Melancholy beauty.
You are perfecting this pidgin English thing.
You do well.
It would be interesting to compare this poem with a two strong poems by Dennis Brutus, "Nightsong: City" and "The sounds begin again", on the symbolism of oppressive sound.
The sense of menace pervades the Brutus poems through the sonic associations emanating from feared authority figures, part of a cacophony of sounds that signal oppression.
"The sounds begin again" focuses on the siren in one line, and the other one, 'Nightsong: City', only mentions a police car, but these sounds and the vehicles that emanate them represent the the emasculating and dewombing terror of apartheid, roaming the streets in that same spirit of symbolic sound that emerges in Chidi's poem, oppressive in its associations, as the siren in the Chidi poem embraces all those unmentioned or unelaborated actions the siren symbolises, alluded to in the money in the boot.
I find the Chidi poem funny and quietly sad in its associations while that of Brutus is tense with menace.
Chidi's pidgin style, in its use of repetition, particularly in the use of the 'siren' as a structuring principle of the poem, comes across to me as the tone of a harried but not harassed citizen who sees those 'siren figures' as comic and wastefully unwise in their substituting 'sirening' for work.
While Brutus paints a picture of terror:
The sounds begin again
the siren in the night
the thunder at the door
the shriek of nerves in pain.
Then the keening crescendo
of faces split by pain
the wordless, endless wail
only the unfree know.
Importunate as rain
the wraiths exhale their woe
over the sirens, knuckles, boots;
my sounds begin again.
[ From A Simple Lust : Collected Poems of South African Jail and Exile. London : Heinemann, 1984. 19]
Chidi's citizen is irritated rather than turtured. Chidi's rendition of sounds is more like a song on account of his repetition of 'siren' which, within his pidgin English context, and the sheer incongruity of 'sirening' on a relatively clear road, recreates the scene in terms of the burlesque :
Morning siren,
Afternoon siren,
Evening siren.
Even for night
Wey plenty motor
No dey for road,
Even for night
Wey country people suppose to sleep,
Na so so siren.
Do these sounds of deception and waste suffuse the air after the 'sireners' have left? Do they leave behind an aroma that penetrates the citizens' minds to emasculate or dewomb them, like the 'fear...immanent as sound in the wind-swung bell' in Brutus' 'Nightsong : City'? [18]
Chidi's listening citizen is disempowered but more dispirited than terrified. The 'sirening' has broken their sleep or made sleep difficult or impossible :
See dem,
Dem don dey pass again.
Everyday for dis place
Man pickin no dey hear something,
Every night for dis place
Man picking [no] dey sleep.
But Brutus' people are able to sleep, 'Nightsong: City' beginning ' Sleep well, my love, sleep well', reinforcing those tender words in concluding with 'but for this breathing night at least/my land, my love, sleep well.' Sleeping well unless the 'thunder at the door' emerges to remind them of their captive status.
While Chidi's people cannot sleep even though the people of the sirens are not likely to knock at the door.
They have knocked at their minds through the doors of their ears.
thanks
toyin
-- On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@yahoo.com> wrote:
--By Chidi Anthony OparaSee dem,Dem don dey pass again.Everyday for dis placeMan pickin no dey hear something,Every night for dis placeMan pickin do dey sleep.Morning siren,Afternoon siren,Evening siren.Even for nightWey plenty motorNo dey for road,Even for nightWey country people suppose to sleep,Na so so siren.If you check well well,Dem no dey go anywhere.BecauseDem no wan do dem work,Dem dey carry siren car demDey patrol for town.If you look well well,For inside some of di siren car demNa dem lover dem.If you look well well,For inside di boothOf di siren car dem,Our money full.Our moneyWey dem suppose to use do work,Na im dem dey carry everywhere,Dey spend anyhow.
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