A Far Cry From Africa

"Again brutish necessity wipes its hands

Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again

A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,

The gorilla wrestles with the superman.

I who am poisoned with the blood of both,

Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?

I who have cursed

The drunken officer of British rule, how choose

Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?

Betray them both, or give back what they give?

How can I face such slaughter and be cool?

How can I turn from Africa and live?"

     This is an excerpt from Derek Walcott's A Far Cry From Africa. Unlike much of what we have read before, it is fairly short and written in a poetic form. In it, you can see the conflicts he has being forced to choose "Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?" It seems to be a political poem on the state of affairs in Africa.

Much like Codicil, A Far Cry From Africa, seems to be wrecked with this conflict of 2 things.

To change your language you must change your life.

"I cannot right old wrongs.

Waves tire of horizon and return.

Gulls screech with rusty tongues

Above the beached, rotting pirogues,

they were a venomous beaked cloud at Charlotteville.

One I thought love of country was enough,

now, even if I chose, there is no room at the trough.

I watch the best minds rot like dogs

for scraps of flavour.

I am nearing middle

age, burnt skin

peels from my hand like paper, onion-thin,

like Peer Gynt's riddle."

'"From David Walcott's Codicil"'

Having to choose between the country and the what was once the governing power, the colonizer. This conflict seems to be the basis for the emotions expressed within both poems. Conflict between the past and the future.