there in the Lower Shire?
That he turned into a red mound 5. Compare the speed of the water as
Zomba 1993 described in each of the three
stanzas?
"A Dotolo nawo mwe.' a song children
sang for Dotolo, a madman at
Ekwendeni, in the 60's
1. In your own words, describe Dotolo's
hair style.
2. From stanza 3 and 4, what two
functions did Dotolo fulfil at
Ekwendeni?
3. Have you ever watched a Malipenga
dance? Can you demonstrate how to
spin a stick the way they do it?
4. Find out from peers details of the
Biblical story about what happened to
the wife of Lot. Do you think Dotolo
was simply retelling this story in stanza
7 and 8? Explain.
5. What brief background information
about Dotolo is given in the poem?
6. Did children like Dotolo or not?
Explain.
7. How did Dotolo die? How did the
children feel when they heard about
his death? Explain.

SHIRE RIVER 33
By Chris M Zenengeya River
Shire you flow majestically Like a
prince prancing into battle
I ION'T KNOW 34 and spears and assegais nod their assent
by Kondgara Mangu/ube to the conquests that are sung.

in its full attire emerging - is it that our How easy it is here

sights fall on where darkness built its among our own people
dwells, coercing sleep on eyes feeling it to clutch and hug the rags of yesterday
least necessary ? and sing and dance for the dawn.

in its majestic move uncovering all that 1. One line in stanza 1 is a title of a
was beyond sight is it that every nose novel by Chinua Achebe. Which one
pack all airs God created for all days our is it?
banking move ? 2. Which line in stanza I shows that

Dead

Does the moon that faired poorly in its

part of making us differentiate our right
from our left rightly?

Dream

I wonder if we're
to see the sun rise higher and our
shadows long enough be small.
243

THE BEAUTY OF DAWN

By Felix Mnthali How
easy it is here
To be no longer at ease among our own
people clutching their shadows!

The land reels

from the repeated blows of what we did
and did not do

We wrestled with the devil we snubbed

temptations oh how we fasted for forty
days and forty nights while praying for
the dawn When
you come to see us you will be haunted
• by the incantations around our bonfire

feathers shake our glory

in the noon day heat,
 people live in fear?
3. In what state is the 1. Read a line repeated within a stanza.
land? Why7 Read a line repeated in every stanza.
4. What 3 things did they
do while praying? Were What effect does repetition have on
the prayers effective? the poem?
5. What type of dance is described in 2. Explain how in each stanza what the
stanza 5? How do you know this? people did was a fiasco.
3. To embolden a craven bull. Is this
6. What line warns against holding on to possible? Explain how.
useless things from the past? 4. What advice is given in stanza 5?
7. Has the beauty of dawn come? Why are the elders called upon to do
Explain. this?
5. What situations could you relate the
WHY, OH WHY 36 poem to?
by Zondiwe Mbano
Daughters of Lukonkobe Dressed up in NYUMBANI'S TALE
colours of flowers To meet a blind by Zondiwe Mbano Trappist
suitor; Daughters of Lukonkobe Why, oh went to the river
why? In the heat of early afternoon

Mothers of Lukonkobe 37
Elected an impotent slave
To marry the chief's daughter. There he came near a burrow
Mothers of Lukonkobe With footprints of monitor lizard
Why, oh why?
He examined these footprints
Sons of Lukonkobe Showing monitor was in the burrow
Whistled and chanted praises
To embolden a craven bull. Then he said as if to himself
Sons of Lukonkobe Yet shouting for monitor to hear
Why, oh why?

Men of Lukonkobe 244

Danced the victorious mgubo
To welcome a famished runaway.
Men of Lukonkobe
Why, oh why?
Eiders of Lukonkobe,
When a he-goat is mad,
Don't you knock off its horns?
Elders of Lukonkobe
Why, oh why?

Lukonkobe is a river. Mgubo is a dance

performed when warriors return from a
successful battle.
 away from? Did he find
I will bring nd set my trap light? What happened to
Before monitor crawls out today him?
4. What do you think double
tongue
Meanwhile he quickly set the trap And symbolises? Who has it?
tip-toed to under a shade 5. Why did trappist kill
monitor? Do
Monitor had overheard the plan you think it was fair? Why?
And reasoned from inside the hole 6. Do you know people who have a
double tongue? What suffering do
I must run out of this grave they cause to innocent people? What
Before he brings his death tools can you do to stop such people
causing others suffering.
He crawled out of darkness
Hoping he was going into light LEADERS 38
by Bridget C. Mhernedi Remember
The trap was keen for his neck you climbed high up On the scafford of
It snapped and throttled him the people

Dangling he gasped for breath Now you wax yourself with wings
His eyes and forked tongue out Spitting as you look down on them

From his shade under a katope tree Beware of the heat from the anger Of the
Trappist dashed towards his catch hungry barefoot and sick

How quickly I have got him today See 11 How can a scaffold be used for
his double tongue flickering building or destroying?
2. What two things ar the leaders
I have got the skin to make a drum That said
will call everyone to dance to be doing?
3. What thing mentioned in stanza 2 is
Panted out monitor in a dying voice It's susceptible to heat?
you who have the double tongue 4. Can the condition of being hungry,
barefoot and sick be blamed on the
From your lips shine out hope leaders? Explain.
From your heart creeps out death

1. How did Trappist know that monitor

was in the burrow?

245
2. How do stanzas 4, 5, 6
and the last
one show that Trappist was
a liar?
3. What was this darkness
that monitor was running
 5. What warning to leaders does 4. Describe the metaphors of calm and
poem present? beauty presented in stanza 2. What
contrast do the last three lines
SONGS FROM THE CLOUDS 39 present? 5. Why were the women
By Francis Moto I sat at killed in stanza 3?
Chingwe's hole and heard songs from 6. In each stanza how does the persona
the clouds. Songs bathed in blood the get the information about the
blood of a people murders that took place?
• sacrificed to quench the wrath 7. Are there modem practices that
of bloodthirsty gods. sacrifice women to men in power?
Explain. What can you do to make
the sure such practices are stopped?

I sat on the shores of Malindi RIDING A LION 40

a cold wind rode by Hellen C Kachala
on the rippling waves When the leader rides a lion Followers
to break on the sand, silently edge away Fearing how the
pebbles and lake shell. journey will end
Again I heard Songs from the clouds.
Songs of children sacrificed to feed the When the leader rides an elephant
stomachs Followers tiptoe from a distance
Of starved gods Marvelling how he will dismount

Sitting on concrete slabs Sipping a cold And when the lion and the elephant
beer Graft themselves into siamese twins We
The clouds broke into song, wonder whose blood is flowing
A song wailing for women Beautiful,
young and ignorant: Live women 1. Why are the followers afraid?
handpicked 2. Can a person ride a lion? What real
To be the king's pillow. life situation do you think this refers

Chingwe's hole, a big dark hole, like a

crater, is on Zomba Mountain. Stories 246
are told of how people were sacrificed
by being thrown into the hole. Later
their bodies would float down the
Naraitembo (corpses) river.
1. Pick out a word that has been repeated
three times in stanza 1. How does
this help to introduce the theme dealt
with in the poem?
2, Why were the people killed? Was this
justified?
3...Songs bathed in blood... Imagine how
such songs would sound. What mood
would they convey?
 to? So children loudly whimper with hunger
3. What political situation can be likened pains
to what is described in stanza 3 ? 247
4. The last lines show that the people
fear, marvel, and wonder. Do you
think the leaders described in the Walk about barefoot
poem involve or consult the people Bottoms on display
in major decisions of their party? Feet treaded
5. Would you say such leaders are good? Bellies distended (i.e. inflated, swollen)
Explain. Skulls on shoulders

DRIFTING SCUM 41 Asians flaunt (i.e. show off) smiles

by Max Iphani And beckon to customers
Who contort faces
Arm in arm In response to the affection.
Tattered shirts and wrinkled faces No amount of screaming
Striding along the streets "Sale, sale, sale!"
Stumbling over potholes Brings any bargains
Towards cold slums Speaking Gujarat only scatters
Surrounded by drifting scums
And yellow maize Automobile salers doze on counters
Textile factories wear rags
Vendors voices grow hoarse Second-hand clothes heaps
Only flies and mosquitoes answer Are crowd pullers
Their shrill cries in swarms. And cause market stampedes (i.e. fights)
Pedestrians merely salivate
Shaking hornless heads. Education goes commercial,
Selling turns into wrestling Even graveyards are Etons of Africa
As wares are shovelled. Where mandrax and hashish
Onto peoples' bosoms and mouths Are consumed with gusto (i.e. pleasure)

Widows dangle Winds from the western hills

Their hindquarters Blow morals afloat into the air
And wear potent aphrodisiacs but not And hospital superintendents
even Casanovas Tread over dead bodies
Want to act playboy, so When mourners collect loved ones.

1. What kind of people are described in stanza 1? Describe the houses, surroundings and
locations.
2. What kind of income generating activities are they involved in? Do they make much money?
Explain.
3. And wear potent aphrodisiacs. Why do they wear these? What 'business' are they in? Are they
to blame for this?
4. What signs of extreme poverty and malnutrition among children are described in stanza 3?
5. What kind of business tricks do the Asians employ? Are they successful?
6. List indicators in stanza 5 and 6 that show: a) that the economy is very bad, b) that education
 quality is very poor, c) that the country is overwhelmed by death.
7. What has happened to traditional moral values? What has caused this?
8. Who are the people referred to as Drifting Scum? Are they the poor living indecent lives in
slums, or the leaders whose policies have brought extreme poverty and suffering? Explain.

MODERN ADVERTISING 42
by Steve Chimombo

"Wake up to the world of Leonex"

The song gyrated across
The mind elbowing out reality
Pirouetted onto the corners of the soul
Bounced against the wails
And curtsied to a crash of cymbals.
It landed outside
And parrot-like chanted to the world:
Leonex! Leonex! Leonex!

The soul erosion exorcised truth

And replaced it more permanently with:
"Life is richer with Leonex!"
Now I use Leonex after-birth lotion-
Thanks to Leonex.
Wash my brains in Leonex liquid.
Thanks to Leonex.
Gargle my soul with Leonex mixture.
Thanks to Leonex.
And dry my tears on a Leonex towel.
The cleansed spirit yearns for the big name:
"Life is indeed better with Leonex?"

As I walk down the street

Breathing rarefied Leonex air
And see other Leonex faces
I give my thanks to Leonex
New York

1. What messages does the song convey?

2. What expressions show that Leonex messages are presented as if they were evangelical
messages?
3. What toiletries has the person been enticed to use?
4. The soul erosion ...Life is richer with Leonex. Does the writer want us to believe that this
message about Leonex is true? How can you tell that the writer is using irony?
5. The last stanza seems to suggest that the person has been converted and now worships
Leonex? Is this so? Why7
6. What characteristics of modern advertising does the poem parody? Why?

WAITING FOR THE RAIN 43

By Felix Mnthali

Black faces smile and nod

Above limp hands Clapping their automatic
Soundless and unintended welcome
It has been done, before, done
Under every shade and colour of sky
From overcast, dark red to very clear

The robust and sweating poor of our sort

Clap hands, sing and ululate
For Land-and Range-rovers
Mercedez Benzes and Toyota Crowns
Six-O-Fours and Datsun
B's Forerunners of forerunners
With multi-coloured flashlights
And whizzing sirens
On their rooftops
It's been done, before, done
This ululation of the dispossessed
For the tired smile
And the tired nod
Red and sad
From praying for the rain

The poor and sweating of our sort

Have been here since dawn
Clapping their hands
For every moth that frets and shouts
Its hour upon the stage
Bylining at the multicoloured lights
And wailing sirens
Taking them
Into the land of milk and honey.

THE NEW YEAR 44

by Anthony Nazombe

The seasons have run their course:

Marrow-chilling June
Gave way to blazing August
Which in turn yielded
To sky-rending November
Heralding the greenery of January

Water flowed from its source

To return with the rains,
Trees surrendered their leaves
To regain them green
And the moon waned
Only to wax again

And now life hovers

Between what has been
And events to come,
Night marking the end
Dissolves in the light of the beginning
And the snake casts away its skin

The cock sings a new song

To the rising sun:
Sweep the house clean
Of last year's dirt,
Empty pots of yesterday's beer
And wash them clean of insipid malt

Then we shall brew new masese

For the New Year throats
Clad in crisp wrappers
While women sing new Chioda tunes
And men stomp and dance
To the rapturous Ingoma rhythm
A PRAYER 45
by Zondiwe Mbano

Blazing sun Staring from above

Wink at times;

Let your eyelids

Rain down
Tears of pity.

Green in fields
Green in the wild
Stoop under you

1. Which two words in stanza show that the sun is hot?

2. How does the sun wink? How is personification used here?
3. What human organ is the sun likened to in stanza 2?
4. What is referred to as green? What exactly has happened to the green? In which months do
this normally happen?
5 What is the persona praying for? Explain.

SICK CHILD 46
by Owen Kandeu

Look at that child

His stomach full of emptiness Safeguarded by ribs you can count
Look at that child
His face older than his age
A big head spinning on a thin neck
Look at that child
How does he walk
On the legs of a mosquito

Look at him now

In a swarm of green flies
And a dog cleans him with a lick

1 Is a stomach full of emptiness, small or large? How does the contradiction in these lines help
clarify the message of suffering?
2. What evidence is there that in stanza 1 the child is thin?
3. Describe his face, head and neck?
4 Walk on legs of a mosquito. Is this possible? By using such exaggeration what does the writer
want to emphasize?
5. In stanza 4, what has happened to the boy?
6 What would you say the child is suffering from? Explain the causes of this? How can the child
be helped? 7. Look at the first line of each stanza, what do you notice? What effect does this
 style have on the poem?

A WIDOW 47
by Zondiwe Mbano

An old widow walking to the market.

She must keep on her head a heavy basket
To keep her children in school

I saw her down the road

Going to sell her maize
Her face where many sorrows brood
Is cracked and scratched
With claws of the cruel Cold;
Her hands the dirty and coarse hands
For those whose are clean
Have grown thick and callous;
The soles of her feet without hope for shoes
Have grown thick tissues

An old widow tramping her neck

Deep into shoulders
Down the road to the market

But suddenly an eardrum rending hoot,

Helter-skelter to surrender their road
But near the edge she stumbles;
Then in a slouch she stands
Enjoying the heat radiating
From her nail off bleeding toe;
Her maize scattered on the dust

Just then, a Benz zooms past;

On the backseat, a mastiff:
The type that eat money a week
Enough to keep her children in school

Submerged in the dust, she slits her eyes;

Then suddenly opens them
To a big bang sound!
Hobbles to see, though
What ill can befall them?
Then walking some yards, she sees
The triumph over terrain
The luxury of travelling
Crushed against a huge trunk

All around smashed glass scattered

Inside squashed steel man
And dog locked in a death hug

1. Explain from stanza 1 the relationship between the basket on the head and the children in
school?
2. How does the woman look like? Do you think she is successful in her income generating
activities?
3. Describe briefly what happened to her on the road to the market? How did it happen? Was it
fair to the woman?
4. Describe the accident that happened to the Benz? Who were involved?
5. Would you say what happened to the man is poetic justice (instant justice), or it is one of those
unfortunate accidents? Explain?

VIPYA 48 (Ooo Vipya, Vipya wabazungu)

by Zondiwe Mbano

Ooo Vipya
Vipya of the whiteman
Conqueror of the lake

Welcomed machona
From the bowels of gold
To bury them in the lake
Ooo Vipya
Heavy roaring iron
Ironing the waves

Vipya of the whiteman

Mass iron coffin
Deep under the lake

"Vipya" was a passenger ship on Lake Malawi. It sank in July, 1946. "Vipya wabazungu" means:
Vipya of the white man, or made by the white man "Machona" are people who go to work
faraway from their homes, and do not come back until they are old. Most of the machona went to
work in the mines, in South Africa and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe and Zambia).

1. Which two stanzas have the metaphor of the greatness and power of Vipya? Read the three
words from these stanzas which show this.
2. How does stanza I and 3 show the power of the Vipya over the lake? Why is the metaphor of
an/ton appropriate in describing the
ship?
3. What are bowels of gold? Why is the drowning of machona a very sad thing?
4. Why is Vipya an iron coffin? Why would a coffin be appropriate metaphor for the Vipya
5. h the final analysis would you say that Vipya had power over the lake or vise versa? Explain.

DEATH 49
by Rosemary Ulemu Mkuraba

You come picking one by one

Like a bird picking grain
Leaving only songs and tears

Flooded rivers soon dry up

How long shall I mourn
Before my tears run dry

l. Who or what is being referred to as you?

2. What do the songs and the tears refer to?
3. What is it that is symbolised by a bird and gain?
4. When will the person's tears dry up? Does the person happily look forward to this time?

GRAVE MATES 50
by Steve Chiraombo

We meet again at the same

Graveyard, familiar grave-mates.
The mounds like tumours of grief
On the ground's face separate us.
Misty eyes moisten the dust storms
Raised by the shovels and hoes
Refillirg the freshly dug hole.

Today it is Tatha's turn.

Yesterday we mourned Malizani's end.
His bougainevelia wreaths are still fresh
As if watered by frequent tear drops.
Last week it was Ndatsalapati.
His flowers are yet less shrunken
Than his brothers' and sisters' before him.
Heavy with haunted thoughts
Retrace our steps, eyes locking
And grazing over the question:
When shall we meet again
In laughter, sorrow or in pain?
October 2000

1. What word used in the first two lines shows that they meet almost daily ?
2. State common charicteristics around the grave. Mounda "separate us. How do the mounds
separate the grave-mates themselves, and the grave-mates and the dead?
3. List the three people in order of their deaths. How do their names emphasize the frequency of
death?
4. Identify words or phrases that show the grave mates do not take frequent deaths lightly?
5. ...meet in laughter, sorrow or pain? Does this anticipate three different meetings or one
meeting? Explain.

DEATH 51
By Edward SA Moyo

A savage storm that sinks vessels

Roving shadow whistling at night
Sharp axe raised on innocent trees

You wriggle quietly into the home

And draw tears to caress the cheeks
For mourning is your victory song
1. What three things are likened to death in stanza 1? What common characteristic do they have?
2. Who or what is referred to as you in stanza 2?
3. And draw tears to caress the cheeks/For mourning is your victory song
State the contradiction contained in each of the three last lines?
4. Pick out words in the poem that present death as if it were a kind of person? How does this
affect your appreciation of the poem and its theme?

MOTHER 52 (In memory of my mother; Dedicated to my daughter, Judith)

by George Chatha
In the night journey home,
Sleeping, waking, and sleeping
Yet I still hoped
To find you blinking
But I met grave-diggers tramping
Towards your final lodging.

I remember your frail face

Gazing but not recognizing me.
I thought you would open your mouth
And spit a good-bye blessing
Yet you slept on
Not welcoming me as before?

A year before, in the hospital, doctors

Assured us you would be fine.
Judith, Sylvia and sisters
Waited to see you walk home
Mother, gone down the insatiable belly
Where shall we find comfort?
1. Was the journey home a short one or a long one? Explain.
2. Was the person's hope fulfilled? Why not?
3. Did he have a chance to see the mother when she was very ill? Explain.
4. What assurance did they get.'? Do you think the doctors were deliberately misinforming them?
5. What is the insatiable belly a metaphor of? Why is it described as insatiable?

DON'T CRY 53
by King Norman Rudi

At the confluence of reality

Life shakes hands with death

When water runs to the lake

The earth dries up and cracks

Oh my children do not cry

The rain is coming again

1. What is a confluence?
2. Is the imagery of life shaking hands with death a happy or sad one?
3. How does the natural cycle of the land from green to brown to green symbolise life and death?
4. Is the confluence of reality a physical place where death meets life? Or is it a kind of mental
balance that makes us understand that death is the other side of life? Explain,

SONG OF SORROW 54
Fanny, Alice and Solomon

By Zondiwe Mbano
(Pacali patali pasirya pa nyanja)

It's still far

It's still far across the river
Lay the ropes for me to cross

It's still far

It's still far across the lake
Many have gone
but none has returned

It's still far

It's still far across time
How can I sing and dance alone
When my heart is sinking in many a tear

"Pacali patali pasirya pa nyanja," is translated in stanza 2.

In the village, rope, extracted from bark, is used in making a bridge of poles, and in lowering a
coffin into the grave.

1. Between the river and the lake, which is more difficult to cross? Why is the author using these
two images together?
2. Can a person go across time? How? Is it possible to come back?
3. Why is the persona alone? Why is the persona a loser? What has he/she lost? Have the other
people gained anything through their action?
4. ...sinking in many a tear, How does the heart sink in tears? What does this imagery refer to?

SILENT PALACE 55
By Sophie D Nambazo

Silence in the ghosts' palace

Many curtsey and enter it

When will the place be full?

When will you say enough?

We have cried day and night

We have prayed day and night

Lord when will you hear us

And remove this silent palace?

They came flocking as admirers

Hiding their motive in smiles motive?

SILENCE RETURNED
by Zondiwe Mbano

Machine of men
With fossil power
Puff slow, slow

Up the green hills;

For though the road be bumpy
And the engine loud

MY SWEET ROSE 56
by Kenneth Mtambalika

What wrong did you do them

To remove you while so tender

There's silence up the hills;

There's dryness
And the memory of rivers

Memory cool pools

Where reptiles deface all serenity
Machine of men Puff slow, slow
On the road to Madisi

For the yellow sun

Stares at us, crouched
Around whiteness.
I am the loser, sweet Rose
But what have they gained

1. What happened to Rose? Did Rose do anything wrong to these people?

2. How did they come? What was their

This stripling
Went to school
But silence returns;

Only yesterday
Fully agile, today
A cold presence
Power of fossils
That rolls the world,
Push us gently

Along sandy tracks

Through farms and forest
To that forlorn hill.

Our heads reel

As questions search
The wilderness of knowledge:

Is beauty tinder
For burning youth;
Is love autolytic?
Machine of men
Squandering the treasure of fossils
Puff slow into Sungeni:

A huddle of huts
Below a gold-crowned hill.
Now the reality of sorrow:
Hearts of stone melt
As men shake their heads
In silent agony of sorrow;

And the tears of children,

Of mothers and grandmothers
Erode all fortitude

While escorting a primary school girl-friend of his, there was an eclipse of the sun. On the day
we too had somebody to his home. Salima, February, 1978.

1. What is referred to as machine of men, and what is the fossil power which it uses? Does it
use this power efficiently?
2. Identify words or phrases that convey a mood of troubled calm and silence?
3. Where are the people going, and why are they going there?
4. The yellow sun stares at us... Why is the sun described as yellow?
5. Identify words used in stanzas 6 to 8 that are metaphors of death?
6. The poem is made up of four sections, each with four stanzas. What is repeated at the
beginning of each section? What effect does this repetition have on the whole poem?
7. Why did the entry into Sungeni village mark the reality of sorrow? What is it that eroded all
fortitude?
8. Autolytic means self-destroying. For example the process of ripening in a fruit leads to
rotting. How are the questions in section 111 stanza 4 relevant to the situation in the poem?
What answers would you give to the questions?

HOW LONG LORD 58

by Patrick H M Kwalimba

Old parents bury their only child

Orphaned children wail in the night

Countries spend millions of dollars

Perhaps someone may find a drug
Lord how long shall You watch us
Being slowly wiped from the earth?

COMING FOR GOOD

by Tobias T Chidzalo

Is life mere smoke

That three years work
Simply blows away?

We endured long years

When you only came
Briefly during holidays
Did we wait for this
Your coming for good
Now cold and silent

1. How did three years work blow away? What was being pursued in the three
years?
2. We endured long years. Were these years different from the three? Why are they called long
years?
3. They surely must have waited for his/her coming for good. What does this coming in stanza
3 refer to: the coming for good at the end of the studies, or the coming for good referring to
death? Explain.
4. Which two words in stanza 3 are metaphors for death?

IN MEMORIAM 60
by Anthony Nazombe

You disappeared at dusk

To be found at break of day
Dangling from a branch of a tree.

Athlete snapped in mid-leap

Arms poised and muscles taut
You would not reach the ground alive

Umbilical cord prematurely broken

Young shoot so soon hacked
Unfinished phrase...

Was that torn short,

Hangman's rope,
Your farewell?

THE NEW HOUSE 61

by Steve Chimombo

We came home to this:

Rats scuttling under the ceiling
Cockroaches pullulating in the pantry
Fruitflies hardened against the cold
Multiplying in the refrigerator

We came home to this:

Owls' mating calls on the roof.
Clawtops skidding on the corrugation,
Nightmares chasing each other
On our pillow jolting us awake
We came home to this:
Mambas slithering in the backyard.
Scorpions connecting across doorways
Guard dogs dying of rat poisoning.

Between the kitchen and the bedroom,

Between the births and the burials,
Between the spaces created by the silences.
We have to build in our own time
A new home we came to, you and I.

EARTH 62
Mercy F Longwe

Solid, deep and rich

The broad back that bears
All creatures big and small
Fixed, walking or flying

You receive the seeds

From the hands of the wise
And give them back in plenty
In the season of harvest
Those who cannot bend
Their backs in sun and rain
Will later crawl in the dark
To snatch the reward of others

1. Mention two things that are fixed, and three that walk on the earth?
2. How does the earth multiply seeds planted in it?
3. Why can't some people bend their backs: are they physically challenged or lazy?
4. Why according to the poem do some people resort to crime?

THE WAY 63
(Ndilongorani ntowa)
by Zondiwe Mbano

Show me the way

Show me the way

Show me for I am tired

And I want to go to sleep

I took a little porridge

And now it moves in my eyes
Wherever I have to go
Across the river or forest

The song I love to sing

Is show me the way

"Ndilongorani ntowa "means: show me the way.

1. Why does the persona want to be shown the way?

2. What kind of porridge is this that moves in the eyes?
3. What things show that the persona could be cirunk?

LITTLE FROG (Kachule ka m’dambo)

Zondiwe Mbano

Little frog of the river

Saw cattle grazing patiently
Low dewlaps dangling up the valley

Little frog of the river

Wondered why he did not have
Long horns pointing up the valley

Little frog of the river

Splashed some water, to rouse
Long tails whisking up the valley

Little frog of the river

Started bellowing, to stir
Calm humps undulating up the valley

Little frog of the river

Burst like a puffed-up balloon
Unheard by ears flapping up the valley

Blank eyes blinking up the valley

Puffed up his belly, to frighten
Little frog of the river

Kachule ka m’dambo means: little frog of the river.

1. Four body parts of a cow are mentioned. Which are these?

2. Which line is repeated in every stanza? What effect does this have on the poem?
3. In each stanza there is a line that describes what frog did, and another line that says what the
cattle did. Identify these lines
4. What three things did the frog do in order to make cattle notice it? Which line shows that the
cattle did not notice the things frog did'?
5. Would you feel sorry for little frog? Why? What do you think is the message from this poem?

MY MAN 65 (Omunaanga nchiyani - song from Dowa)

Zondiwe Mbano

What is this?
My man, what is this?
What is this now?
The shirt is tight

To the other wife

You went yesterday
And you return today
The stomach swollen

What is it?
My man, what is it?
What is it now?
The shirt is tight

1. One line says what is this, while another says what is it? What does each of these refer to?
(The tight shirt, swollen stomach, the illness)
2. Why do you think the man's stomach is swollen?
3. Would you say the woman is a loving and caring wife, or a jealous and nagging wife?
4. Can you sing the song in vernacular?

REMAKE THE WORLD 66 (for Jimmy Cliff)

By Felix Mnthali

Need we wake up naked

In the sacred hour of a neutral dawn
To dance at the graves of our forefathers
And trample on the shrines
In which gods had spoken to
Men and the men had vouchsafed their future,
Their past and their present?

Is this earth, then?

Infinite wisdom
Shouting men and materials
To village sidings
Where grasses overrun the rails
And snakes sneeze in the noonday
Heat, leopards doze beneath the brambles
And owls chant eerie dirges over
Corpses yet to be born
While hyenas heap their dung
On graves yet to be dug?

For us too the sun will rise

trailed by the iambic pentameter of children
marching to school of hens
cackling beneath the nkhokwe
and marbles crackling on the bawo.

We shall sing lyrics

not to the semblance of a dream
that might have been
but to the labours of man
who dresses mountain-slopes
with man-made forests and gardens
for maize who tattoos valleys and plains
with acres and hectares of tilled land
and triumphs over leopards
and hyenas lurking in the dark.

DAY OF NEW BABY 67

by Constantine E.Masala

A day of song and dance

Seeing a new shoot on the tree

A day of celebration
As new baby enters the home

A day of bad tempers

When others vie for mother's love

A day of new anxieties

As thin budgets stretch further

SIGNS 68
Steve Sharra

Marauding hyenas fight at night

Sending people's hearts cold with fear;
They say it's a bad sign

A lonely owl hoots in the dark

And a toddler cries in sleep;
They say it brings bad luck
A sparkling fire lights the hearth
And a drunkard steps on his toes,
Following a path to the graves

Cats do not mate in daylight

While children point and watch
Or death visits the compound

1. Examine each stanza. What do the first two lines state? What does the last line add?
2. .... A bad sign. Why are the people afraid? What do they think will happen?
3. They say...Who are they? Do you believe what they say? Explain why?
4. Why do owls hoot? Do they have needs different from those of other birds?
5. What might happen to the man who follows the path to the graveyard? Are there people who
sometimes hide at the graveyards? What motives do they have?
6. Cats are mammals. How do they reproduce? Have you ever seen cats mating? When do they
do this?

BEADING 69
(From Part Four of Breaking the Beadstrings)
by Steve Chimombo

All beads are circles with holes

for the strings to pass through them.
Big or small, round, square or oval,
all the beads are circles encircling me.
I am a bead on a string circling me.

All the women are circles of beads,

necklaces linking one to the other,
bracelets holding each other's hands,
anklets with feet joined at the base...

We are the new colours of the rainbow

of our own beading, each to each.
This is the new healing circle.
Hold my hand as I hold yours:
together we form a magic circle.

HOME 70
by Chawanangwa BC Banda

I am on my way to the land

Of rivers of love and mercy
Land where peace is bread
And justice a drink for all
Where the wind sings poetry
And sunshine heals all pain

VILLAGE LIFE 71
by Esme Kusauka

Waking up before sunrise

Cutting, digging, pounding
Staggering under weights

Smells from kraals and pens

Cackling, bleating, lowing
Calls for food and freedom

The evening is for feasting

Singing, dancing, storytelling
Then resting for the next day

1. Why do people wake up before sunrise?

2. The middle line in each stanza has verbs in the progressive tense ‘-ing’. What does this
signify?
3. From the words in the second line of the second stanza, which animals are kept in the village?
4. What freedom do the animals cry for? 5. What activities bring relaxation and enjoyment after
a hard day's work? 6. How would you compare life in the village to that in the town?

CHIKANDA BEACH 72
Austin Chiwindo Chirwa

As far as your eyes can see,

On the left is Thowolo Port
On the right Bandawe Port
And in between, Chikanda

In the hazy south-eastern horizon

Is Likoma and Chizumulu Islands,
And behind you, bordering a long
Lovely sandy beach, is Chintheche.

Canoes quietly sail on the blue

Sheet swaying up and down
As fishermen come from Chikanda
Singing about their large catch

OUR JOURNEY 73
By Charity Ndhlovu-Chinkono
It seemed so easy-at first
Years seemed like weeks
We left spouses lamenting

On the hot valley of Domasi

Days, weeks, months, years
We spent drawing water

Phones rang and letters came

Intimating illnesses and deaths
The long road still wound on

Now that we walk the last mile

How do we thank the dear ones?
Who endured the pain and worry?

SUNSET OVER MPARAYI

by Zondiwe Mbano

Now shadows elongate

Reaching towards the lake
That gives birth to the sun

Cattle slowly
And dust rises high
Like an oblation for rain

Boys riding on cattle

Chant the glory of their bulls
And whistle nostalgic tunes

Girls balancing pots

Yodel wistful songs that
Fan their secret fire

Men shouldering their kill

Cross fields to the idyllic welcome
By women and children

Hungry fires on verandas

Lick pots that flavour
The home and absorb fatigue

The sun crowns Mparayi

And drapes ribbons of gold
Over the slopes to Lukonkobe

Behind Mparayi a velvet

Cloud stretches upwards
To welcome home the sun

And now darkness stalks

Children and covers shadows
Skulking around the fires

FIERY BALL 75
by Albert Kalimbakatha

See that fiery ball

About to fall down that hill
To a world so still

The glimmering west

In its best
Gold shade
Will slowly fade

Darkness returns
To take turns
With the light
And reign with might

1. Work out the rhyming scheme in this poem. What effect does it have on the poem?
2. Make a summary of what the persona is trying to say.

FORMULA FOR FUNERALS

by Steve Chimombo

The formula required is not mysterious: a few famines, droughts and pestilences; one or two
napolos and HIV/AIDS, also to control population, create depopulation and make room for more
burial grounds.

The anguish of the bereaved gashes

the sunken flesh of cheeks like gullies
left on the land in the Great Rift Valley,
as tears gush out of eyelashes and sockets
enough really to refill the lake of storms,
razing to skin any moles and pimples
flash-flooding poles and flattening the hairs
or uprooting them in the wake of their passage.
The lamentation of the mourners’ furrows
the foreheads like the combined contours
of the Shire Highlands and the Kirk Range
as sorrow terraces the drained temples
high enough to cause the envy of the rawera
yet sufficiently deep to be hiding places
of Mulanje, Zomba, Viphya and Nyika mounts
when the heart's heaviness rises to the head.

Indeed, only a few ingredients are required:

the mfecane, slave trade or the mchape
and one or two world wars in between
to mobilize spears, poisons and explosives.
The results make more room for grave mounds.

1. By what means does death come, according to stanza 1?

2. Apart from reducing the fertility rate and bringing about depopulation, how can death make
room for more burial ground?
3. Stanza 2 and 3 describe the face of a grieved person, using geographical terms. Which
features of the face are described here? What emotion do all the features convey?
4. Why does the poem show the face of the mourner extending to the whole of Malawi?
5. According to stanza 5, what were the main causes of death in the past? How does this compare
with present deaths?
6. By seemingly joking about death, the writer makes statements about the extent and devastating
effect of death. What is the overall message about death in the poem?

CHAMELEON 77
by K L Lapukeni

Basically, he started lean and weak.

Moths facelifted him.
Up one branch, his first,
he swallowed them up
segment by segment,
then thoraces, heads and antennae.

Stronger, he heaved himself along

a sturdier branch, foxing into birds' nests.
He swallowed fledglings:
beaks feathers and all.

Heavier, he took a branchlet,

along which his eyes discovered
more insects, centipedes and hoppers/
It snapped, and he fell to the ground,
his belly open as a book,
releasing the young, mid-aged
and Machipisa alive.

We gaze at him now, breathing relief,

seeing no reason why we are interested in him.
But we live.
Old, he is dying

NOTE: Machipisa Mnthali was Malawi's longest serving prisoner. He was in Kamuzu ' s jail for
27 years.

THE ROAD TO EMMAUS '8

(Luke 24:13 -35)
by Zondiwe Mbano

On this winding road

A shadow is close by me

On this lonesome road

A shadow trails after me

Extending from my heels

East to the sun's cradle

And now the sun is setting

Slowly into lurid clouds

Spread behind the ridge

That sends out darkness

A shadow is close by me
On this wandering road

Yet darkness attracts me

As flames attract a moth

Oh my Lord, draw nigh

On this road to Emmaus

ANOTHER FOOLS' DAY TOUCHES DOWN: SHUSH 79

(for Mercy, Judith, Lunda, & Lika)
by Jack Mapanje

Another Fools' Day touches down,

another homecoming. Shush.
Bunting! some anniversary:
they'll be preoccupied.
Only a wife, children and a friend,
probably waiting.

A Ph.D., three books, a baby-boy,

three and half years-
Some feat to put us...Shush.
Such frivolities no longer
Touch people here. '
So you decide to come back, eh?

Rhetorical questions dredge up spastic images. Shush

In the dusty, brown-grey landscape, the heat unrolls.
Some wizard has locked up
his rainbows and thunder again.

Why do the gods hold up the rains?

Don't we praise them enough?
Shush. There are no towers here,
no domes or gothic windows.
Only your children, friends
nestling up for a warm story

April 1st. used to be celebrated as Fools' Day before it was abolished during the Kamuzu's era.
Jack Mapanje was detained for years during the MCP government.

1. 'Shush' means silence. Why is shush repeated many times? What atmosphere does this give to
the poem?
2. Why are only the wife. children and a friend waiting for the persona as he comes from
overseas? What has made the other people preoccupied?
3. What 3 things have happened in the years he was overseas? Why .do the people at home not
seem to appreciate these important achievements?
4. What warning to the persona is contained in the questions: So you decide to come back. Eh?
5. What traditional explanation is given when rain delays? '
6. Why do the gods hold up the rains? Is this natural rain or rain as metaphor of freedom?
7. Who is the wizard holding up the rain now? Why does he hold up the rain?
8. This poem was written during Kamuzu's era. Would you say the rain has come now?
Explain.

by Steve Chiraombo
Kamuzu's Grave in Ruins 8th November, 2000, p.3 The Nation,

Cenotaph of all cenotaphs

was built in the centre of Heroes Acre
solemn presidential decree.
this cenotaph was mrerrea
The life president of all dictatorships.
Written on this cenotaph heavy security
paraded and brooded day and night.
to, mark this, that was once upon a time.
The newsman nosed about responsibility:
Who tends to cenotaphs now in Heroes' Acre?
Why the assesertion of the camping guards,
structions for turning cenotaphs
o gave us the burial ceremony?

"It's not for us," said the security spokesman

"to explain the withdrawal of the guards men.
It's in the hands of other powers that be:
the Ministry of Home Affairs, for example;
talk to them, they can answer that."
"It's not for me," negated the former minister
for Home Affairs and Internal Securitiy:
"I've changed portfolios since then.
"I'm now in a different ministry altogether.
talk to the chairman of the Heroes Acre."
"I'm not the right person," chided the chair.
"I'm out of the Comrrfttee for Heroes' Acre.
"I'm no longer in government, even,
"I'm in the legislature, which is different.
Talk to someone who is able to comment."

The newsman wondered who to turn to next: The city assembly? The national parks? Someone
surely issued instructions somewhere for the lights around the cenotaph are off, the security
men's tent empty and draughty.

Meantime the cenotaph still sinks lower lamenting over the weight of abandonment; gathers
mould and insomnia of desertion, weeds and shrubs tickling it over the ramparts as nature
reclaims the comer into a forest.

Meanwhile more promises and decrees wrapped in oily rhetoric are dispensed: a project here and
an appeasement there; a scam here and a cabinet reshuffle there. Everywhere fiascoes by
someone responsible as everyone scrambles for power or position, being busy to be the next
worthy candidate fit to be in a cenotaph in Hero’s acre November 2000

1. What personality did the man whose remains are interred in the cenotaph have?
2. How was the cenatoph treated at first?
3. What three things about the cenatoph does the newsman want to investigate?
4. Where did he/she start his/her investigation, and where did he/she end?
5. What common response did he/she get at each stage of the investigation? Why &
the people respond this way?
6. Would you say the system described in the poem practises openness and account'
ability or suppression?
7. What other problems in the system are highlighted in the last stanza?
8. busy to be the next...candidate fit to be in a cenatoph... Do the people scrambled
for power think in this way? What does this irony reveal about the people's preoccupations in
life?

MLAULI'S MUSINGS 81
by Steve Chimombo

Mlauli said he had foreseen

All these happenings before;
had indeed his predictions
accrae to be, in our life time
The fields will no longer be ravaged
by locusts because they're radioactive.
Stead the army worm will invade
and eat away the hearts of the stalks.
Fake fertilizers will be fed to the soil
breaking fools wonder why there's famine.
Rivers and lakes will be exhausted

Or emptied because of over, fishing.

Jungles will be silent because of poaching;
rests will be bare because of burning.
The air will become foul for breath,
the water poisonous because of pollution.

Commodities will not be homegrown

but imported at great expense
so that local produce soars in prices,
thus enriching the man across the border
as we do our shopping by mail order
or fly to our neighbours to buy our stuff.

The youth will no longer be initiated

by the riverside or in the bush shacks
but from sitting room watching videos
soon to be banned for explicit pornography
when the watchers know really
what goes on in bedrooms or resthouses.

Public exams will no longer be private

but secretly photocopied and then sold
in the streets, bars and even school rooms
by teachers arbitrarily transferred or not paid.
And still the man will convene committees
to find out what's wrong, why low standards.

Ministers, MPs and even entire cabinets will in broad daylight siphon off funds meant for the
common good or the masses into their own private accounts or companies but the man will
pretend not to see all this and will ask for more evidence and proof.

We will no more be afflicted with common infections like syphilis but Acquired Immunity
Deficiency Syndromes. This we will pass onto our offspring out of love for each others' partners
until we learn to stop illicit sex.

Limbs will not sprain walking in gardens nor bones break falling in bathrooms but be mangled
by maniacal minibuses snarling round comers meeting us head-on with our saloons, cycles and
scooters or in derailment, crashes or flounderings

As much as we die from engineered war

or genetic manipulations gone wrong
we will still multiply at a rapid pace:
huts will be emptied because of poverty concrete houses be filled by the unemployed and
pavements made impassable by vendors.

Mlauli had seen all these events before and many more terrifying ones to come. These, indeed,
will also come to pass soon. It had been decreed and will not be diverted.
ZOMBA MOUNTAIN
by Steve Chimombo

Great grandfather, founder of the clan,

baskets of spirits under each arm
claimed your slopes for our village.
We spread between the green banks
of two rivers: Naisi and Naming'asi,
planted and reaped in the fields,
played and prayed in the forests.
huffed and hunted, lived and loved
under the giant gaze of your granite face.

I, too, laden with a packetful of poems

under each arm, staked my claim on your plateau,
peaks, pools and all, to wrest the wisdom
of the ancients from the myth-infested forests and rivers.

I read your visage like verse: savoured your similes, mined your metaphors wrapped in the
roaring rivers or buried in the bowels of boulders; deciphered symbols of import in crags,
crannies or crevices; scanned cliffs clad in clouds or rain-laden for fresh inspiration.

Now, great grandfather resurrected would not recognize your visage. They blasted your boulders
down, smashing myths to smithereens. They graded your undergrowth, mashing watermaids
underwheels. They pulverized the wood spirits, flattening out their sighs and songs.

Napolo no longer bursts the banks

of Naming'asi, Satemwa or Naisi;
no myths meander down Mulungusi; no lore slithers down the Likangala past pawsteps of lion,
leopard or lizard. They all vanished into the valley below.

Now the crows fight ants over leftovers of crumbs of cake from the cottages or canned beef,
beans or bottled water from the backpackers on the camping site. Concrete, steel pipes, plastic
and bricks sprout in banks, boulders and pathways.

Still, the cliffs cleave the skies,

split the sunset into shafts
of red, orange, purple and blue
doing a dying dance on your brows sending the slopes to early sleep, blanketing the town and
villages below in a premature foliage of darkness.
This you will never surrender to man.
This my great grandfather would recognize. October 2000

Zomba Mountain is seen as a god'less, a great mother, like Makewana, who supplies all the
needs of the people and spirits.
1. What did great grandfather get from Zomba Mountain? How did this benefit his sons and
daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, and great-grandsons and great-granddaughters?
Read a line from stanza 1 that shows that Zomba Mountain saw all these developments.
2. Great grandfather ... claimed... I-. staked.., to wrest. Looking at the verbs used, how did
these people get the items from Zomba? Why did they do it in this manner?
3. I read your visage like verse: What intellectual items does the persona get by contemplating
the different facets of Zomba Mountain?
4. What desecration done to the face of Zomba Mountain do stanzas 4 to 6 describe?
272
 5. They blasted.., smashing... They graded.., mashing... They pulverized..flattening... How
does this manner of gathering resources differ from that of the persona ( I ) in stanza 3 ?
What are the consequences of this?
6. Describe how a crow would fight with ants. What action by humans Leads to this unnatural
fight? How is this part of the desecration wrought on Zomba Mountain?
7. What role has Zomba Mountain, as mother and goddess, maintained in her service to the
people. What evidence is there that the community in Zomba
has been transformed so much that they resent some aspects of her role? 8. How would you use
this poem to teach others about proper management of
the environment?

SONG OF A CAR 83
by Dorah Mwase

I came to you sleek and new

Beyond the reach of many
Yet many were my adorers

Daily polished and perfumed

And adorned with embroidery
You gave me a caressing touch

Now that potholes and humps

Have rattled and warped my back
You turn me into a chicken-house

1. To whom does the you in the poem refer?

2. Describe aspects of beauty that attracted many adorers?
3. List four things marked by verbs in stanza 2 which demonstrated love and caring?
4. rattled and warped my back. In your own words describe what has happened to the persona's
back? Who is to blame for this?
5. Would you say it is right to tuna a car into a chicken-house like this?
6. Would you say' 'Song of a car' is an allegory describing a human problem? If so what is the
human problem being described?
7. What is the overall message of the poem?

STRENGTH FROM UNITY 84

by Alfred T. Y. Nkhoma

Rome was not built in a day

Nor one soul volunteered to build alone
How brave, wise, rich dedicated he was
But by forming unbreakable mass of unity
Of honorary noblemen, kinsmens, slaves and aliens
The magnificicent city of Rome stood.
Even a lichen plant hanging on a Mbawa tree
Deeply rooted and strongly attached to it
May be blown away by light chiperoni winds.
But a mass of lichens on a paw paw stem
Can surely resist the great hurricane storm
As simple as Dutch dykes in halting floods.

The united Chinese built the great wall

Division collapsed the once feared USSR
United we stand erect as a City of Rome
And divided we will fall as Berlin wall
Should we fail because of disunity.
Surely birds of the forest will laugh at us.

WHEN THE METRIC CAME 85

To Brother Mhango C.C.
By Masuzgo Mhango

Dear Brother,
I wish we could take a look
And not only a look
But also a walk in
The glory of the iunior past when
As it were
We could go to school Walking long distances Our fried maize in bottles. We could learn and
talk about
the pint and the gallon ; the inch, the foot, the yard and the mile ; the libs (lb) and the
pound; the dozen, the score and the gross ; not forgetting the fahrenheit ; the pence,
the shilling, and the pound; and the MPHALA, the kingdoms and Colonialism;
then we could sing a song and go home.

But with the unfolding of the days

The metric came
Teachers did not know what to teach
And we (pupils) fell assunder
No say of our fathers, mothers, and grandees ; Everybody was confused ; for
With it came a variety of things
The industrial world improved,
Class work hardened,
Incurable diseases began eating our flesh, Corruption grew tap roots,
Rulers supped on bribes ;
And now deep is our sail in it
It's magnitude has increased
It's ovpression wind is strong it's wave high Quarter Masters have missec the course
Captains can not decide on their own
No one knows what to do
How do we survive ?

STILL ON THE MARCH

by Davie Nsewa

Still on the March

We are long this road

All these years marching

Not even catching a smell of our destination. With quarrels, bickering illnesses, grievances,
mournings
We still keep on marching.
Forced by time we march, march
Never turning back

Years so innumerable
We have been marching
and still we are ; Cursing, scorning, scoffing,
Despising, praising, weeping
All the way long.

Tired of we though desperate we aren't

Hopeful still that time to our destiny will take us Though by fatigue we are conquered With
successes and failures
Deaths and births, disapointments
Appointments, engagements
Ever giving us a company ; With unceremonious departures
Promises unfulfilled, betrayals, debts
We still march on
Hopeful however our destination we still reach.

BIG WHIRLWINDS 87
by Macdonald "Beverly" Bamusi

Once again the big whilrlwind

Swirls round and round
Dangerously, ferociously turns
Shaking the black soot
Hanging on the rafter of one black heart Persistently, doubling and redoubling Forcefully,
shaking the soot ....

There came another big whirlwind

Several moments ago
Rigorously swept through
Cleansed the black heart
Now of white sooty locks
That hang on the same rafters.

The two big whirlwinds

Coming one after another
From places afar
cleansing, the restless black heart Of white sooty locks, and
Of carbon black locks
That hung on the rafters
Above the innocent but intimidated heart

ON RECONCILIATION 88
(THE HAWK, FROM THE CHICKENS)
by Alfred Tyson Nkhoma

You have been commissioners of death

More than three decades stopping our breath
But now let us all flock together
As birds of the very same feather

The manner of this diabolical fight

Would simply make the matter light
Once you cease to undermine our designs
Withyour special cheating signs

If you want the everlasting peace

We enjoy in this kingdom to increase
So that we all live in total happiness
Then you must truly stop your madness

TEACH ME TEACHER 89
By Wokomaatani B Malunga

Teach me teacher
The language of a responsible human
The metaphor of a constructive citizen
Give me teacher
The desire to build
And not the malice to destroy
Guide me teacher
To the benefits
Of sober reasoning
And not to the volcano of confrontation
Feed me teacher
With the sense of a balanced thinker
And never the recklessness
Of a drug addict
Develop in me teacher
The yearning for fairness
And not the quest
For sheer personal aggrandisement
Fashion in me teacher
The willingness to accommodate the views of others
And not the stubbornness
To deliberately ignore what is obvious
Straighten me teacher
So that I may ignore rumour
With spicy humour
And crave for correct information
The foundation of a good decision
Plant in me teacher
The seed of informed moderation
To lead me to the cultivation
Of a truly scholarly spirit.

STILL WE LIVE 90
By Immanuel Bofomo

Still we live, still we live, better than die ;

Though among countless miseries
Which wash our bodies.

The frequent 'which side are you'?

Endless harrassment ; torture, discrimination,
Just filled eyes and hungry bellies ;
Still we live --
Though amidst countless miseries.

The 'I wish them dead' ; and wild threats

From unschooled mentors,
Perpetual slaps and wanton warnings
Still we live
Despite the innumerable shut ups ;

These rugs; these rents; and protruding bones;

Nitty hair; scary feet and swollen hands
These feeble knees and withering lips,
Still we live,
Despite the gaged mouths.

Thrown and neglected on the midden,

All this rubbish entering our ears,
Coerced to bend kneees on broken glass
Still we live
Though amidst countless miseries.

This blasphemy put into our holy mouths,

To call a pot the potter;
To clap at the air which is here now,
But no where so soon;
Still we live
Despite our pinioned wrists at times.
But how long shall we still live?
It pains me.

(From Ring Freedom Bells, 1993)

Democracy 91
By Khwesi Msusa

Democracy
I recall your inception in my country which even after struggles accepted you as you roared your
way in with loud shouts of words new to our ears driving down hope into our hearts

they advocated you as a remedy

against the evils of that time
Some said you marked the end
of days of assault, nights of intimidation mornings of oppression, afternoons of fear and dusk of
death
All these I despised and scorned

Others praise you for sparing women clad in"National Wear" singing with an air of authority
while husbands never complained about wives who left sick infants at home

Boys welcomed you with smiles

for bringing in miniskirts
so they could see beyond their mothers' knees
Girls cheered your coming
so they could wear tousers, smoke cigarettes, drink beer just like their fathers
Mothers clapped hands in joy at your birth
so they could challenge their husbands in guise of gender Fathers with brave faces took you in
hoping to reestablish order in politically shaken families
When I recall those days of Referendum fever
how the regime then opposed your coming
like old soldiers how they stuck to their old guns and then the choice we made devoid of
knowledge but full of emotion, high expectations, pleasant dreams and great hopes who wouldn't
fall into your trap?

Suddenly reality has caught up with us

full naked reality like a shadow over our weak bodies that thieves come at with guns while
guards guard with batons that boys smoke herb in public while the police pretend to be blind

A day has now come

when brother gives up brother mothers cast their babies in latrines while fathers rape their own
daughters Everything has now changed hope into despair dreams into illusions expectations into
frustration and emotion into bitterness

You've turned Malawi into an archaic book that exhales the dust of worries as young men
become prematurely old due to hard work and low pay

Old men and women alike

in their monotonous struggle for survival are full of sorrowful reflections on life and lament for
the Malawi of the past

Who can exercise your freedoms

on an empty stomach?
Who can enjoy your rights
while corruption and insecurity reign?
You promised riches but all I see are rags

I
ou've blossomed where you were planted
I wish I could uproot you
Democracy
I hate you!
(Dedicated to my late brother and sister who never lived to see the rising sun of democracy).

192 MONKEY BAY :

Wylson Mpina

I'll return to this harbour to

live my life; I have lived all my
life for others in the past.
I'll build myself a fortress over
the vast rock on which the ships Ilala, Ufulu
and Mtendere berth.
As I sleep in my fortress, monkeys from
Nkunguni Mountain will guard me.
 Mphipe will fry my sweet chambo whose
calcium-filled bones will wave me passage
with a new method, letting the music
of water-refined air and air-refined water
refine the marrow coursing my senile bones.
Living here, I'll possess all my days.
Kakowa will lead me by hand to colonies
of hippos, sightseeing;
everyday I will waltz to Chilinda to sip lather
form coconut covers.
Iql have baths in the water falls of the sun here,
Ilow an unbroken sheet of sky, a
sky without gaps. I'm longing for my rife
next time
When I'll recline on my past blurred with jail.
and verse. My plans are packed.

African Child
by David Rubadiri

Why African child Stand you dazed Your eyes gazing Far far into
The distance haze And ask
Questions too silent For answers -

African child
Your wings will grow
Then
You must fly.

1. Pick out two lines from stanza 1 which show that the child does not see clearly. In
each line, which word in particular shows this?
2.. Will the child get answers to his/her questions? Explain.
3. Why might some questions be- considered too silent/For answers ?
¢. Can a child fly? What do you think flying symbolizes in this poem?
5. Then/You mustily. Will flying be a natural result of growing wings or not? Explain.
6. Looking at developments in Malawi, would you say that you, as African children,, have growr
the wings and are now flying? If so, when did this happen? If not, why has this not
happened?
7. What would you say is the message of this poem?

Thoughts After Work

by David Rubadiri

Clear laughter of African children Rings loud in the evening:

Here around this musty village Evening falls like a mantle, Gracing in all a shroud of peace.
Heavily from my office
I walk
To my village,
My brick government compound, To my new exile.
In this other compound
I would no longer intrude.
I perch over a chasm,
Ride a storm I cannot hold,
And so must pass on quietly The
laughter of children rings loud Bringing back to me
Simple joys I once knew.

1. How many villages are described in the poem? Which one has more details given?
2. To which village does the persona go? Read the line which shows that he/she is forced into
this village.
3. Which words bring out images of happiness and dignity to the African village? Read two
lines which show that the persona lived in such a village before.
4. Check the meaning of the word musty. What does it reveal about the physical
condition of this village?
5. Do you think the peace in the African village will last long? Explain.
6. Check the meaning of chasm. From the images you get from the words chasm and storm,
what would you say is the situation the persona is in? Explain.
7. Between the two villages, where world you personally like to live? Why?

Yet Another Song

by David Rubadiri

Yet another song

I have to sing:
In the early wake
Of a colonial dusk
I sang the song of fire.

The church doors opened

To the clang
Of new anthems
And colourful banners.

Like the Beatles,

The evangelical hymns
Of conversion
Rocked the world and me.
I knelt before the new totems
I helped to raise,
Watered them
With tears of ecstasy.
They grew
Taller than life
Grimacing and breathing fire.

Today
I sing yet another song
A song of exile.

1. How many songs are described in the poem? What differences do you see between
these songs?
2. To the clang Of new anthems. Do you think the new anthems were sang beautifully
or not? Explain.
3. How did the persona help to raise new totems?
4. Give examples of totems that grew/Taller than life Grimacing and breathing fire.
during the previous one-party government. Are there such totems now?
5. The Beatles were a famous band from Britain. What two meanings do you think the
word rocked has in the line: Rocked the world and me ?
6. Do you think this, Yet another song/1 have to sing: is a happy song or a sad one?
Explain.

An African Thunderstorm
by David Rubadiri

From the west

Clouds come hurrying with the wind
Turning
Sharply
Here and there
Like a plague of locusts
Whirling
Tossing up things on its tail
Like a madman chasing nothing.
Pregnant clouds
Ride stately on its back
Gathering to perch on hills
Like dark sinister wings;
The Wind whistles by
And trees bend to let it pass.

In the village
Screams of delighted children
Toss and turn
In the din of the whirling wind. Women-
Babies clinging on their backs Dart about
In and out
Madly
The Wind whirls by
Whilst trees bend to let it pass. Clothes wave like tattered flags Flying off
To expose dangling breasts
As jagged blinding flashes Rumble, tremble, and crack Amidst the smell of fired smoke And the
pelting march of the storm.

PART 6: QUESTIONS

EXTRA

LOVE 1
1. In this poem love can mean two things. What technique has the author used to present this
ambiguity?
2. In the first stanza the pronoun you has been used three times. How does this affect the
meaning of the stanza and the poem as a whole?
3. Explain the use of imagery in this poem.

DEAR LORD 2
4. What would you say is the tone of this poem?
5. Compare this poem with 'Love' by

MY LOVE 3
6. What message is the persona sending to his/her loved one
7. The poem is full of hope. Find out the exact words and phrases which express this hope.

LOVE 4
8. Describe the overall message of the poem. In your opinion does the arrangement of the
stanzas enhance the message? If you were the author of the poem would you manage the
stanzas in this order or you would change them ?

THE LAST ACT

9. The image presented in stanza one is that of actors in a play. What comment does this
stanza make on the experience refered to in this stanza ? In each of the three stanzas, find out
expression which amplify or justify the tittle of the poem.

BRING SUNSHINE 6
10. What would you say is the mood of this poem? Why? Compare the message in this poem
with that in stanza 3 of 'The Last Act' by Nazombe

MY BEAUTY 7
11. The persona seems to believe that true beauty should appeal to the whole being. How does
he/she express, this belief. How does this tarry with the conclusion in the last stanza?
12. Read stanza two carefully and see how the construction of its second line affect the meaning
of the stanza itself.
13. Compare this poem with poem 3. Which one is a richer poem in terms of human
relationships?
14. In poem 6 and poem 7 the poets have used their visual senses to express feelings associated
with love. How similar and different are these experiences.

EXORCISM 8
15. what problem is described in this poem? Compare the message in this poem with that in
'Bring Sunshine' by Luhanga

SONG OF NYAVITIMA 9
16. The poem has a pessimistic tone about the genuineness of love. How does this match with
the title and the message?
17. Who are the children referred to in the last stanza? Among the 9 poems of love, which ones
do you like most? Why? Write a poem of love.

MARRIAGE
18. In your opinion, does this poem truly represent marriage? Explain.

PILLAR OF LOVE 11
19. Describe the imagery used in this poem.
20. How are the "beloved" being talked about in stanza 3?

DEAR MOTHER 12
21. The poem starts and ends with dear mother. What does this tell about the tone of the poem?
22. Describe the message of the poem?
23. Discuss the theme of growing up in this poem?

MAMA 13
24. Compare the theme of motherly love in this poem and "Dear mother" by
MakhalaNyamatcherenga.
25. Discuss the theme of growing up in this poem.
26. How is symbolism used in this poem?
27. How does the persona count time? How does this affect the meaning of the poem as a whole?
28. How does the title of the poem relate with the experience in the poem? Do you think this is a
suitable title? Explain.
29. This short poem summarizes a very long process of birth and growing up. Discuss the
processes in the poem. 289

WOMAN 14
30. If carefully studied 'Mama' by Khumuwa and 'Woman' by Mwawa complement each other.
Explain how this is so?.

WHY' THE OLD WOMAN LIMPS 15

31. Study the last line of each of the three stanzas carefully and see the conclusion which each
makes. What does this tell you about the mood of the poem as a whole.
32. Compare this poem with "Mama" by Khumuwa and "woman" by Mwawa in terms of theme.

AUNT MAO 17
33. What is the tone of this poem? What does this tell you about the relationships between the
persona and the audience?

TRAIN TO BALAKA 18
34 In terms of themes, compare this poem with "Pillar of love "by Banda "Mama" by Khumuwa and "Woman" b

THE SPEAR 20
35 Though the authors are different and the title seem not to be related in any way, "The spear "
by Matewere and "Leaders of Tomorrow" by Pungulani can be argued to be complementing.
Discuss. •

LORD HEAR OUR CRY 21

36. Compare the tones in the poems "Leaders of tomorrow" by Pungulani," the spear" by
Matewere and "Lord Hear Our Cry " by Matope. How does this affect the theme of
responsibility discussed in these three poems?
37. Examine the structure of this poem.

SONG OF TEARS 22
38. Examine the setting of the poem. Compare and contrast this poem with "Song of Nyavitima "
by Mbano. What messages of HIV/AIDS can you get from this poem, 'The Spear' and 'Lord,
Hear Our Prayers'?

Songani Look Out 23

39. Discuss the description of nature in this poem.

CHASING PAGES 24
40. What experiences of education is described in this poem? Does the persona like school?
Explain.

DOMASI COLLEGE 25
41 Assume you are the principal of Domasi College. Write a short poem in reply to this one.
42. This poem is a representation of the voice of a student. Study it closely and say whether
you would identify With this voice or not.

THE SERPENT 27
43. Compare the theme of deception in this poem and "Honey Bird " by Mbano.

My uncle E.P. Mtungambera Harawa 28

44. Study the language of this poem and compare its language with "Songani Lookout" by
the same author.

NYAMWEZI 29
45.The poet describes natural beauty.
How does he approach it ?

LAKE KAZUNI 30
46. Compare the description of natural scenery in this poem and the "Nyamwezi "by Thawe.
How do the experiences differ in the two poems?

SHIRE RIVER 33
47. How does this poem compare with 'The Lingazi' in terms of the experience. In your
answer consider the characteristics of the two rivers and the opinions of the two authors
respectively about them.

THE BEAUTY OF DAWN 3S

48. This poem could be a commentary of the political situation in Malawi. Discuss the theme
of freedom in this poem.

NYUMBANI'S TALE 37
49. Examine the style and structure of the poem. How was lizard deceived?

LEADERS 38
50. Think about a vrnacular proverb that can summarize the theme of this poem and translate
it into English.

SONGS FROM THE CLOUDS 39

51 The poem is a commentary on Malawian social and political history. What does it say?

DRIFTING SCUM 41
52. Summarize the major themes discussed in this poem. Give examples from what is
happening in Malawi at the present.

MODERN ADVERTISING 42
53. Would you agree that this poem is satirical. Explain

A PRAYER 45
54. Identify other poems in this antholopogy that are prayers.

VIPYA 48
55. Discuss the theme of death in this poem

DEATH 49
56. Which poem does this one remind you about in this anthology? Compare them.

MOTHER 52
57. Discuss the theme of separation in this poem.

SILENT PALACE 55
58. The persona asks two questions in a row in the second stanza but he/she does not wait for an
answer? Why does he/she do this? What effect does this have on the mood of the poem?
59. Read the last stanza carefully? What message does it carry?
60. Compare this poem with "Coming for Good" by Chidzaio in terms of language, theme, and
 structure?

IN MEMORIAM 60
61. This is another poem about death? Examine the theme of suicide in this poem.
62. Look at different poems on death. Compare their treatment of the theme of death.

THE NEW HOUSE 61

63. What effect does the repetition of 'we came' have?
64. What technique has the author used to impress upon the reader that the problem was intense?
65. Identify aspects of irony used in the poem?

EARTH 62
66. Study stanza 3 of this poem and relate it to the title. In your opinion how does this stanza fit
into the structure of the poem?

THE WAY 63
67 Who does the persona address? What way do you think the man needs to be shown in his
state?

DAY OF NEW BABY 67

68. Child birth brings mixed feelings. What does this poem say?

SIGNS 68
69. Identify other poems that describe people's beliefs.

VILLAGE LIFE 71
70. What is the tone of this poem? Explain.
Compare this poem with Rubadiri's 'Thoughts After Work'.

Formula for funerals 76

71. Comment on the manner in which the poem is presented. What feelings does this raise?
Explain.

Another fools' Day touches 79

72. Compare the theme of this poem with that of 'Chameleon' by Lapukeni.

Vd-lO IS RESPONSIBLE ? 80
73. Comment on the style of presentations in this poem. Imagine you were a journalist, what
other problems would you want to investigate? Zomba Mountain 82
74. What different senses does this poem appeal to? Give words or lines that describe different
senses.

African Child 93
75. What are the main themes discussed in Rubadiri's poems?
76 Compare the treatment of problems of young people in' African Child' and" Leaders of
Tomorrow' by "Pungulani.
77 How can you tell that most of Rubadiri's poems were written earlier than most of the poems
in this anthology?
78 Identify the different themes covered in this anthology. List the poems according to the
themes they deal with.