pls help me with the analysis of this poem.also help me in bringing out the black consciousness in it
Edward Brathwaite
The Skin

First the goat

must be killed

and the skin

stretched.



Bless you, four – footed animal, who eats rope,

skilled

upon rocks, horned with our sin;

stretch your skin, stretch



It tight on our hope;

we have killed

you to make a thin

voice that will reach



Further than hope;

further than heaven, that will

reach deep down t our gods where the thin

light cannot, where our stretched



Hearts cannot leap. Cut the rope

of its throat, skilled

destroyer of goats; its sin,

spilled on the washed gravel, reaches

and spreads to devour us all. So the goat

must be killed

and its skin

stretched.



The Barrel of the Drum



For this we choose wood

of the tweneduru tree:

hard duru wood

with the hollow blood

that makes a womb.



Here in this silence

we hear the wounds

of the forest;

we hear the sounds

of the rivers;



vowels of reed-

lips,. Pebbles

of consonants,

underground dark

of the continent.



You dumb adom wood

will be bent,

will be solemnly bent, belly

rounded with fire, wounded with tools.



that will shape you.

You will bleed,

cedar dark,

when we cut you;

speak, when we touch you.



The Two Curved Sticks of the Drummer

There is a quick

stick grows in the forest, blossoms twice yearly without leaves;

bare white branches

crack like lightning in the harmattan.



But no harm

comes to those who live nearby. This tree, the elders say, will never die.



From this stripped tree

snap quick sticks for

the festival. Its wood,

heat-hard as stone,

is toneless as a bone.



TIMBUCTU
Edward Brathwaite
Whose gold you carry, camel

An easier read here:

[www.bowwave.org]

The Skin -
First the goat
must be killed
and the skin
stretched.

Bless you, four – footed animal, who eats rope,
skilled
upon rocks, horned with our sin;
stretch your skin, stretch

it tight on our hope;
we have killed
you to make a thin
voice that will reach

further than hope;
further than heaven, that will
reach deep down to our gods where the thin
light cannot, where our stretched

hearts cannot leap. Cut the rope
of its throat, skilled
destroyer of goats; its sin,
spilled on the washed gravel, reaches
and spreads to devour us all. So the goat
must be killed
and its skin
stretched.


Formatting seemed a problem on the linked page, so I changed it to fit what I thought correct. Punctuation and capitalization, I mean.

>help me in bringing out the black consciousness ...

Well, lacking a definition for 'black consciousness', I have to speculate it either means a separate consciousness of the Black Race, or something to do with a gothic style. That is, mysterious and desolate. The dictionary makes me think the former idea is correct:


"Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), South African movement founded in the late 1960s by a group of black students. Its goals were to unite black victims of white racism, to ensure that blacks stopped depending on white organizations, and to form an independent black state. It eventually encompassed many social and cultural organizations. The movement's influence played a part in the 1976 protest of school children against the introduction of the Afrikaans language in schools and the 1976 uprisings in the township of Soweto. In 1977, Black Consciousness organizations were banned and many of its leaders detained. The arrest of Stephen Biko, one of the movement's founders, and his death while in custody due to maltreatment by the police caused international outcry."


If so, a tough assignment. I get more of a 'we are one with the natural world' gist from the poem. We honor the goat that we kill, and only do so because we do something important with its skin afterward. Not to mention living on because we eat its flesh, of course.

Is reverse.newskies.net in South Africa? Not sure.

thank u very much for ur kind gesture. pls if u wouldnt mind i'll like u to elucidate more on the poem itself.if possible,line by line analysis

the drum is a metaphor for the voice, or the curtural identity of the African. The goat is sacrificed for its skin to cover the drum - the instrument which will sound out the voice of black consciousness- as in "we have killed you to make a thin voice...that will reach deep down to our gods".
I watched a programme recently about the origins of The Blues (music), and tracing black Americans back to their African roots revealed just how important the drum is to their cultural identity. They used the drum and fife. The drum is a way of 'speaking' about their deepest ,truest identity -an identity which can never be stamped out or suppressed. If a slave was caught with a drum during the period of slavery they would have been killed.
The tree will never die in this poem, also suggesting the continuation of their culture. The tree supplies the dried sticks to beat the drum at their festival - presumably a festival to celebrate the gods!
I don't know if this helps - maybe you've already worked this much out!
I do think this that cultural identity is what you mean here by black consciousness.
Good Luck

thank u Anagora u 've really helped me out with the background study of the poem.more is needed especially on the analysis of the poem

o.k. that was the context and here is some more so that you understand how i am reading the poem.
The 'gods' that the poet refers to are found in the underworld. The evidence for this - they can only be reached by going 'deep down...where the thin light cannot'. That is to say, underground. Are you familiar with Shamanism? The shaman can journey to the underworld where animals are sacred, meeting various animals which can represent aspects of self. This is done by entering into a trance, accompanied by continual drumming, and by imagining that the earth can be accessed by a hole in the ground - under the roots of a tree, a rabbits burrow, or a pool of water. If the poet is describing shamanism here, it would certainly tie in with the African imagery and the 'sin' of slaughtering a goat (because all animals are gifts from the gods) even if it is a neccessary evil for the formation of the drum. Notice the animal is blessed before cutting its throat, and in the second stanza this is referred to as 'our sin' but later in the fifth stanza the spillage of blood is referred to as 'its sin'. This might ba a way of absolving themselves of the responsibility for the killing.
Also, this ritual might have bad omens and they might find that there are repercussions from the gods. The poet reaches an abrupt stop when he reaches this point - the blood -'spilled on the washed gravel, reaches/ and spreads to devour us all'. Superstition perhaps, but he quickly goes on 'so the goat/ must be killed' not dwelling too finely on this point, but as if to say "back to business".
o.k. I know that probably sounds a bit boring - here are the main points of analysis from my personal viewpoint.

'the skin/stretched' enables the creation of a 'thin voice'. The drum sound is referred to as a 'voice'; metaphorically speaking, the drumbeat sound is a voice. The drum is also personified, the drum has a 'voice' and a 'womb'.
The drum speaks to them, in other words, a 'black consciousness' or 'black psyche' emerges through the sounding of the drum, that is , the voice of the drum.

Note too, the superlative statements 'further than hope/ further than heaven'. It would theoretically be impossible to go beyond hope , or further than heaven. Wouldn't it? This is hyperbole, but I also feel that there is a sub-text - when the poet refers to 'our gods' - this seems to point to these other gods, heavenly gods, as being "false gods" belonging to white men.

We might imagine a womb to be a soft place, however in this comparison the womb is hard and 'hollow blood' dry. the blood supply is cut off here.
Nevertheless, this 'womb' made from 'hard duru wood' is the instrument that is created in order 'to hear the wounds of the forest' and 'hear the sounds of the rivers'. This synaesthesia with nature is an example of black consciousness: the connection to the motherlandis, unbroken, natural, a part of the soul and psyche of the people.

Again, notice the personification of the forest, it is described as 'wounded', as if it were a living thing (well it is, but you know, as a person).
And, of course, how could you hear 'wounds'. This is suggestive of an extraordinary people with extraordinary powers.

Also, the poet is hearing the 'vowels of reed-tips', almost literally the sounds of the reeds in the water and hearing the 'pebbles on the river bed', which are 'consonants'(soft and hard sounds).
the drum is the transmitter of all these sounds, effectively speaking to the poet, telling him the metanarratives about the land and the people.
The term metanarrative, just means stories about stories. We tell ourselves stories about ourselves and about our experiences. Here, the stories are told through the drum.
Notice too, that the wood 'bleeds' and 'speaks' - the rest is fairly self explanatory.
I hope this helps!

Read Leviticus 16 for an account of the scapegoat. There are some similarities in the two texts.

pls linda , if u can bring out the similarities in them i would apprecate it. thanks

Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 8 He is to cast lots for the two goats-one lot for the LORD and the other for the scapegoat. 9 Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the LORD and sacrifice it for a sin offering. 10 But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD to be used for making atonement by sending it into the desert as a scapegoat.

15 "He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull's blood: He shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it. 16 In this way he will make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been.

20 "When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. 21 He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites-all their sins-and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. 22 The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert.


All the people's sins are transfered onto the goat so that any punishment from God will fall on the goat and not the people. So the goat will die and the people live. Brathwaite talks of the goat "horned with our sin" killed "to make a thin voice that will reach deep down to our gods" its sin "spilled out on the washed gravel"


The scapegoat is a familiar image to any older educated person so even if not directely intended the picture will have been in Brathwaite's background.



Post Edited (01-16-05 19:12)

Anuli, as you are obviously taking a lot of trouble over this project, you need to be alerted that the spelling of the poet's surname in the thread title is wrong. It should be spelled Brathwaite, as appears at both the begining and the end of the poem in your first post. The spelling point was discussed in a previous E-mule thread about him and his work.



Post Edited (01-16-05 07:33)

Does anyone know why Brathwaite has line breaks between syllables of words and has the lines such unequal lengths? The subject of this thread is one example and also Ogun which I have been looking at this evening.

>line breaks between syllables of words ...

I haven't seen any. Got examples? Unusual line lengths/places for line breaks is a whole 'nuther thing. Reasons for line lengths and breaks include, but are not limited to, rhythm, surprise, multiple meanings, direction or misdirection and/or puns.

Lines 5-10 of Ogun (if I can get it right)

The knuckles of his hands were sil-
vered knobs of nails hit, hurt and flat-

tened out with blast of heavy hammer. He was knock-knee'd, flat-
footed and his clip clop sandals slapped across the concrete

flooring of his little shop where canefield mulemen and a fleet
of Bedford lorry drivers dropped in to scratch themselves and talk.




This is a 48 line poem from the "Poems from other cultures and traditions" section of the NEAB anthology of texts for the 2000, 2001, 2002 English GCSE exams (the ones sat by 16 year olds)

Some discussion here:

[www.trinityhigh.com]


Les

Brathwaite is concerned with rhythm, sound,and imagery and maybe even with breaking the rules because it fits in with the natural rhythm of his speech patterns. If you go to www.kirjasto.sci.fi/brathwa.htm
'He combines spoken word with modernist techniques, and new spellings, and uses rhythms from jazz and folk music.'
This is an excellent article on Bratwaithe.
If you can hear the rhythm and musicality in 'Limbo', then the same applies here in the poem you quote.
Can you hear the sheer delight in the sound of words? Also this use of line break has the effect of drawing attention to the imagery, as in reed-/lips. The reed is an elongated lip shape, and it is just like the shape of the lips when we place our lips and tongue to say the word 'reed'in an exaggerated manner. So it describes the shape of water reeds that have lips and a voice.

The use of alliteration draws attention to the imagery and sound 'clip clop sandals slapped'. In fact, every word conjures up sound or image. This use of line break just means that we pause and pay more attention to these effects because Brathwaite has self-consciously brought them to the fore.

Makes sense. He is using the patterns to draw attention to the particular words and ideas.

with plane and quick
sandpaper until
it shone like his short-
sighted glasses.

(He reinforces short-sighted by shortening it.)

The knuckles of his
hands were sil-
vered knobs of nails hit,
hurt and flat-

-tened out with blast of
heavy hammer. He was
knock-knee’d, flat-
-footed and his clip
clop sandals slapped
across the concrete

(The words are sawed and chopped and worked the way the furniture is worked.)

Speaking of such techniques, I have mentioned this before, but I am not sure the definition was ever determined. What it is called when a poet uses such cleverness to illustrate the subject of a poem?

Another example would be Browning's rhythm in his Ghent To Aix poem, where the meter is reminiscent of a galloping horse. Or Longfellow's "the tide rises and the tide falls" that mimes its theme.

I am thinking words such as mimicry or mimesis might be correct, but I have never seen any such explication in a manual of poetry, not even the Princeton. If no term as yet exists, I will of course suggest in the future that it be called Claryfication, since I am so deserving of the eponym.