LitCharts A Far Cry From Africa

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A Far Cry from Africa

SUMMARY THEMES
A breeze lifts Africa's yellow-brown fur. People from Kenya's
Kikuyu tribe, fast and lively as flies, fasten themselves to the COLONIALISM AND DIVIDED IDENTITY
veins of the grassland. Dead bodies are strewn throughout “A Far Cry From Africa” responds to the Mau Mau
paradise. Only a worm, captain of decaying bodies, yells out: Uprising, a rebellion fought by native Kenyans
"Don't bother feeling sympathy for each of these dead people!" against the British colonial army in the mid-20th century. The
People use statistics to justify colonialism; scholars jump on poem’s speaker has connections to both Africa and England,
different facts about colonialism to debate it. What do these and feels conflicted about how to interpret the violence of this
abstract discussions matter to a white child who is chopped to conflict. Usually identified closely with Walcott himself, the
death in bed? What do they matter to native Africans who are speaker is painfully divided between his connections to the
considered savages, who are seen as worthless Jews in Nazi English as well as to the colonized people of Africa. In fact, the
concentration camps? poem implicitly argues that a confused identity—and the
Shaken by farmers, the long grasses snap and a white dust fills anxiety it causes—is one of the painful legacies of colonialism.
the air. This dust is actually the flapping of ibises—white, long- To understand the speaker’s dilemma here, it’s important to
legged birds. The birds are disturbed by the farmers and take understand some historical context. The Mau Mau, or Kenya
off, crying out, just as as they have done for thousands of years, Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), were rebels from the Kikuyu
ever since civilization began, whether over the shallow river or tribe in Kenya that waged a gruesome guerrilla war against
the plain full of animals. People interpret animals' violence English settlers for eight years (1952-1960). The British
towards each other as natural, but humans have often seen response to the rebellion was even more brutal.
themselves as god-like, walking on two legs rather than four. This, then, is what the speaker is responding when asking, “How
Humans try to embraces that godliness by hurting others. But can I face such slaughter and be cool? / How can I turn from
people are as crazed as fighting animals. They wage wars that African and live?” For the speaker the word “slaughter” seems
are like dances to the beat of drums made out of corpses. to suggest the highly publicized violence of the Mau Mau,
Native rebels believe they have courage, when it is really just which provoked the subsequently brutal response from the
fear of extermination—a false peace that white people achieve British. These lines embody the speaker’s internal division
by killing all those who resist. between England and Africa, laying out the two sides as
Once more, the brutal idea of necessity is used to justify diametrically opposed choices.
violence, appealing to a movement that itself is deeply The speaker feels that the violence of the Mau Mau Rebellion
flawed—just like someone trying to clean their bloody hands requires a passionate and decisive response. Either one must
with a dirty napkin. Once more this is a waste of everyone's condemn the Mau Mau and side with England, or support the
sympathy, as it was with the Spanish Civil War. As in racist Mau Mau and forsake England entirely; accept the violence of
stereotypes, it's like an ape fighting a super-human. I'm the Mau Mau rebellion as necessary to Kenyan independence,
poisoned with the blood, or heritage, of both colonizer and or reject such violence, and in the process reject Africa and all
colonized. Which side will I support when even my veins are connection to colonized people. The speaker is suspended
split in two? I have vehemently opposed British colonial rule, between these two options, unable to choose.
which is like a drunken army or police officer (and also is
literally enforced by drunken officers). How can I choose Thus, the speaker feels alienated from each side of the conflict.
between African peoples and the English language that I love so At the same time, however, the speaker also feels inextricably
much? How can I can betray both of them? How can I give each linked to both the British and the Kenyans. It’s implied that the
of them what they've given me? How can I face all this violence speaker has a colonial heritage, ancestry from both English
and remain calm? How can I forsake Africa and keep on living? colonists and colonized Africans. As a result, the speaker feels
as if his own body is divided by this conflict.
In the third stanza, the speaker addresses this problem
explicitly: “I who am poisoned with the blood of both, / Where
shall I turn, divided to the vein?” The word “poisoned” conveys
the powerful sense of alienation the Mau Mau Uprising
provokes in the speaker. Although the speaker has “the blood of
both” Europeans and Africans—that is, ancestry from each
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place—this blood feels poisonous, linking the speaker to English, how difficult it would be to give up writing in it.
violence no matter what. This passion makes a lot of sense if the speaker is interpreted
This heritage also “poison[s]” the speaker because speaker feels as someone from a British colony, as Walcott himself was (he
“divided to the vein.” No matter which way the speaker “turn[s],” grew up on the Caribbean island of Santa Lucia). While native
it’s as if half the speaker’s “blood” does violence to the other peoples in English colonies did not originally speak English,
half. By framing this conflict in terms of “blood” and the they were forced to adopt it, especially those who attended
speaker’s own “vein[s],” the poem captures the very personal, school. English became a very important language for such
even bodily, division the speaker feels. This isn’t a matter of people, even their primary mode of expression, as it was for
abstract politics for the speaker, but a very intimate struggle Walcott. At the same time, though, it was a language they were
that’s taking place within him—a struggle caused by the legacy coerced into adopting, the language of their oppressor.
of colonialism. The poem’s form conveys this nuanced relationship with
At the end of the poem, the speaker is no closer to choosing a English. The speaker engages with the traditional constraints of
side than at the beginning. Colonial history has forced the English verse while also striving for some freedom from those
speaker into this situation, forever divided by colonizer and constraints. The poem—like the rest of Walcott’s work—is
colonized. based on a traditionally English understanding of poetic form,
albeit one that Walcott loosens and tweaks. In other words, the
Where this theme appears in the poem: poem sounds like a freer, more modern version of traditional
English poetry. For instance, the poem weaves in and out of a
• Lines 1-33 loose meter
meter, sporadically using rhyme and half-rhyme in no set
scheme
scheme.
LANGUAGE AS A TOOL OF RESISTANCE By writing like this, the speaker conveys “love” for the English
AND SELF-EXPRESSION language and English literature. Yet by not fully conforming the
forms of that past, the speaker reveals some distrust. Perhaps
The poem explores the complex relationship
poetic constraints are not so different from the legal
between colonized peoples and the language that they’re often
constraints imposed on natives by British colonial rule. The
pushed to adopt—in this case, English. For the speaker, there
speaker bristles against colonial rule, even at a literary level. In
are two distinct sides to the English language: one is the rich
adopting a more fluid attitude towards form, then, the speaker
tradition of English literature, particularly poetry, and the other
attains a degree of self-expression and self-interrogation that
is England’s brutal history of colonization. While English
resists colonial authority.
literature has given the speaker a means of thought and self-
expression, English colonists have only caused pain in the As a result, the speaker occupies a kind of halfway point: not
speaker’s eyes. As a result, the very act of writing in English fully conforming to English expectations, but not fully free of
embodies the speaker’s complex and conflicted identity. The them either. Rather than finding a resolution to this conflict, the
poem, by its very existence, also illustrates how may one may speaker lingers in the painful contradictions of a divided
find a means of resistance and self-expression while using the identity, using eloquent English and a fluid attitude towards
language of an oppressor. traditional form to address the suffering that colonization has
caused.
The speaker’s antipathy towards England is a response to the
history of colonization, which, for the speaker, is directly
connected to the English language. In other words, the English Where this theme appears in the poem:
language is not separate from the actions of England; the poem • Lines 1-33
implies that language is closely linked to identity and heritage.
The speaker states this connection and its resulting dilemma
most clearly in the third stanza: “I who have cursed / The
HUMANITY AND VIOLENCE
drunken officer of British rule, how choose / Between this Much of the imagery in “A Far Cry From Africa”
Africa and the English tongue I love?” In other words, the depicts violence. This imagery refers to the brutal
speaker hates English colonial rule and wants to support the tactics employed by British forces in Kenya, as well as the acts
independence of Africans. Yet the speaker feels that such that the Mau Mua—or Kenya Land and Freedom Army
support means rejecting the English language—the very (KLFA)—used in their rebellion. While the speaker understands
language the poem is written in, and which is also a part of the that British colonial rule is ultimately the source of this
speaker's identity and means of expressing himself. In fact, the violence, the poem also laments the bloodiness of human
speaker expresses “love” for “the English tongue.” This “love” affairs more generally. To the speaker, the violence of the Mau
communicates how passionately the speaker feels about Mau also seems reprehensible. Violence begets violence in this

poem, leaving the speaker pessimistic about ever achieving
humanity’s higher ideals. • Lines 1-33
The speaker depicts both the Mau Mau and the British colonial
regime as equally violent. To understand the force of this
depiction, it’s important again to get a sense of the historical LINE-BY
LINE-BY-LINE
-LINE ANAL
ANALYSIS
YSIS
events it alludes to. For instance, “the white child hacked in
bed” refers to one of the most notorious acts of the uprising, LINES 1-3
when a European family—including a six-year-old boy—were A wind is ...
hacked to death on their farm by the Mau Mau. The Mau Mau ... of the veldt.
often used tactics like this, targeting both white settlers and
"A Far Cry From Africa" responds to the Mau Mau Uprising, a
loyalist Kenyans (those Kenyans who supported British rule).
guerrilla war waged by Kenyan rebels against British colonists
In response, however, the British killed vastly more people and from 1952-1960. This fact becomes apparent as soon as the
employed brutally repressive tactics, such as the resettlement speaker references the Kikuyu, the tribe that the Mau Mau
of natives and forced labor camps. These camps were fighters were from.
compared—even by some disenchanted British officials—to the
Before making this reference, though, the poem begins with a
conditions of Nazi concentration camps only a decade earlier.
suggestive and metaphorical image of the African continent: "A
That’s why the speaker thinks the British see Kenyans as
wind is ruffling the tawny pelt / Of Africa." This sentence seems
“savages, expendable as Jews.” In this damning comparison, the
to refer to the "veldt," or grassland, whose grasses look like a
British colonists are no better than Nazis.
"tawny pelt"—that is, yellow-brown fur. It also summons images
As such, the speaker depicts both the British and Kenyans as of some animals that live in that environment, such as lions. At a
succumbing to the same human failing of resorting to violence. more abstract level, this image also comments on human
Each group’s use of violence undermines their higher ideals. affairs. Something is happening in Africa, a disturbance that the
Referring to the British, the speaker says, “upright man / Seeks speaker will soon implicitly reveal to be the Mau Mau rebellion.
his divinity by inflicting pain.” This refers to the traditional
Describing this disturbance as a "wind" creates some
ideology of European colonists, who regarded themselves as
ambiguity. Is this a gust of wind that suggests a storm is
virtuous Christians bringing “savages” closer to God. Yet these
coming? Or is it simply a passing breeze? Does the Mau Mau
Christians enact their closeness to “divinity” by engaging in
rebellion signal a coming wave of violent struggles for
incredibly violent acts. The speaker implies that these Christian
independence, or is it an isolated instance that will be quashed
colonists are hypocrites; Christianity emphasizes having
and forgotten?
sympathy for the meek, not violently oppressing them.
This first sentence invests the landscape with intense
Similarly, the speaker refers to the Kenyans whose “wars /
metaphorical energy. Throughout the poem, the speaker will
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum.” This image suggests
use descriptions of landscape to loop in comparisons to human
that the actions of Mau Mau are as appalling as those of the
events. This happens more explicitly in the poem's second
British, undermining the ideals of their own cause. More
sentence: "Kikuyu, quick as flies, / Batten upon the
specifically, such actions metaphorically turn traditional Kenyan
bloodstreams of the veldt." By metaphorically transforming the
drums into “tightened carcass[es].” These drums should be a
people of the Kikuyu tribe into "flies," the speaker is able to use
symbol of Kenya’s national pride in its culture. Instead,
this description of the natural world as a means of commenting
however, the drums have been reduced a gruesome image of
on human affairs. Such descriptions can also be thought of as a
death. Indeed, the speaker doesn’t see violence of the Mau Mau
form of meton
metonymymyy, in which the landscape adjacent to human
as “courage” but as “dread / Of the white peace.” That is, the
events comes to stand for those events.
Kenyans are acting out of fear of oppression by whites, rather
than out of courage and pride. As noted above, the Kikuyu were the tribe that the Mau Mau,
or Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), came from. Rather
On both sides of the conflict, then, the speaker sees people
than fighting the British army head on, the Mau Mau mostly
giving in to violence. While the English and Mau Mau both view
engaged in surprise attacks at night, often targeting white
themselves as upholding what they most value, the speaker
settlers instead of the army. The description here seems to
sees violence as undermining those ideals. The speaker’s
channel the bloodiness of those attacks. "Batten" means lock
outlook on humanity’s use of violence, then, is pretty bleak.
down, "bloodstreams" refers to veins, and "veldt" refers to
Violence continues to produce more violence, advancing
African grassland. In this intensely metaphorical description,
neither the cause of human “divinity” nor of African freedom.
the grassland has veins that the Kikuyu, as flies, attach
themselves to. This description has parasitic connotations,
Where this theme appears in the poem:
suggesting, at the very least, how flies often hover around dead

bodies. they visited as paradises, and colonization has often been
The speaker conveys deep ambiguity about the Mau Mau here. framed as taking advantage of idyllic, unspoiled lands. Such
Although later in the poem the speaker displays clear hatred lands were wasted on the "savage[]," non-Christian natives—at
for colonization, that doesn't translate to automatic sympathy least according to colonists. Europeans thought it was up to
for the Mau Mau. Right off the bat, there's a feeling that them to cultivate these paradises and convert the natives to
violence transforms people into creatures of death. That Christianity. On a related note, the Mau Mau Uprising was
violence, at least for the speaker, makes it hard to keep viewing heavily based around land usage, as British settlers pushed
people as humans. In fact, this description foreshadows the natives onto increasingly small tracts of land, often miles away
speaker's later description of the Mau Mau as "Delirious as [...] from where they originally lived. The British subsequently
worried beasts." All this to say, the speaker is deeply suspicious forced these same natives to work on British farms, sometimes
and critical of the Mau Mua. the very land these natives used to live on.
These first lines begin to display the poem's loose take on In connection to the role of Christianity in colonization,
iambic pentameter (five stresses per line in a da-DUM
DUM rhythm). "paradise" also suggests the role that Eden plays in Christian
For instance, the first line might most intuitively be read as: mythology and theology. Paradise is supposed to be a placed
free of sin and suffering. Clearly, though, that is not the case
A wind | is ruff
ruff- | ling the ta
taww- | ny pelt here. And if the use of this word is a sarcastic criticism of
colonial policy, it's also an indictment of violence in general:
This first line, then, hints at iambic pentameter without though the British may have caused this situation, the violence
committing to it wholeheartedly (since there's an anapest
anapest, of the Mau Mau—in the speaker's eyes—isn't bringing Kenya
da-da-DUM
DUM, in that third foot). Line 3 plays with a similar any closer to recovering "paradise."
ambiguity: Continuing with a metaphorical description of the natural
world, the speaker introduces "the worm, colonel of carrion." A
Bat
Batten | upon
pon | the bloodstreams | of the veldt
eldt. "colonel" is an army officer, and "carrion" is decaying animal
flesh eaten by scavengers like vultures or worms. In other
Throughout the poem, this tension between strict meter and a words, the worm is personified as being in charge of death and
looser tendency towards free vverse
erse reflects the speaker's own decay. By bringing in military terminology, the speaker links the
struggle. More specifically, with the legacy of colonialism in the army and war to this carnage in paradise. At the same time,
language of the poem itself: English. (The "Themes" section of though, by making the "colonel" a "worm," the speaker deflates
this guide discusses this legacy in depth.) the military's prestige. As with the flies above, the speaker
Also note the rh
rhyme
yme between lines 1 and 3, "pelt" and "veldt." treats soldiers almost like pests—tiny scavengers, rather than
As with meter, this rhyme indicates the importance of formal mighty warriors. Again, this conveys the speaker's distrust of
poetry to the speaker, while the poem's loose use of rhyme those who promote violence.
throughout suggests an uneasiness with the connotations of The worm says "Waste no compassion on these separate dead."
such forms. In other words, don't feel bad for each of these dead people.
There is little sympathy in the landscape the speaker describes.
LINES 4-6 This is not a scene in which people strive for better human
Corpses are scattered ... understanding, but in which violence reduces people to
... these separate dead!" compassionless "worm[s]" and "flies."
The next three lines bring violence front and center: "Corpses Notice the rhrhyme
yme between "fliesies" and "cries
ies", and the slant
are scattered through a paradise" says the speaker. In other rh
rhyme
yme between those words and "paradise ise." The speaker's use
words, there has been a massacre here. of rhyme doesn't follow a set rhrhyme
yme scheme but seems to occur
What is "a paradise?" Well, this seems to describe "the veldt," intuitively. Rhyme is clearly important to the speaker, and the
the African grassland. Describing the Kenyan landscape as "a speaker is adept at using it. This suggests that traditional
paradise" has several connotations
connotations. Most directly, this word elements of formal vverse
erse, like rhyme, are important to the
suggests that the natural world could be a paradise, a wonderful speaker. At the same time, the speaker has learned from
place to be, if it weren't for human violence. It implies that the formalist modernists like T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden, who
natural world, outside human influence, is perfect. This word adopted a looser, more oblique attitude towards form. All this
also implies that Kenya was still a paradise before white to say, the speaker has a clear and nuanced view of the history
colonists showed up, that it was a paradise for native Kenyans. of English poetry, navigating that history in the writing of this
poem.
"[P]aradise" also has distinct connotations in the context of
colonization. European explorers often described the lands

LINES 7-10 role of art in such a world? What, for that matter, are the roles
Statistics justify and ... of "scholars" and "Statistics"?
... expendable as Jews? LINES 11-14
In the final lines of the first stanza ("Statistic justify [...] Threshed out by ...
expendable as Jews?"), the speaker zooms out to what could be ... or beast-teeming plain.
called the international conversation—how public intellectuals
The second stanza begins by refocusing on the landscape. This
discuss the Mau Mau Rebellion. The speaker is clearly
time, the speaker describes agriculture. Farmers thresh a
frustrated. This conversation seems to mostly revolve around
crop—most likely wheat—separating the grain from the straw.
"Statistics" and "scholars" talking about "policy." Not only is this
This noise startles nearby ibises, a type of bird, who take off
discussion dry, but it ends up "justify[ing]" colonialism. It
from long grass known as rushes. African sacred ibises (the
doesn't get at the heart of the injustice and violence of
species of ibis the speaker's probably referring to) emit a high
colonialism. Such conversations help neither "the white child
screeching noise, conveyed here by the word "cries." Their
hacked in bed" nor the "savages, expendable as Jews."
bodies are white, which creates the appearance of "white dust"
These two phrases need a bit of unpacking, so let's take them filling the air.
one by one. "[T]he white child hacked in bed," alludes to a
As their name suggests, African sacred ibises were held sacred
notorious incident from the Mau Mau Uprising, when the Mau
by the Ancient Egyptians. Combined with the speaker's
Mau attacked a family farm at night, killing an entire white
reference to "civilization's dawn," the speaker seems to allude
family including a six-year-old boy. The Mau Mau used
to this Egyptian symbolism
symbolism, and to ancient Egyptian civilization
machete-like swords, so this killing was particularly gruesome.
more generally. Ibises summon the ancient history of Africa, its
In turn, the British responded with a strategy that included great civilizations—such as ancient Egypt—that vastly predate
forced labor camps, which even some uneasy British officials any such civilization in England.
compared to Nazi concentration camps. This is what the
Again, the speaker uses landscape to discuss humanity. For the
speaker alludes to in the phrase "expendable as Jews" in line 10.
speaker, "civilization[]," "the parched river," and "the beast-
Kenyans, many who had nothing to do with the rebellion, were
teeming plain" are all connected. Simply describing events in
relocated to camps where they faced terrible conditions.
the Kenyan landscape allows the speaker to summon vast
In this line, the speaker parrots the views of white elements of human history. The speaker implies that the British
supremacists, calling Kenyans "savages." This was a common did not "civiliz[e]" Kenyans, but that natives already had a rich
way for English colonists to think of colonized people. By culture and history long before Europeans showed up.
demeaning natives, the English could justify exploiting them.
Just as "the long rushes break," the meter breaks here too:
Similarly, in the phrase "expendable as Jews," the speaking
doesn't actually believe that Jews are expendable at all. Rather,
Threshed out by beat
beaters, the long rush
rushes break
the speaker's parroting Nazi propaganda, and comparing the
Nazi attitude to that of the British.
There's no use trying to cram this line into iambic pentameter;
This of course is a very damning statement. The first stanza it follows its own unique rhythm: a spondee (DUMDUM-DUMDUM)
ends with no one looking good, neither the Kikuyu, the British, followed by an iamb (da-DUM
DUM), a pyrrhic (da-da), then another
nor international commentators. Reflecting this pessimism, spondee-iamb pair. The line unharnesses itself from the
rhyme fizzles out in these final lines. First, "sei
eize" has a subtle distinctly English rhythms of iambic pentameter. Just as the
slant rh
rhyme
yme with "policyy" in lines 7-8. Although "beded" does references to "ibises" and "civilization's dawn" suggest a
hearken back to "dead
ead" in line 6, this only makes the absence of distinctly African history, this bristly rhythm helps push
rhyme in the stanza's final line all the more apparent. The away—if only momentarily—England's influence, creating room
speaker makes this allusion to the Holocaust bluntly, with a for an expression of African pride.
sarcastic or ironic glibness conveyed by the lack of rhyme. The
critic Theodor Adorno famously suggested that writing poetry At the same time, however, the speaker also uses this imagery
after the Holocaust was "barbaric." The dropped rhyme subtly to suggest violence. The "beaters," the "break[ing]," and the
captures a similar sentiment. "cries" all have violent connotations, although the violence here
is mostly metaphorical rather than literal. The images resemble
Additionally, these last few lines also raise a question that a common use of montage in films, when a flock of birds startles
Adorno's comment implies. How does one write after the into flight in reaction to a gunshot. Because of current events,
barbarity of the Holocaust, and the continued barbarity of the speaker can't help but see violence in the Kenyan
world events? If the Holocaust is seen not as a culmination of landscape.
systematic violence, but as one chapter in modernity's ongoing
saga of genocides, what are artists supposed to do? What is the

LINES 15-17 criticizes the Mau Mau in particular. The image of "the
The violence of ... tightened carcass of a drum" refers to traditional Kenyan
... by inflicting pain. drums, made with animal skins stretched taut. These drums,
used in different dances and rituals, would normally be a point
In lines 15-17, the speaker reflects on human violence and of cultural pride. But in the speaker's eyes, war has transformed
violence in nature: these drums into images of death and violence. A drum's
stretched animal skin becomes a "tightened carcass." War
The violence of beast on beast is read becomes a "Dance" to these drums, a perversion of Kenyans'
As natural law, but upright man cultural pride.
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
The speaker thinks that the Mau Mau aren't thinking about
violence the right way. Just as they've transformed drums into
In other words, humans interpret that violence between
a symbol of war, they've taken their fear of death and called it
predator and prey as part of the natural world; it couldn't be
"courage." The speaker says that the fighters "call[] courage still
otherwise. In fact, this supposedly senseless violence is what
that native dread / Of the white peace contracted by the dead."
makes animals "beast[s]," and therefore below humans.
Here, "white peace"—a peace enforced by white people—is
Historically, many European thinkers have argued that humans compared to a disease that people "contract[]" and die from.
are above animals, in part because "man" is "upright." That is, Viewing "peace" as a disease that kills people is a bit of a
people walk on two legs rather than four. This has even been par
parado
adoxx, and a pretty bleak one at that. This depiction
interpreted as evidence of humanity's "divinity." Humans, on highlights the brutality and hypocrisy of colonial rule, which
this view, are godlike. The speaker comments on this view enforces peace through oppression. In Kenya, the British
sarcastically: "upright man / Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain." responded to the Mau Mau Rebellion by instituting forced
In other words, humans try to find their inner holiness by labor camps and killing up to six times as many people as the
torturing others. Mau Mau did.
If this seems hypocritical, that's exactly the speaker's point. For That said, the speaker doesn't believe the Mau Mau have
one thing, it doesn't make sense for Christians to view responded to British repression in the right way. The speaker
themselves as godlike only to commit distinctly ungodly acts. says that the Mau Mau "call[] courage still that native dread /
Secondly, this use of violence erases what supposedly Of the white peace." In other words, what the fighters believe is
separates humans from animals. As the speaker's imagery thus courage is actually just fear of being killed by the British. For
far has suggested, violence in fact turns people into "beasts," the speaker, Kenyans haven't found any dignity or true self-
rather than leading them to "divinity." consciousness through the rebellion. Instead, they have
This is a good point to take stock of the use of rh
rhyme
yme thus far in become "beast"-like and self-deceptive.
the stanza. The end words in lines 16 and 17, "man" and "pain," The end of the stanza picks delivers one of the loudest rh rhymes
ymes
pick up on the rhyme words in lines 13 and 14: "dawn" and in the poem: "dread
ead" and "dead
ead." This emphatic rhyming couplet
"plain." Here, "pain
ain" and "plain
ain" clearly rhyme. Additionally, conveys—if not the moral of the poem—at least one of its
there is a slant rh
rhyme
yme between these words and "man n" and morals: that violence as a response to fear is not the same thing
"dawnn." These words all end with the /n/ sound and employ as courage, and that it will not lead to greater dignity for
vowels that echo each other. One effect of this slant rhyme is colonized African peoples. Rhyming couplets like this one often
that a dissonance enters the poem, a slightly out-of-tune have a way of wrapping up a stanza with a punchy, quotable
quality that matches the speaker's sarcastic representation of message. In using such a couplet, the speaker again conveys a
humanity's pretension to divinity. deep knowledge and love of poetic forms.
LINES 18-21 This is the only stanza that ends in a rhyming couplet,
suggesting that the form of the poem doesn't require any
Delirious as these ...
... by the dead. couplets; instead, the speaker employs it spontaneously and
freely. In writing like this, the speaker finds a measure of
In the final sentence of this stanza, the speaker continues to freedom, self-expression, and, yes, even dignity, outside the
critique human uses of violence. First, the speaker once more traditional constraints of English verse.
compares humans to animals, saying that humans are
"Delirious as worried beasts" when it comes to war. In this LINES 22-25
simile
simile, people are as crazed as predator and prey locked in a Again brutish necessity ...
frenzied battle for survival. ... with the superman.
Next, the speaker says that humanity's "wars / Dance to the Rather than returning to a description of the landscape, which
tightened carcass of a drum." This is a striking metaphor that is how the speaker began the first two stanzas, the third stanza

uses metaphor and personification
personification. It begins: "Again brutish stereotypes. This goes along with the speaker's implied
necessity wipes its hands / Upon the napkin of a dirty cause." As conclusion throughout the poem that violence reduces people
with some of the poem's other instance of metaphorical to "beasts" rather than elevating them. As a result, such
language, the lines pack a lot of meaning into a small space, so struggles are "A waste of our compassion." Even though people
talking about it will require some unpacking. like the speaker want to support struggles for African
Here, "brutish necessity" personifies "necessity" as a brute, an independence, the Mau Mau have wasted that support. The
animal-like and violent person. This brute "wipes its hands / struggle will not achieve what the speaker believes in: dignity,
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause." Necessity's hands are soiled, freedom, and justice for African peoples.
probably with blood. Yet it uses a dirty napkin to clean them. In LINES 26-27
other words, this napkin probably isn't going to actually clean
necessity's hands. In turn, the napkin metaphorically I who am ...
represents "a dirty cause." The word "cause" here means ... to the vein?
movement or struggle, as in the struggle for independence. The In lines 26-27, the speaker introduces the first-person pronoun
speaker suggests, however, that the Mau Mau aren't engaged "I" for the first time: "I who am poisoned by the blood of both /
in a pure and just struggle for independence. Rather, their Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?" This sentence captures
cause is "dirty." It is tainted, perhaps by a thirst for vengeance, the speaker's personal stake in responding to the Mau Mau
personal greed, or a love of violence. conflict. The speaker has both English and African "blood," or
This metaphor and personification suggest that the Mau Mau ancestry. While "blood" is a common metaphor for ancestry, the
feel that violence is necessary, but that they also want to speaker brings out some of the more physical resonances of
absolve themselves of guilt for all the killing. However, their "blood" as well. This physicality turns the speaker's emotional
"cause," their struggle for independence, can't absolve them pain into bodily pain as well. For instance, the speaker imagines
because it's not longer about justice. The speaker sees the Mau African and English blood literally "divid[ing]" the speaker's
Mau as focusing on gruesome acts of violence rather than the "veins" in two—a painful experience to imagine.
elevation of the Kenyan people, and this makes their actions "[B]lood" also suggests violence, which the word "poisoned"
irredeemable. plays into as well. As a whole, this sentence captures how the
Next, the speaker turns to history for an example that can shed speaker's complicated colonial heritage isn't just a matter of
light on current events in Kenya. The speaker alludes to the abstract contemplation, but also a lived form of violence that
Spanish Civil War, fought in the mid 1930s between left-wing has followed the speaker throughout life. Furthermore, this
and right-wing forces in Spain. Ultimately, right-wing forces inner experience of violence isn't so different from the national
won and a totalitarian government ruled Spain into the '70s. violence in Kenya.
"[A]s with Spain," says the speaker, "The gorilla wrestles with This sentence also connects the poem to Walcott personally.
the superman." Here, right-wing totalitarian forces are "the Walcott grew up on the island nation of Santa Lucia when it was
superman," better armed and capable of violence on a grander still a British colony. Walcott, like the poem's speaker, had a
scale than "The gorilla," the left-wing forces. Notice here also mixed heritage. Although the poem isn't overly
the pun on guerilla, which refers to warfare that relies on sneak autobiographical, it clearly draws on certain experiences from
attacks against a more powerful army, a strategy commonly Walcott's own life and is meant, at least partially, to be read as
employed by leftist revolutionaries. Walcott's personal response to the Mau Mau Rebellion. And
while the speaker can't be interpreted as explicitly Walcott
The reference to "The gorilla" and "the superman," however,
himself, it's important to keep in mind the kinds of experiences
also summon some other connotations. The word "gorilla"
that informed Walcott's poetry.
suggests racial slurs and stereotypes commonly directed at
people of African descent, comparing them to animals and Understanding the speaker as someone from a British colony
suggesting they are less than human. Such slurs have often also gives a window into the speaker's criticism of the Mau
been used to justify colonialism, treating native people as Mau. More specifically, it allows the speaker's criticisms to be
animals to be domesticated, rather than as human beings with taken in good faith. In comparing, for instance, the Kikuyu to
equal rights. Meanwhile, the word "superman" conjures racist flies, the speaker isn't blindly insulting Kenyans. Rather, the
Nazi beliefs in the Übermensch (over-man or superman, a speaker is trying to make a pointed argument about how
misreading of a term created by the philosopher Friedrich violence transforms people for the worse. As a native of a
Nietzsche), which for them was embodied by the German British colony, the speaker naturally sides with other natives.
people. Yet as a sensitive and life-affirming poet, the speaker also wants
to reject acts of violence. Herein lies the poem's conflict.
The connotations of these two words suggest that the speaker
believes the Mau Mau Uprising has devolved into a battle of

LINES 28-33 question.
I who have ...
... Africa and live?
POETIC DEVICES
The speaker's hatred of colonial rule becomes explicit in the
next two lines: "I who have cursed / The drunken officer of SIMILE
British rule." On a literal level, the drunken officer here refers to
The speaker of "A Far Cry From Africa" uses a lot of
drunk police officers and army officers enforcing British control
metaphorical language, and some of this is framed explicitly
over Kenyan. More importantly, it metaphorically asserts that
through simile
simile.
Britain itself behaves as a drunken officer in its rule over
colonies. However, although the speaker admits "curs[ing]," or Line 2, for example, introduces a striking comparison:
speaking out against, British rule, that doesn't mean the
speaker knows how to act in this particular situation. [...] Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
The speaker stills feels "divided to the vein," and doesn't know
how to "choose / Between this Africa and the English tongue I
The Kikuyu are the tribe that composed most of the Mau Mau.
love." This opposition, Africa on one hand and the English
Here, the speaker compares the Kikuyu—probably thinking
language on the other, adds a new layer to the speaker's
specifically of the Mau Mau—to flies that fasten to
feelings. After all, the poem itself is written in English. The
bloodstreams (i.e., veins). They are like mosquitoes or flies
speaker declares "love" for English, and that love is apparent in
pecking at a body. This is a bold and ambiguous comparison to
the care with which the poem is crafted. The poem's nods to
use right off the bat, especially for this speaker who is
traditional formal elements of English verse, the liveliness of
sympathetic to the project of African independence. The simile
the poem's rhythms, its vivid imagery
imagery—all these point to a real
suggests the Kikuyu are like parasites or scavengers. Although
love of written English.
the speaker has African ancestry, clearly the actions of Mau
At the same time, though, this opposition links "the English Mau have left the speaker unsure how to feel about them.
tongue" with "The drunken officer of British rule." In other
At the end of the first stanza, the speaker references "savages,
words, the English language becomes an element of English
expendable as Jews." Here, the speaker parrots the racist
colonialism. Wherever the English ruled, English became the
ideologies of colonists and Nazis. Colonists have often referred
language of the powerful and the educated. Colonized peoples
to colonized natives as "savages," uncivilized people who
were forced to learn English. Someone like the speaker may
needed to be ruled by Christian colonists; the Nazis killed
have even come to love English and English-language literature.
millions of Jewish people in concentration camps in an effort to
Many anti-colonial intellectuals have written in the languages
exterminate them. In comparing these two ideologies, the
of their colonizers. But that's not to say that these same people
speaker suggests that colonists are no better than Nazis. If the
didn't have fraught relationships with their adopted languages.
comparison of the Kikuyu to flies has a queasy ambiguity to it,
In fact, writing in the language of one's colonizers, at least in the
there's no question about where the speaker stands on
context of this poem, becomes a way to confront colonialism,
colonists—they are reprehensible.
neither hiding from it nor embracing it.
In the second stanza, the speaker says that "man" is "Delirious
Even so, fully acknowledging the colonial history of English
as these worried beasts." In other words, people who engage in
doesn't help the speaker resolve this conflict. The speaker feels
acts of violence as just as crazed as predator and prey locked in
the need to either forsake Africa entirely or give up using
a battle for survival. Although people often like to think of
English. Clearly, though, the speaker isn't prepared to do either,
themselves as above animals, the speaker implies that this
isn't ready to "give back what they give." That is, too much of
belief is refuted by humans' use of violence. In their thirst for
the speaker comes from both Africa and England. Yet by not
blood, according to the speaker, British forces and Kenyan
making a choice, the speaker suggests it will be like "Betray[ing]
rebels are no different from hunger-crazed lions.
them both."
And in the third stanza, the speaker says that the Mau Mau
The final two lines present the speaker's dilemma in succinct
rebellion is "A waste of our compassion, as with Spain." Here,
terms: "How can I face such slaughter and be cool? / How can I
the speaker compares the Mau Mau rebellion to the Spanish
turn from Africa and live?" In other words, how can the speaker
Civil War, fought in the 1930s between left-wing and right-
learn about the Mau Mau's use of violence and be okay with it?
wing Spanish forces. Despite vicious fighting, leftists lost that
On the other hand, how can the speaker reject the Mau Mau,
war and a totalitarian government rule Spain for four decades.
and thus the project of African independence, and go on living?
According to the speaker, the Mau Mau rebellion, like Spanish
As suggested in the previous lines, each choice involves a
civil war, isn't worth the sympathy of liberal people. Not only do
"Betray[al]" of some sort. There is no resolution to this
the Mau Mau use tactics the speaker disapproves of, but they

will also probably lose to the larger and better-armed British humanity's "wars / Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum."
army. Here, the speaker summons images of traditional Kenyan
drums, made with animal hides stretched taut. In the
Where Simile appears in the poem: description of a "tightened carcass," the speaker emphasizes
the violence that goes into making these drums. While the
• Line 2: “Kikuyu, quick as flies,” drums are traditionally uses for ritual and dance, the speaker
• Line 10: “savages, expendable as Jews” compares such dances to "wars." In other words, this metaphor
• Line 18: “Delirious as these worried beasts”
suggests that the Mau Mau have debased rich cultural
• Line 24: “A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,”
traditions through their acts of violence.
Next, the speaker compares the "peace" of colonial rule to a
METAPHOR
disease. More specifically, the speaker refers to "the white
"A Far Cry From Africa" is filled with metaphor
metaphor. One prominent peace contracted by the dead." The speaker is thinking of the
use of metaphor, especially in the first half of the poem, is to brutal tactics used by the British to enforce "peace," which is
describe the Kenyan landscape as a means of commenting on really just oppression. The verb "contracted" gives away the
human affairs. falsity of such peace: usually used in the context of disease, it
The first four lines of the poem use this kind of metaphor: suggests that colonial peace is like a plague, creating more
"dead," not less.
A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt The final stanza uses the most abstract metaphorical language
Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies, in the poem. "Again brutish necessity wipes its hands / Upon
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt. the napkin of a dirty cause," says the speaker. We unpack this
Corpses are scattered through a paradise. phrase in more detail in the Line-by-Line section of this guide,
as well as the Poetic Device entry on Personification. For now,
In these first lines, the speaker compares Africa to a "tawny let's note how the speaker has shifted away from concrete
pelt," a furry hide with yellow-brown fur. More specifically, this imagery in the natural world.
metaphor can be interpreted as comparing African grassland
Here, necessity is personified as a violent person who tries to
("the veldt") to a "tawny hide." This initial comparison, then,
clean their bloody hands with an equally dirty napkin, which in
compares the landscape to an animal's skin. It also makes one
turn represents the "cause," or beliefs, of the Mau Mau. The
type of Africa landscape stand in for Africa as a whole (an
speaker believes that the Mau Mau have fundamentally tainted
example of synecdoche
synecdoche). Furthermore, the image of "wind [...]
the struggle for Kenyan freedom, and that they cannot be
ruffling" Africa suggests a disturbance, implied to be the Mau
forgiven. Similarly, the British may claim that their acts of
Mau rebellion. The poem packs all this into a metaphorical
violence are necessary, but the speaker doesn't believe that in
description of landscape, showing how the speaker views the
the slightest.
natural world as a very powerful means of understanding
human life. The speaker employs the poem's most personal metaphors in
lines 26-27:
A related description occurs in the first four lines of the second
stanza, when the speaker describes how "Threshed out by
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
beaters, the long rushes break / In a white dust of ibises." Here,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
the speaker compares the flight of white-feathered ibises, a
type of bird, to "white dust" filling the air. To the speaker, it
The speaker has ancestry from both England and Africa, and
looks as if the ibises have been beaten out of the grass by
compares this ancestry to being "poisoned with the blood both"
"beaters," farmers who are threshing a crop for its grain. In
and being "divided to the vein." This comparison captures how
reality, they've probably just been startle by the noise.
the speaker doesn't just have conflicted thoughts, but feels that
This description creates a kind of metaphorical blur in the conflict bodily. It's as if the speaker's very body has been split in
poem's imagery. Read literally, these lines would suggest that two by this rebellion.
farmers aren't getting grain out of their crops, but birds! And
that these birds emerge as a cloud of white dust. Of course, this Where Metaphor appears in the poem:
is only a metaphor, capturing how humans, animals, plants, and
earth are all interconnected, to the point of blurring together. • Lines 1-4: “A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt / Of Africa.
Again, this moment reveals the speaker's faith in nature's Kikuyu, quick as flies, / Batten upon the bloodstreams of
power to elucidate human events. the veldt. / Corpses are scattered through a paradise.”
• Lines 18-19: “his wars / Dance to the tightened carcass
After this moment, the speaker begins to turn away from of a drum,”
nature to more human imagery. The speaker describes how

conflict believe that violence is a necessary part of the conflict.
• Line 21: “the white peace contracted by the dead.” They don't want to feel guilty of such violence, so each side
• Lines 22-23: “Again brutish necessity wipes its hands / tries to "wipe[] its hands" of the bloody results. However, their
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause,” "cause[s]"—their goals and ideas—can't absolve them of guilt,
• Lines 25-29: “The gorilla wrestles with the superman. / I because those causes are no longer noble. The causes are too
who am poisoned with the blood of both, / Where shall I tainted by violence to absolve anyone of guilt.
turn, divided to the vein? / I who have cursed / The
drunken officer of British rule,” Where P
Personification
ersonification appears in the poem:
PERSONIFICATION • Lines 5-6: “the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: / "Waste

no compassion on these separate dead!"”
The speaker uses personification twice in the poem. The first • Lines 22-23: “brutish necessity wipes its hands / Upon
instance comes in line 5: the napkin of a dirty cause”
Only the worm, colonel of carrion

carrion, cries:
ALLUSION
A colonel is an officer in the army, and a carrion is decaying They are a lot of allusions in "A Far Cry From Africa," all of
flesh eaten by scavengers. A "colonel of carrion," then, is an which contribute to the richness and gravity of the poem's
officer in charge of death and decay. By personifying the worm language. Some allusions connect the poem to contemporary
as such an imaginary figure, the speaker again mixes elements events in Kenya, making the poem's response to the Mau Mau
of humanity and elements of nature. rebellion explicit:
On one hand, calling a worm the "colonel of carrion" is just a
• When the speaker mentions "Kikuyu, quick as flies,"
poetic way of conjuring the role worms play in decay. On the this refers to the Kikuyu tribe, which formed the
other hand, it suggests that armies are no better than worms. majority of the Mau Mau. Referring to this tribe
This worm says "Waste no compassion on these separate right off the bat lets the reader know that the
dead!" Don't feel bad about each of these corpses, the worm is speaker is thinking of the Mau Mau.
saying. Not a very considerate worm! By calling the worm a • Similarly, "the white child hacked in bed" alludes to a
colonel, the speaker implies that soldiers don't really have much notorious incident from the uprising, when the Mau
compassion either. Thus, this personification does double work. Mau killed a family of white English settlers at their
It makes the natural environment more vivid, and it also farm, including a six-year-old boy.
critiques humans.
In the third stanza, the speaker says: There are two other allusions to events that happened within
Walcott's lifetime. Also in the first stanza, the speaker alludes
Again brutish necessity wipes its hands to the Holocaust with the phrase "expendable as Jews":
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause [...]
• During WWII, Nazi Germany killed six million Jews
This use of personification is also an instance of allegory
allegory, in in an effort to exterminate Europe's Jewish
which an abstract entity is personified as interacting with other population.
abstract entities. Here, "necessity" is personified as a brute, a • The speaker compares the British strategy in Kenya
to the Holocaust: as the speaker watches events
senselessly violent person. Necessity is what must be done.
unfolds, it seems that the British value Kenyans'
"[B]rutish necessity" suggests acts of violence that certain
lives about as much as the Nazi's valued the lives of
people (e.g., the Mau Mau or British colonists) believe must be
Jewish people.
done.
Meanwhile, a "dirty cause" is represented as a napkin. A "cause" The other event during Walcott's lifetime is the Spanish Civil
is a movement or struggle. Here, the speaker implies that the War, referenced in lines 24 with "A waste of our compassion, as
"dirty cause" is the Mau Mau rebellion, which—although it with Spain."
struggles for Kenyan independence—is ultimately based on
principles, such as violent retribution, that the speaker finds • The Spanish Civil War was fought between left-wing
morally reprehensible. A "dirty cause" could also be interpreted and right-wing forces in Spain. Observers
at the British struggle to impose order on Kenya at the cost of throughout the world felt drawn to take sides. In the
tens of thousands of lives. end, right-wing forces won and imposed a
Putting these two pieces together: the armies involved in this totalitarian government, which ruled Spain into the
'70s, under the leadership of Francisco Franco.

• The speaker views the war as "A waste of our Finally, the speaker makes an allusion to the ancient history of
compassion" in part because both sides committed Africa by mentioning "ibises" and "civilization's dawn":
atrocities, and in the end totalitarian forces still won.
• As before, the speaker compares this to the • The species of ibis the speaker is probably
situation in Kenya, where both sides have referencing here, the African sacred ibis, was held
committed atrocities, and in the end—the speaker sacred by the Ancient Egyptians. Ancient Egypt
assumes—England's imperial rule will continue. (In existed centuries before any equivalent civilization
reality, Kenya would gain independence only a few developed in Northern Europe. In fact, civilization is
years later; but that hadn't happened yet when commonly believed to have begun in Northern
Walcott wrote this poem!) Africa and the Middle East.
• Thus, when the speaker mentions "civilization's
The speaker also makes some cultural allusions. In particular, dawn," this is a subtle dig at the supposed
the speaker sarcastically parrots racist ideologies: superiority of European nations and an attempt to
shift focus to the accomplishments of African
• In using the word "savages" at the of line 10, peoples. Just as the speaker wants to critique
"gorilla" in line 25 ("The gorilla wrestles with the ideologies of colonialism and violence, the speaker
superman"), and "beast" throughout stanza 2, the also wants to shed light on the rich land and history
speaker ironically uses racist slurs. of Africa, which is exactly what this allusion does in
• Historically, these words have been used to demean its own subtle way.
native peoples, especially in Africa. They imply that
Africans are less than humans, that they are animals
who have no "civilization[]." By viewing Africans in Where Allusion appears in the poem:
such a manner, Europeans have justified • Line 2: “Kikuyu”
colonization. In fact, Europeans often said they were • Line 9: “the white child hacked in bed”
doing native peoples a favor, by introducing them to • Line 10: “savages,” “expendable as Jews”
Christianity and European culture. • Line 12: “ibises”
• The speaker sees right through this ideology, and • Line 13: “civilization's dawn”
only brings up these slurs in order emphasize the • Line 15: “beast,” “beast”
ridiculousness of colonial rule. Walcott himself had a • Lines 16-17: “upright man / Seeks his divinity”
mixed ancestry from both England and Africa, so he • Line 18: “beasts”
doesn't bring use such words lightly—rather, he • Line 24: “as with Spain”
speaks from the lived experience of colonialism and • Line 25: “gorilla,” “superman”
racism.
IMAGERY
On the flip side, the speaker also alludes to how colonial
powers have viewed themselves, with the phrase "upright man The first two stanzas use vivid imagery to tie human events to
/ Seeks his divinity" in the middle of stanza 2 and the word the natural landscape of Kenya. The images in these stanzas
"superman" in stanza 3. blend human, animal, plant, and earth to convey how these
things are interconnected. Through this, the speaker is able to
• The first phrase references a historical belief among comment on human affairs with images from the natural world.
Europeans that humans were more divine than The first four lines are a good example of how this works:
animals because people walk on two legs as
opposed to four. Additionally, this belief is linked to A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
the idea that Christian Europeans were superior to Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies,
non-Christian nations, which gave them the right to Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
colonize those nations. Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
• The word "superman" translates the Nazi belief in
the Übermensch, a word taken from the philosophy
The imagery here isn't straightforward and naturalistic. Rather,
of Fredrich Nietzsche and misused to racist ends.
it blends and conflates different aspects of the human and
The Nazis believed Germans were the most
natural environment. The metaphorical resonance of these
superior people on the planet, that they were super-
men, and that this gave them the right to take over lines is unpacked in the corresponding entry of this guide. For
the world and exterminate peoples they viewed as now, let's note how the speaker uses visual and tactile imagery
inferior. to engage the reader.
The visual of Africa's "tawny pelt," a hide of yellow-orange-

brown fur, immediately saturates the poem in that color. Statistics justify and scholars seize
Furthermore, "ruffling fur" and the word "pelt" conjure how The salients of colonial policy.
animal hides feel, their rough or smooth texture, depending on
the animal. Here the verb "seize" needs a direct object to complete it,
Meanwhile, the image of people (members of the Kikuyu tribe) which the entire next line provides. Another example is lines
as flies is a striking image. Even more striking is what 12-13:
follows—"the bloodstreams of the veldt," which imagines the
grassland (veldt) as having veins. These fly-people attach In a white dust of ibises whose cries
themselves to the veins like mosquitoes or flies hovering Ha
Havve wheeled since civilization's dawn
around a dead body. The word "batten" means to lock down or
secure. In other words, the fly-people lock themselves onto the This time, the line ends in a noun that needs a verb. In both of
land-veins like suction cups. This imagery brings physical the above cases, sentences span more than one line, creating a
sensations into play, engaging the reader on a tactile level. "wheel[ing]" feeling that is slightly off-kilter, slightly frantic,
capturing the speaker's uncertain state of mind.
The second stanza also begins with four lines of vivid imagery:
Many other instances of enjambment aren't so grammatically
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break clear-cut. Nonetheless, they employ the forward-looking and
In a white dust of ibises whose cries off-balance momentum essential to enjambment. There are
Have wheeled since civilization's dawn two examples of these at the start of stanza 2:
From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
This imagery blends distinct actions (farmers threshing grain, In a white dust of ibises whose cries
startled birds taking off) into a single continuous motion, Have wheeled since civilization's da
dawn
wn
further blended by the comparison of the birds' white feathers From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
to "white dust" floating in the air. This gives the appearance of
farmers beating out a white dust of birds from the grass. As Here, the lines could grammatically end on the bold words.
with the introductory lines of stanza 1, this imagery has an However, the absence of punctuation sends the reader
imaginative vividness that goes beyond realism into a more plummeting to the next line, so that this sentences takes four
poetic realm. First the sound of "thresh[ing]" (whipping stalks lines to reach a stopping point. Each of these instances of
to remove the edible grain), then the sound of rushes (long enjambment is crucial to depicting the interconnected
boggy grass) breaking, then the "cries" of the ibises (a high environment the poem is describing. Just as the images of
pitched call). Again, this imagery fills the reader's sense, farmers, rushes, and grass blend together in one fluid motion,
creating an immersive experience of the poem's environment. so too do these lines seem to blend together.
Such uses of enjambment are interspersed with end-stops that
Where Imagery appears in the poem: punctuate the poem, often dramatically. Apart from the second
line, the speaker never ends a sentence in the middle of a line,
• Lines 1-4: “A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt / Of Africa.
meaning that all sentences finish as end-stopped lines.
Kikuyu, quick as flies, / Batten upon the bloodstreams of
Furthermore, many of the sentences end not with a period, but
the veldt. / Corpses are scattered through a paradise.”
an exclamation point or a question mark. A quick glance down
• Line 9: “What is that to the white child hacked in bed?”
the right-hand margin of the poem reveals how many question
• Lines 11-14: “Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes
marks there are.
break / In a white dust of ibises whose cries / Have
wheeled since civilization's dawn / From the parched This punctuation overtly signals the speaker's own confusion.
river or beast-teeming plain.” In particular, the four question marks that end the poem show
• Line 19: “Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,” how the poem ends in a space of deep uncertainty. The speaker
hasn't reached any conclusion; rather, the poem has given vent
ENJAMBMENT to the frustration and pain that is colonialism's legacy.
"A Far Cry From Africa" makes pretty extensive use of
enjambment
enjambment. As a whole, these line breaks contribute to Where Enjambment appears in the poem:
poem's forward momentum and the texture of its language. In • Lines 1-2: “pelt / Of”
the clear cases of enjambment, the end of the line is • Lines 7-8: “seize / The”
grammatically incomplete, requiring the next in order to make • Lines 11-12: “break / In”
sense. Lines 7-8 are an example: • Lines 12-13: “cries / Have”

tropes. "The gorilla wrestles with the superman," says the
• Lines 13-14: “dawn / From” speaker. Here, "gorilla" is a racial slur white supremacists use
• Lines 15-16: “read / As” against people of color. In the context of colonization, it plays
• Lines 16-17: “man / Seeks” into the belief that colonized people are "beasts" rather than
• Lines 18-19: “wars / Dance” human beings. Citing this belief, colonial powers have tried to
• Lines 20-21: “dread / Of” justify what has amounted to centuries of oppression and
• Lines 22-23: “hands / Upon” exploitation.
• Lines 23-24: “again / A”
The term "superman" cites the Nazi belief that the German
• Lines 28-29: “cursed / The”
people were super-people, superior to all other nations and
• Lines 29-30: “choose / Between”
thus justified not only in conquering other nations, but also
eradicating those peoples they deemed inferior. The word
IRONY "superman" translates the German word Übermensch, a term
The speaker's use of iron
ironyy can roughly be summed up as the Nazis took from the philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche and
sarcasm. The speaker parrots racist ideologies in order to show corrupted.
scorn for them. This happens in each stanza. In the first stanza, By pairing these words, the speaker captures the absurdity of
for example, the speaker says: racist thought, which transforms both oppressor and
oppressed into ugly cartoons. At the same time, the speaker's
Statistics justify and scholars seize expression of these tropes captures how they become a self-
The salients of colonial policy. fulfilling prophecy in terms of armed conflict. That is, because
colonial powers have such a stranglehold on the colonized,
In other words, people use "statistic" to justify colonial rule. those peoples have little resources to wage a successful war
Meanwhile, university experts weigh in on "policy" matters of against their oppressors. To racists, this may seem like evidence
colonial rule—that is, subtle matters of British laws and of those peoples' inferiority. But the speaker's irony here points
practices in Kenya. Yet neither of those approaches gets to the to the falsity of such a conclusion, suggesting—as all these
heart of the matter: that the British shouldn't be in Kenya at all! instances of irony do—that European superiority is both absurd
In the next line, the speaker asks, "What is that to the white and the source of much suffering.
child hacked in bed?" This angry and accusative rhetorical
question indicates that the speaker brings up "statistics" and Where Iron
Ironyy appears in the poem:
"policy" only ironically, to point out how useless such
approaches are in the face of violence. • Lines 7-8: “Statistics justify and scholars seize / The
salients of colonial policy.”
In the next stanza, the speaker parrots a certain European way • Lines 15-17: “The violence of beast on beast is read / As
of viewing humanity, animals, and religion: natural law, but upright man / Seeks his divinity by
inflicting pain.”
The violence of beast on beast is read • Line 25: “The gorilla wrestles with the superman.”
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain. ANTITHESIS
Throughout the modern history of Europe, thinkers have The poem ends on a series of antitheses
antitheses, contradictory options
posited a sharp difference between humans and animals. One that capture the speaker's internal conflict. They are, first:
common trope is that humans are superior to animals because
humans walk on two legs rather than four, are "upright." In fact, [...] how choose
such thinkers have often assumed that humans are the living Between this Africa and the English tongue I lo
lovve?
beings closest to God.
Then:
The speaker ironically reiterates such a view, before going on to
say that "upright man / Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain." In
Betray them both, or giv
givee back what the
theyy giv
give?
e?
other words, humans embrace their divine nature by hurting
others. If this doesn't sound quite right, that's exactly the
And finally:
speaker's point. Europeans colonists act so high and mighty, but
when it comes to their behavior in colonies they are downright
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
"beasts." They employ brutal, distinctly un-godlike tactics.
How can I turn from Africa and liv
live?
e?
In the final stanza, the speaker again ironically cites racist

Above, we've italicized the first term in each antithesis and The repeated /k/ sounds link "Africa" and the "Kikuyu," the
bolded the second. Each of these instances relies on anaphor
anaphoraa Kenyan tribe the Mau Mau were mostly composed of. By
of the word "how" to drive home its point; each is also subtly repeating this sound in the phrase "quick as flies," the speaker
different from last, slight tweaking the two opposing choices zooms in from Africa, to Kenya, to individual insects in the
the speaker faces. natural environment. The /k/ sound also adds a clicking, finicky
The first antithesis suggests that the speaker has to choose texture to this line, mimicking the swarm of insects it describes.
between loyalty to Africa and using English. That's a pretty big In the third stanza, the speaker subtly uses the /n/ sounds to
choice to make! Of course, this stark opposition represents the keep a feeling of unity through the first four enjambed lines:
more subtle conflict the speaker actually feels, that the
speaker's immersion in English complicates the speaker's Again
n brutish necessity wipes its han nds
sympathy for Kenyans' struggle. That using English somehow Uponn the napkin
n of a dirty cause, againn
binds the speaker to England in some way. A waste of our compassion n, as with Spainn,
Next, the speaker has to either "[b]etray" both Kenya and The gorilla wrestles with the superman n.
England, or return to them everything they've given the
speaker. In other words, the speaker's personality is informed Quiet uses of consonance such as these aren't necessarily
by both Kenyan and English heritage. And if the speaker made to stand out. Rather, they are part of the poem's
doesn't choose sides, that will mean betraying them both, as if foundational artistry, the speaker's constant control of sound
the speaker has stolen each ancestral heritage. Yet, of course, that contributes to the fluid feel of these lines.
the speaker can't give that heritage back, any more than the The speaker is also fond of a type of consonance called
speaker can unlearn English. sibilance
sibilance, made of /s/, /z/, and /sh/ sounds. Lines 18-19 are full
Finally, the speaker states the central conflict most clearly: of such sounds:
"How can I face such slaughter and be cool? / How can I turn
from Africa and live?" When the speaker says "slaughter," this Deliriouss ass thesse worried beasstss, hiss warss
seems to most directly reference the gruesome violence Dancce to the tightened carcass ss of a drum,
employed by the Mau Mau. The speaker is saying there's no
way someone can know about such violence and remain okay Here, the constant /s/ and /z/ sounds mimic the "Deliri[um]" of
with it. On the other hand, there's no way the speaker, with these "worried beasts," the sounds hissing like panicked
African ancestry, can desert the struggle for African animals. A similar use comes in the opening lines of the same
independence. stanza:
Clearly, there's no resolving any of these antitheses; the
Thresh
shed out by beaterss, the long rush shess break
questions here are all rhetorical
rhetorical. Set up as they are, they can
In a white dusst of ibissess whosse criess
only convey the stalemate that speaker is left in, neither able to
decide which side deserves sympathy nor able to resolve the
Here, the fine "dust" of /s/, /z/, and /sh/ sounds fills the page just
divided identity a colonial ancestry produces.
as the sound of the "beaters" and the "cries" of the ibises fill the
air. In both these examples, a plethora of sibilant sounds mimics
Where Antithesis appears in the poem:
a frenzy of animals.
• Lines 29-33: “how choose / Between this Africa and the As these examples show, the speaker pays careful attention to
English tongue I love? / Betray them both, or give back consonant sounds. Such attention places the speaker in a long
what they give? / How can I face such slaughter and be tradition of English poets who wedded careful attention to
cool? / How can I turn from Africa and live?” sound with formal meter and rh rhyme
yme. Although the speaker
loosens and modernizes this tradition, the sound of this poem
CONSONANCE clearly speaks to a careful study of the poetry of the past.
The speaker uses consonance throughout the poem,
sometimes very noticeably and sometimes subtly. This ties into Where Consonance appears in the poem:
the speaker's overall attitude toward poetry, reflecting keen
• Line 1: “wind,” “ruffling,” “tawny,” “pelt”
attention to the dynamics of English and of traditional English
• Line 2: “Africa,” “Kikuyu,” “quick”
verse.
• Line 3: “Batten,” “upon,” “bloodstreams,” “veldt”
Line 2 is a good example of the speaker's careful use of sound: • Line 4: “Corpses,” “scattered,” “through,” “paradise”
• Line 5: “worm,” “colonel,” “carrion,” “cries”
Of Africca. Kikkuyu, quick
ck as flies, • Line 6: “no,” “compassion,” “on,” “separate”

Similar to line 18, the repeated long /i/ sounds capture a rush of
• Line 7: “Statistics,” “justify,” “scholars,” “seize” animals, this time the white flutter of ibises (a type of bird)
• Line 8: “salients,” “colonial,” “policy” taking flight.
• Line 9: “What,” “that,” “to,” “white,” “child,” “hacked,” “bed” The first two lines also provide a somewhat noticeable use of
• Line 10: “savages,” “Jews” assonance, this time with the short /i/:
• Line 11: “Threshed,” “by,” “beaters,” “rushes,” “break”
• Line 12: “white,” “dust,” “ibises,” “whose,” “cries”
A wiind is ruffling the tawny pelt
• Line 13: “Have,” “since,” “civilization's”
Of Afriica. Kiikuyu, quiick as flies,
• Line 14: “parched,” “river,” “or,” “beast,” “teeming”
• Line 15: “beast,” “beast,” “read”
The short /i/ sound conveys the interconnectedness of the
• Line 16: “natural,” “upright”
Kenyan landscape as the speaker describes it, almost as if the
• Line 17: “Seeks,” “inflicting”
/i/ sound is blown by the "wind" across the lines. Although
• Line 18: “Delirious,” “as,” “these,” “worried,” “beasts,” “his,”
“wars” subtle, such uses of sound are important because they back up
• Line 19: “Dance,” “to,” “tightened,” “carcass,” “drum” other devices like metaphor and imagery
imagery, cementing the ideas,
• Line 20: “calls,” “courage,” “dread” feeling, and sensations conveyed by these devices.
• Line 21: “contracted”
• Line 22: “Again,” “necessity,” “wipes,” “its,” “hands” Where Assonance appears in the poem:
• Line 23: “Upon,” “napkin,” “again” • Line 1: “wind,” “is”
• Line 24: “compassion,” “Spain” • Line 2: “Africa,” “Kikuyu,” “quick”
• Line 25: “gorilla,” “wrestles,” “superman” • Line 4: “scattered,” “paradise”
• Line 26: “blood,” “both” • Line 5: “worm,” “colonel”
• Line 27: “Where,” “turn,” “divided,” “vein” • Line 7: “Statistics,” “justify”
• Line 28: “have,” “cursed” • Line 9: “white,” “child,” “hacked”
• Line 29: “drunken,” “officer,” “British,” “rule” • Line 10: “savages”
• Line 30: “English,” “tongue” • Line 12: “white,” “ibises,” “cries”
• Line 31: “Betray,” “both,” “give,” “back,” “give” • Line 13: “since,” “civilization's”
• Line 32: “such,” “slaughter,” “cool” • Line 14: “beast,” “teeming”
• Line 33: “can,” “turn,” “from,” “Africa” • Line 15: “beast,” “beast”
• Line 16: “natural,” “man”
ASSONANCE • Line 17: “divinity,” “inflicting”
There isn't a ton of assonance in "A Far Cry From Africa." The • Line 18: “Delirious,” “these,” “worried,” “beasts”
speaker tends to focus much more on consonance
consonance. This scarcity • Line 21: “white,” “by”
of assonance contributes to a slightly more prose-like feel in • Line 22: “hands”
the language, emphasizing the seriousness of the subject and • Line 23: “Upon,” “napkin,” “cause”
how hard the speaker is mulling these things over. At the same • Line 24: “compassion,” “as”
time, rh
rhyme
yme stands out more when it doesn't have to compete • Line 27: “I,” “divided”
with assonance. That isn't to say that assonance doesn't play a • Line 28: “I”
role in the poem. Rather, it provides scaffolding in the • Line 30: “this,” “Africa,” “English,” “tongue,” “love”
background, steadying the poem's construction with its subtle • Line 31: “Betray,” “they”
precision. • Line 32: “face”
Most of the instances of assonance are pretty quiet. One of the

ALLITERATION
more noticeable lines is 18:
The speaker uses alliter
alliteration
ation through the poem. This
Deliriious as theese worrie
ied bea
easts [...] alliteration provides emphasis and unity, increases the poem's
lyrical energy, and links the speaker with traditional English
Here the long /e/ sound repeats four times, capturing the poetry of the past.
delirium of frenzied animals. Certain moments create a tightly-knit burst of sound, holding
Another noticeable use is line 12: particular images and descriptions together, as in line 3:
In a whiite dust of ibises whose crie

ies Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt,
Or lines 5-6:

Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries
"Waste no compassion." [...] • Line 5: “colonel,” “carrion,” “cries”
• Line 6: “compassion,” “separate”
Sounds like these fill the mouth with textures that mimic the • Line 7: “Statistics,” “scholars,” “seize”
images they're paired with. The repeated /b/ sounds in line 3 • Line 8: “salients”
have a percussiveness that suggests snapping something shut • Line 9: “What,” “white”
and locking it, which is what "Batten" means. And the /k/ • Line 11: “by,” “beaters,” “break”
sounds in lines 5-6 have a sharpness to them that summons • Line 14: “parched,” “plain”
some of the authoritative personality of this personified worm. • Line 15: “beast,” “beast”
Additionally, the poetically artificial sounds of these lines • Line 18: “worried,” “wars”
emphasize that their images are not naturalistic; that is, these • Line 19: “Dance,” “carcass,” “drum”
lines aren't describing the environment in purely realistic • Line 20: “calls,” “courage”
terms, but blending various aspects of the human, animal, and • Line 21: “contracted”
geological into a single metaphor
metaphor. • Line 23: “cause”
• Line 24: “compassion,” “Spain”
One noteworthy aspect of the poem's alliteration is that /b/ and • Line 25: “superman”
/c/ sounds appear prominently throughout the poem. For • Line 26: “blood,” “both”
instance, hard /c/ alliteration is taken up again at the end of the • Line 29: “British”
second stanza: • Line 30: “Between”
• Line 31: “Betray,” “both,” “back”
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum, • Line 32: “such,” “slaughter”
While he calls courage still that native dread
Of the white peace contracted by the dead.
APHORISMUS
There are some overlaps here with the earlier example of the In the second stanza the speaker uses a combination of
"worm, colonel of carrion." Namely, "carcass" echoes "carrion," aphorismus and diacope
diacope, calling into question uses of the word
and "courage" replaces "compassion." These substitutions "beast." The word "beast" refers to animals, but in
suggest that alliteration can be used in a very subtle way as a contemporary English it isn't a neutral world. It implies that a
sort of refr
refrain
ain, a way of hearkening back to earlier moments in creature is violent, "brutish" (to use a word from stanza three),
the poem through repeated sounds. impulsive, senseless, etc. In connection with these
connotations, the word has often been used to enforce a sharp
In the third stanza, alliterative /b/ sounds capture the intricacy distinction between humans and animals by asserting that
of the speaker's internal conflict: humans are self-conscious and rational, while animals are only
"beasts." Maintaining such a division has also been a part of
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose racist ideologies, which assert that only some people (e.g., white
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love? people according to white supremacists) are truly human, while
Betray them both, or give back what they give? others are more like "beasts" than people. Racist beliefs like
these have played a prominent role in how colonial powers
The words "British," "Between," "Betray," "both," and "back" have justified their exploitation of colonized people.
offer a kind of suggestive overview of the speaker's dilemma:
that siding with the British or the Mau Mau feels like a betrayal The speaker cast doubt on racialized uses of the word "beast"
either way. The repeated /b/ hammers home this dead-end. in stanza two, most directly in lines 15-17:
Alliteration has always been an important element of English The violence of beast on beast is read
poetry. In fact Old English poetry, the oldest known literature in As natural law, but upright man
English, was based around patterns of alliteration (Beowulf
Beowulf is a Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
good example). Throughout the history of poetry of English,
alliteration has been a fundamental device. English's many Here, the speaker discusses how humans supposedly separate
consonants give it a rich texture. The speaker makes full use of themselves from animals because humans are more godlike
that texture in this poem. and less violent than animals. This is of course absurd: humans
are capable of extraordinary violence. In fact, when humans
Where Alliter
Alliteration
ation appears in the poem: engage in war, they become "Delirious as these worried beasts."
• Line 2: “Kikuyu,” “quick” In other words, people become beasts when they engage in
• Line 3: “Batten,” “bloodstreams” atrocious acts.

These lines suggest that "beast" as an insult should be reserved Ibises (Lines 12-13) - A type of long-legged bird. There are
for humans who engage in atrocious violence at the cost of several types of ibises native to Africa. The one the speaker's
human dignity and justice. It should never be used to refer to probably referencing is called the African sacred ibis, a white
people in a racist manner. Furthermore, this sense of beast is bird that searches for food by wading through shallow water.
different from the beast of the "beast-teeming plain," the The ancient Egyptians held it sacred, hence its name.
animals in the natural environment just trying to eke out their Wheeled (Line 13) - Flew in an arc.
survival. The repetition of "beast" teases apart the differences
in these uses, interrogating how humans have asserted their Worried Beasts (Line 18) - Frenzied animals, referring to the
superiority over animals as a means of justifying racist previous sentence where the speaker discusses animal
oppression—and showing how such assertions have ultimately violence.
led to human actions that are more beastly than anything Native Dread (Lines 20-21) - Dread is fear or foreboding. The
animals are capable of. speaker elaborates on this phrase in the next sentence, so that
"native dread" can be interpreted as colonized peoples' fear
Where Aphorismus appears in the poem: that their colonizers will use extreme violence to suppress any
uprisings.
• Line 14: “beast-teeming”
• Line 15: “beast,” “beast” Brutish (Line 22) - Senseless and violent.
• Line 18: “beasts” Gorilla (Line 25) - Besides the pun on guerilla—a term, often
associated with leftist revolutionaries, that refers to soldiers
who use ambushes and unconventional tactics—this word also
VOCABULARY has racist connotations. Colonizing nations have often referred
to the people they colonized as animals in order to justify their
Tawny (Lines 1-2) - A yellow-brown or orange-brown color. oppression.
Pelt (Lines 1-2) - The skin and fur of a dead animal. Superman (Line 25) - Super human. The word is also a
translation of the word Übermensch, a term the Nazis stole
Kikuyu (Line 2) - The tribe most of the Mau Mau were from,
and the largest ethnic group in Kenya. from the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and corrupted. For
the Nazis, the word refers to the supposedly superior German
Quick (Line 2) - Quick can mean not only "fast," but also "alive," people, who because of their superiority had the right to
as in the biblical phrase "the quick and the dead." conquer the rest of the world and eradicate those they deemed
Batten (Line 3) - Shut, lock down. Here, this word suggests the inferior.
flies lock themselves to the bloodstream, perhaps like Drunken Officer (Line 29) - Police officers or army officers
mosquitoes landing on a vein. enforcing British colonial rule who, when they got drunk, were
Veldt (Line 3) - African grassland. Pronounced "velt." probably more belligerent and arbitrary than helpful.
Bloodstreams (Line 3) - Veins. Here, the word is used in a Metaphorically
Metaphorically, this phrase also suggests that Britain as a
metaphorical and surreal way, as if the landscape itself has whole behaves like a drunken officer rather than a rational
veins. ruler.
Colonel (Line 5) - Pronounced the same as kernel, a "colonel" is Cool (Line 32) - Calm; that is, how can the speaker learn about
an officer in an army. such violence and be okay with it?
Carrion (Line 5) - Decaying animal flesh eaten by scavengers.

Salients (Line 8) - The most relevant or noticeable aspects of FORM, METER, & RHYME
something.
FORM
Savages (Line 10) - Barbaric and uncivilized people. This word
is now usually considered to have racist connotations. "A Far Cry From Africa" has 33 lines broken into three stanzas
of increasing length. Stanza 1 is 10 lines long, stanza 2 is 11
Expendable (Line 10) - Disposable. This darkly ironic phrase
lines long, and stanza 3 is 12 lines long. These stanza uses a
recalls how the Nazis killed millions of Jewish people in the
flexible rh
rhyme
yme scheme and meter
meter.
Holocaust because they viewed their lives as worthless.
The poem's form of increasing stanza length creates a kind of
Threshed (Line 11) - Threshing is a phase in the farming of
middle ground between formal vverseerse and free vverse
erse. While a
grain-based crops. Farmers gather stalks and hit them in order
casual observer might not even notice that the stanzas are
to separate out the grain.
different lengths, thus assuming that this poem has a pretty
Beaters (Line 11) - People doing the threshing. traditional idea of poetic form, closer observation reveals this

not to be the case. This creates a kind of hidden flexibility, then; that meter has played in the history of English poetry. The
it's as if the speaker has invented a new form within the speaker is someone who has inherited English through the
auspices of older forms. Or, at the very least, as if the speaker is cultural oppression of English colonization, yet who also
continually pushing against the walls of poetic constraint. has—even so—come to love English. In interrogating this
Stanza literally means "room" in Italian, but for some poets relationship, then, it's important for the speaker to
these rooms can feel more like prison cells. This plays into the acknowledge English's fraught and complicated history.
speaker's meditation on the role of English for colonized Additionally, meter metaphorically represents the constraints
people. The speaker sees English as both a means of self- imposed by English governance on colonized peoples. The
expression but also as an inescapable bond with the colonizing straightjacket of iambic pentameter mimics harsh colonial laws,
nation, and the poem's form captures this conflict. The speaker which took away freedom and land from the colonized,
engages with the constraints of formal poetry just as the reducing them to second-class seconds. By turning the poem
speaker doesn't shy away from addressing the oppressive into a protracted battle with meter, then, the speaker reenacts
practices of English colonists. At the same time, the speaker these many struggles with colonialism.
embraces English's expressive possibilities, adding an individual The point where the speaker most obviously breaks with meter
touch to the poem's form, just as the speaker addresses the is very telling in this regard. Line 28, in its totality, reads: "II who
nuances of the Mau Mau Uprising from a personal point of have cursed
cursed." This tiny, two-foot line contrasts with the heavily
view. stressed lines above, and is most definitely not iambic
METER pentameter. It marks a point where the speaker has gotten
totally exhausted with even gesturing towards such a meter.
The poem is a written in a very flexible form of iambic Furthermore, this line is referring to the speaker's hatred of
pentameter (meaning there are five feet per line, each with a "The drunken officer of British rule," so it's fitting that the line
da-DUM
DUM rhythm). The first two lines kick off the poem with a bucks its British constraint so vehemently. The speaker has
language that hews pretty close to this meter
meter: inserted this line as if to show how meter is a choice poets make,
and that it's possible to give a metaphorical middle finger to
A wind | is ruf
ruf- | fling the ta
tawn
wn- | y pelt colonial England simply by messing with meter.
Of A- | frica
ca. | Kiku
ku- | yu, quick | as flies
flies,
RHYME SCHEME
While this is close to perfect iambic pentameter, the third foot The poem doesn't follow a steady rhrhyme
yme scheme
scheme—which might
of line 1 is actually an anapest (da-da-DUM
DUM; "-fling the ta
tawn
wn-"). feel too formal and constricting for the subject at hand—but it
This suggests that although the poem clearly gestures towards does make use of rhyme sounds. In terms of the experience of
iambic pentameter, it won't necessarily always strive to match reading the poem, rh
rhyme
yme happens at any easy and intuitive
it. Instead, the poem thrives on ambiguous lines such as these. level. But once that reading gives way to analysis, the poem's
Sometimes, the poem uses bunches of stresses that seem to use of rhyme turns out to be a bit more complicated. This is due
override the meter, like a wire heating up and short-circuiting. to the poem's use of slant rh
rhyme
yme and its recycling of rhyme
Here's the start of stanza 2: sounds across stanza.
One reason that slant rhyme complicates things is that
Threshed out | by beat
beat- | ers, the | long rush
rush- | es sometimes a word is introduced seemingly as a slant rhyme,
break only for that word to serve as a full rhyme with a later word. For
In a | white dust | of i- | bises
ses | whose cries instance, here are some of the early rhyme words in stanza
Have wheeled | since civ | iliza za- | tion's da
dawn
wn three: "han
ands," "again
ain," "Spain
ain,," "superman
an," "vein
ein." At first,
From the | parched rivriv- | er or | beast
beast-teem
teem- | ing "hands," "again," and "Spain" appear back-to-back as slant
plain
plain. rhymes, whose /an/, /en/, and /ayn/ sounds share a consonant
/n/ and whose vowels echo each other. This rhyme scheme for
These lines range from four to six stresses per line, and none of the first three lines might be written as:
them are in regular iambic pentameter. Although the rhythms
A A* A**
of some of them still bear the stamp of meter (mostly the third
line), others, such as the first and fourth line, have found their ...suggesting how a single rhyme morphs through each of these
own rhythm, pretty divorced from iambic pentameter. words.
Such examples indicate that the speaker refuses to be bound by In the following lines, however, "superman" is clearly a much
iambic pentameter—perhaps by the strictures of any European closer rhyme to "hands" than either of these words," and "vein"
meter. At the same time, the speaker doesn't feel entirely free is a perfect rhyme with "Spain." In which case, the rhyme
from meter. Rather, the speaker wants to acknowledge the role scheme for the first five lines could be revised as:

ABCAC 1. In the idiomatic sense of a far cry, meaning "very
But this means that "again," the B rhyme, doesn't rhyme with different." In this sense, something that is "A Far Cry
anything! Should it be taken as a slant rhyme with "hands," or an From Africa" is very different from Africa.
2. This idiom can be interpreted as saying that the
eye rhyme with "Spain?" Of course, the sane answer to such
speaker is physically very far away from Africa.
questions is that they are non-issues: they arise mostly from
Though the speaker has African ancestry, perhaps
the problems of labeling and terminology, rather than fussiness
the speaker doesn't actually live in Africa, but lives in
on the poem's part.
England, America, or a Caribbean nation.
That said, there is some fussiness in the poem, and these 3. The title can be read literally as a distant call of
rhymes are part of it. They form a miniature ecosystem of distress coming from Africa. This, of course, summons
sounds that can't quite be harnessed by traditional attitudes all the troubles caused by the Mau Mau rebellion as
towards rhyme. This plays into the speaker's general quandary the speaker learns about them from abroad.
with the history of English poetry, reflecting the speakers need
to engage with that history without totally giving in to it. Considering these interpretations, the title suggests that the
speaker is mulling over Kenyan events while living on another
continent. At the same time, though, the poem summons the
SPEAKER Kenyan landscape as if it does take place in Africa, as when the
speaker describes how "the long rushes break / In a white dust
The speaker is closely identified with Derek Walcott himself,
of ibises." This image makes it seem as if the speaker is in Kenya,
yet the poem doesn't fully license the reader to treater as
watching these things unfold.
Walcott. Rather, the speaker is someone who draws on the
kinds of experiences Walcott had after growing up in an English There are thus two levels to the poem's setting. At a literal
colony, experiences that are crucial for understanding the level, the speaker is thousands of miles away from these events.
poem. Yet at a poetic level, the speaker has used the power of lyrical
language to transport the poem to Kenya. Seen in this way, the
Derek Walcott grew up on the (now former) English colony of poem has a special kind of magic that allows the speaker to
Saint Lucia and later attended university in Jamaica. The engage with what's happening in Kenya in an intimate and
speaker of this poem is likewise implied to be someone who is physical way. Rather than being abstract events and news
well-educated, who grew up in a colony and adopted English as headlines, the goings-on in Kenya become flesh and blood in
a primary means of expression, as evidenced by the phrase "the the poem, whose physicality brings speaker and reader face-to-
English tongue I love." It's also possible to treat this line as self- face with the complexities of a colonial revolution.
reflexively referring to the poem, and to the speaker as a poet.
Going off these implications, the speaker's personal dilemma
begins to grow clear. The speaker is someone who has become CONTEXT
immersed in English to point of writing English poetry that
places itself within the long English poetic tradition. Yet the LITERARY CONTEXT
speaker has also "cursed / The drunken officer of British rule." To understand the importance of Derek Walcott's work, it's
In other words, the speaker vehemently hates English colonial necessary to know a little bit about his background. Walcott
rule. And at the same time, the speaker doesn't trust the grew up on the (now former) British colony of Saint Lucia. He
"slaughter" employed by Mau Mau revolutionaries. had mixed African and English ancestry, and although his first
All these things are elements of the speaker's moral and language was Patois (a creole of French and African languages),
cultural conundrum. The speaker senses that the Mau Mau his schooling was in English. Early in his career, Walcott lived on
Rebellion requires people to take sides, yet the speaker feels the island of Trinidad, where he founded a theater company. He
that every side requires the speaker to "betray" the other. By wrote "A Far Cry From Africa" in his late 20s and included it in
ending on this note, the speaker offers no solution to this his first major collection, In a Green Night. Later in his career,
problem, only further problems. Walcott achieved a great deal of fame as a poet, living and
teaching in places like New York and Boston. He won the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1992 and travelled all over the world
SETTING reading and speaking. As this brief biographical sketch
suggests, the themes and concerns present in "A Far Cry From
The title "A Far Cry From Africa" adds some complex resonance Africa" arose directly from Walcott's own experience.
to the question of the poem's setting. This title can be
interpreted in three ways: In fact, these themes make Walcott's work an example of
postcolonial literature—writing that addresses the experiences
of people from formerly colonized nations. There are many

approaches that can be taken to such literature, and Walcott's compelled to work for white farmers at poor wages.
is just one. This approach involves a reverence for the The Mau Mau didn't have the resources to fight the British
traditional forms of English poetry mixed with impressionistic head on, so they employed guerilla tactics, such as night attacks
descriptions of life in the Caribbean as well as abroad. As "A Far on unarmed civilians. While any armed revolution is bound to
Cry From Africa" shows, Walcott's material was both personal be violent, the Mau Mau's use of violence was especially
and worldly in scope, bringing tangible and intimate imagery shocking to outside observers because of these attacks. In one
into contact with bigger issues. At its most radical, his poetry notorious example, the Mau Mau killed an entire white family at
follows a flow of associations, even to the point of being surreal. their farm, including a six-year-old boy. Committed with
However, Walcott also faced criticism for his embrace of both machete-like swords, this murder was particularly gruesome.
English and traditionally English forms. While some For some intellectuals, notably the anti-colonial writer Frantz
postcolonial poets tried to develop forms that felt native to Fanon, such acts were a necessary phase in a colonial
their respective lands, Walcott placed himself squarely in the revolution—an outcome sparked by the decades of violence
tradition of English poets. The Renaissance poet John Milton perpetrated by colonial forces. However, for observers like
(P
Par
aradise
adise Lost
Lost), for instance, was one of his important Walcott, such acts were unforgivable, even if British
influences. Many postcolonial writers of Walcott's generation colonialism was equally detestable.
ended up living abroad, often in the countries of their
Eventually, the uprising was brutally suppressed. The British
colonizers, whose language these writers used. This further
employed forced labor camps that some felt were
complicated such writer's relationships with the countries of
uncomfortably similar to Nazi concentration camps—which had
their births.
existed only a decade earlier. Additionally, because the Mau
One writer that it's useful to compare Walcott to is Aimé Mau employed such gruesome techniques and because the
Césare. Césare lived most of his life in his native Caribbean British were especially adept as sowing ideological division
country Martinique (which neighbors Santa Lucia), but as a among natives, the uprising never gained enough support to
young man he studied abroad in France. During this time he swell into a full-scale revolution.
wrote his most famous work, Notebook of a Return to My Native
Despite the suppression of the rebellion, however, it did force
Land. The hybrid work of poetry and prose uses explosive
the British to grant certain concessions to Kenyans, such as
surrealist writing, shocking imagery, and vehement arguments
political representation. And just a few years later, Kenya
against colonialism. More politically active and experimental by
gained independence.
temperament than Walcott, Césare helped found the
movement of Négritude, which rejected European culture in
favor of a celebration of blackness and African heritage. MORE RESOUR
RESOURCES
CES
These two poets, a generation apart but from neighboring
countries, offer two different approaches to postcolonial EXTERNAL RESOURCES
writing. Césare embraced experimentation and militancy • An Ov
Overview
erview of Négritude — A discussion of the concept
against colonialism, ultimately returning to Martinique where of Négritude developed by writer Aimé Césare, from the
he served as politician and worked on developing new, native Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Césare's concerns
forms of theater. Walcott, meanwhile, began his career by can be usefully studied to both contrast with, and
founding a native theater, but eventually found himself a part of illuminate, Walcott's themes. (https:/
(https:///plato.stanford.edu/
intellectual institutions in America, Canada, and English. Rather entries/negritude/)
than rejecting European culture he embraced it. His
masterpiece Omeros is an epic poem that combines material • The P
Poem
oem Out LLoud
oud — Listen to Derek Walcott read "A Far
Cry From Africa." (https:/
(https://www
/www..youtube.com/
from the ancient Greek poem The Odyssey with the form used
watch?v=6txi1Z_Z
watch?v=6txi1Z_ZGPY)
GPY)
by Medieval Italian poet Dante in his poem Inferno
Inferno. It was this
work in part that won him the Nobel Prize in the '90s. • The Mau Mau Uprising — A history of the Mau Mau
Uprising, from the BBC. (https:/
(https://www
/www.bbc.com/news/
.bbc.com/news/
HISTORICAL CONTEXT uk-12997138)
The Mau Mau Uprising lasted eight years, from 1952-1960.
• Frantz Fanon and the Mau Mau — Frantz Fanon's
The Mau Mau, or Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA) as
important book on colonial revolution and independence,
they called themselves, were a group of guerilla fighters, most
"The Wretched of the Earth," was heavily inspired by the
of whom were from the Kikuyu tribe, Kenya's ethnic majority. Mau Mau Rebellion. For Fanon, the Mau Mau represent an
The Mau Mau fought in response to England's oppressive rule essential phase of independence, one whose violence is a
over Kenya, especially their exploitative approach to land. direct result of decades of violent colonial rule.
Kenyan's were increasingly forced off their own land and (https:/
(https:///plato.stanford.edu/entries/fr
plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-
antz-

fanon/#WretEart)
HOW T
TO
O CITE
• Walcott's Biogr
Biograph
aphyy — A short biography of Walcott from
Emory University. (https:/
(https:///scholarblogs.emory
scholarblogs.emory.edu/
.edu/
postcolonialstudies/2014/06/21/walcott-derek/) MLA
Griffin, Brandan. "A Far Cry from Africa." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 8
Jul 2020. Web. 16 Sep 2020.
CHICAGO MANUAL
Griffin, Brandan. "A Far Cry from Africa." LitCharts LLC, July 8,
2020. Retrieved September 16, 2020. https://www.litcharts.com/
poetry/derek-walcott/a-far-cry-from-africa.

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A Far Cry from Africa

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PERSONIFICATION • Lines 5-6: “the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: / "Waste

Only the worm, colonel of carrion

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Most of the instances of assonance are pretty quiet. One of the

In a whiite dust of ibises whose crie

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Carrion (Line 5) - Decaying animal flesh eaten by scavengers.

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