The Essence Of Music In Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s
Songs Of A Traveller
Tony E. Afejuku
&
Samson O. Eguavoen
Abstract
This essay examines the essence of music in the poetry of Ezenwa-Ohaeto with
reference to Songs of a Traveller, his first published volume. It is a critical
analysis, linguistic and stylistic, of several poems for their sound effects which
heighten their music and elucidate their meanings. The conclusion the analysis
induces is that Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s poetry possesses two core values: aesthetic
and utilitarian, which highlight and underscore Songs of a Traveller’s value as
a volume of distinction.
To achieve success in the use of the music of language, poetry
emphasizes the selection of words for their sound, the
combination of words for their sounds and meaning, and the
repetition of sounds, words, phrases and other syntactic structures
for beauty and artistry, emphasis and intensification of ideas, and
reinforcement of meaning.Edgar Allan Poe defines poetry as
“music… combined with a pleasurable idea” (1005). This
definition indeed comes alive in the poetry of Ezenwa-Ohaeto.
Indeed, poetry is music. Sedar Senghor, a great African poet from
Senegal, learned a great lesson from Marone, poetess of his
village, that poetry is primarily song. Furthermore, he said thus:
“The poem is like a jazz partition whose execution is just as
important as the text” (Senghor 18).
In a poem entitled: “An Essay on Criticism”, Alexander Pope
makes it clear that music or beauty in poetry is not a matter of
chance:
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
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As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
’This not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense: (311)
Music resides in sound and in words. Poetry is words well
selected, combined, and at times repeated. Poetry is as
Shakespeare puts it in Hamlet and through the eponymous
protagonist, “words, words, words.” The poet’s words carry the
power of his private visions and the visions of his society. Poetry
is word and music.
The vision of Ezenwa-Ohaeto in the collection, Songs of a
Traveller is to create poems that can be sung, poems that are
musical, poems that help in retracing his steps to the artistry of the
oral traditional performer or groit who uses music to praise, to
correct, and to educate members of his society, both the rich and
the poor, the prince and the farmer, the king and the warrior in
action or in character.
Repetition of a sound (alliteration or assonance), syllable, word,
phrase, line, stanza, or metrical pattern is a basic unifying device
in all poetry. It may reinforce, emphasize, or even substitute for
meter, the other chief controlling factor in the arrangement of
words into poetry and music. Primitive religious chants from all
cultures show repetition developing into cadence and song, with
parallelism and repetition still constituting, most frequently, as
anaphora, an important part in the sophisticated and subtle
rhetoric of contemporary liturgies (for example, the Beatitudes in
the Holy Bible).
The most frequent form of repetition is alliteration. The
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia sees alliteration as:
Repetition of consonant sounds in two or more
neighbouring words or syllables. A frequently used
poetry device, it is often discussed with assonance
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(the repetition of stressed vowel sounds within two
or more words with different end consonants) and
consonance (the repetition of end or medial
consonants).
In The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, it is stated as
follows:
Alliteration (also known as ’head rhyme’ or ’initial
rhyme’), the repetition of the same sounds —
usually initial consonants of words or of stressed
syllables —in any sequence of neighboring words:
’Landscape-lover, lord of language’ (Tennyson).
Now an optional and incidental decorative effect in
verse or prose, it was once a required element in
the poetry of Germanic languages (including Old
English and Old Norse) and in Celtic verse (where
alliterated sounds could regularly be placed in
positions other than the beginning of a word or
syllable). Such poetry, in which alliteration rather
than rhyme is the chief principle of repetition, is
known as alliterative verse; its rules also allow a
vowel sound to alliterate with any other vowel.
The repetition of a phrase in poetry may have an incantatory effect
which increases the rapidity of delivery of the poem as well as its
music. Sometimes the effect of a repeated phrase in a poem will
be to emphasize a development or change by means of the
contrast in the words following the identical phrases.
The repetition of a complete line within a poem may be related to
the envelope stanza pattern, may be used regularly at the end of
each stanza as a refrain. Though achieved in different ways, the
essence of music in poetry is the very essence of poetry itself: to
entertain or please (to keep in the memory of the people a constant
reminder of their history and values) and to teach, correct, or
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educate (this includes to praise and to chastise).
Music and Entertainment: The Aesthetic Value
What poem in the collection can be more rhythmic than “Song of
a Dream”? This is the last poem in the first section of the
collection, Songs of a Traveller. The poem has six stanzas with
each of the
first five stanzas containing four lines. The first three lines of each
of these five stanzas have parallel structures while the fourth line
is a refrain. Music in this poem is achieved primarily through the
use of parallelism and refrain. The function of refrain in poetry is
like the function of chorus in music. The chorus of a musical piece
is always the most memorable part of the piece. The same can be
said of the refrain in a poem. This poem is about life because life
is a dream:
The dreams that strengthen our skeleton
The dreams that nourish our bones
The dreams that bulge our muscles
We shall dream them again. (11)
In life, it is the wish of every man that every positive part of life
be repeated just like the poet has repeated the structures of this
stanza and this poem. Thus, the poet is wishing that our positive
dreams of the future be repeated, our positive show of emotion be
repeated, as also our positive songs. The poet is also wishing that
positive shows of emotions like laughter, smiles, and grins be
repeated as well. No one wishes for the repetition of the negative
aspects of life. The poet, like every one of us, is wishing that such
a show of emotions like fears, anger, and hate be wiped away. Can
we really wish away the negatives of life? The beauty of nature
and of life is the repetition of the beautiful as well as the ugly, the
positive as well as the negative. This poem uses repetition to talk
of repetition.
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The last stanza of the poem is made of two lines or do we say two
repeated lines?
We shall be the same again
We shall be the same again. (11)
This last stanza is expressive of the fact that life is a repetition.
There is music in every repetition. The essence of music in this
poem is to entertain as well as to emphasize the theme of the
poem repetition.
Another poem which is of significance in terms of its use of music
to entertain is entitled: “Songs of a Drought,” the first poem in the
third and last section of the collection. This song is about drought
as a natural disaster and drought as the absence of peace, freedom,
security, and any other disheartening happenings in the world that
Africans and Nigerians hear about in other parts of the world and
which they thought could never happen in their land.The poem
can be divided into two parts each of which is introduced with
repetition of clauses. These two introductory stanzas with two
lines each also stand as refrains to the poem which they give
musical cadence.
The first part of the poem begins with
A drought is coming
A drought is coming on strong. (24)
The poem builds on this first part using parallelism:
The baked earth peels its skin
The leaves turn a brown hue
The trees shrink and shrivel
The dust crawl in the air (24)
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The description given in the stanza quoted above is of the natural
effects of the drought as a natural disaster. The effects mentioned
are physical and the images are visual. The way these effects are
arranged gives the poem its musical advantage and keeps the
images in the memory of the reader. This stanza also makes use of
alliteration which is a form of repetition especially used for
emphasis which emphasizes these effects. The third stanza of the
poem is not about a natural disaster. It is about brutality. It is
about the loss of freedom. The effects of these other types of
drought or disaster can be seen in the state of the mouth, legs, and
hands and
how these affected parts of the body react to their predicaments.
This stanza also stands out in its use of parallelism and
alliteration.
Bruised mouths murmur
Shackled legs shuffle
Manacled hands quiver (24)
The use of parallelism in the poem is signaled by the use of
participial adjectives at the beginning of each line: “[M]ouths”
and “murmur”, “[s]hackled” and “shuffle” alliterate. The use of
parallelism and alliteration lends much to the music of the poem
as well as emphasizing the effects of disasters, whether natural or
man-inflicted, on man. The last stanza on this part of the poem
introduces the reader to another form of repetition, the use of
alternating parallelism. The effect of this is really palliative. The
poet tries in this stanza to talk about an unpleasant and uncanny
situation in a pleasing way but his method notwithstanding, the
truth is told:
The missile is not a peace keeper
But it is keeping guard,
The bomb is not a security agent
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But it is keeping guard (24)
The idea of missiles and bombs keeping guard as peace keepers
and security agents is ironic. The same can be said of bullets not
being diplomats but presenting credentials. The second part of the
poem talks about a shifting fear. That which was expected has
either come and is going to another location or it has changed its
course to another direction.
The drought is going
The drought is going south. (24)
Just like the first two lines of the first part of the poem, these two
lines serve dual function as introduction to this second part and as
a refrain. It is exactly like the first two lines of the first part but
there is the substitution of coming with going.The structure of this
second part of the poem slightly differs from the first part. The
poet does not need to repeat the physical effect of the drought
because this has already been said in the first part.To emphasize
the shifting fear or danger the poem talks about, the poet uses,
again, the alternating parallelism. This use also helps to emphasize
changes in the nature or character of the drought. The drought is
changing its location
From living in our homes
To living in their houses (24)
It is changing its nature
From constructive engagement
To constructive betrayer (24)
Mark the use of oxymoron in this last line of the sixth stanza. This
change in character is very common among men, we mean the
human race. We tend to be changing mostly from the positive to
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the negative and this is basically the cause of the growing evils in
our society. These growing evils are represented in the next stanza
of the poem.
Guns are cracking
Bullets are screeching
Bombs are croaking
Grenades are roaring (24)
Parallelism in the above stanza is achieved through the repetition
of clauses structured, starting, and ending alike. The
onomatopoeic nature of the stanza makes it excellent in sound as
well as reinforcing the emotional effects of the pains inflicted by
these weapons of destruction. They also re-emphasize the shivers
that run through the spines when these sounds are heard.
The last stanza of the poem re-emphasizes the emotional effects of
the drought especially amongst those who await its coming or
those amongst whom it dwells. In this poem, the poet has used the
elements of music in poetry to talk about a subject-matter that is
normally unpleasant in a manner that is pleasant.
Music and Education: The Utilitarian Value
Every poetic work has a subject and if the voice that echoes
through it is that of a human being, then it is most likely to have
within its ambit a repetition of certain human situations. The way
these situations are presented may cause someone to have a rethink on the way he or she lives his or her life. Though the
primary reason for the creation of the poetic work is its aesthetics,
its beauty, the tingling or cringing effects of its sounds, the
subject-matter of the poem and its manner of presentation will
often have some effects on perhaps some unintended readers or
audience. The preoccupation of poetry and all arts is not education
but aesthetics. Poetry sets out to give readers an aesthetic
experience which exercises their emotion and open up new
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dimensions to their visions of life, dimensions they would never
have discovered on their own.
In this collection of poetry, Ohaeto uses repetition to create music
in poetry and in the process gives to man a work that can expand
his emotions and open his mind to new visions of life. The first
poem in the collection entitled “A Song in the Morning” achieves
this goal just like the sun opens the mind of man to new visions of
life.
Morning marks the beginning of a new day just like the rays of the
early morning sun mark the beginning of a bright day. This poem
is about the beginning of a day and the beginning of life. The first
stanza of the poem ends with the “the soft rays of morning sun”
and the second stanza begins with “the mellow rays of the sun”
signifying the use of repetition for emphasis and intensification, a
kind of intensification that can open the mind to new visions. This
form of repetition also serves as cohesive ties in the poem,
signifying the need to link up every aspect of our life, for
whatever is done or not done well at the beginning of the day or
life will affect the latter part of the day or life positively or
negatively.
And the morning dew drapes
My twitching toes with vitality (1)
Nature provides everything man needs to start up early in his
struggle for survival, the morning rays give him light and the
morning dew gives his toes vitality. The poet has used alliteration
to highlight or emphasize these gifts especially the “morning
dew”. These gifts have made the morning a special one, for “it is a
merry morning,” a line made beautiful by the alliteration of merry
and morning. If the day must be successful, it must begin with
good preparations and this is exactly what the fourth stanza of the
poem talks about. It talks about it using alliteration, consonance,
and parallelism to make it memorable.
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Let us set out now
Pack the bulging bags
Tie the loose laces
Gather the garments. (1)
Packing bags, tying loose laces, and gathering garments are things
we do when we are preparing for a journey. We must remember
that life is a journey we must prepare for. Pack, tie, and gather are
verbs in their base form and they signal the use of parallelism in
the stanza. This stanza can also be divided into two parts with
each part introduced by the line “let us set out now.” These
introductory lines can thus be viewed as refrain.
Let us set out now
With songs to break down walls
Where hammers remain powerless
Songs to put a balm on festering wounds. (1)
Preparing for the journey of life also requires that we sing the
right
song. This second part of the fourth stanza of the poem talks about
the need for the appropriate song and also dwells on a very
important function of music, poetry and song which is to act as
balm, that which soothes. Songs, poetry, music act as balm “on
festering wounds” of the soul. This part of the poem also tells us
of the power of songs, poetry, and music. Only poetry can break
down walls that hammer or that any other physical man-made
instrument cannot break or pull down. The beauty of all this is that
these lessons are taught using repetition, the most important
element of music. Whether it is alliteration, consonance, or the
repetition of a word, music, poetry, song is used as a vehicle for
teaching man principles that can stand the test of time.
The last stanza of the poem is used to showcase the beauty of
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consonance and assonance.
Even for us before whose eyes
And ears events take place
It is not easy to keep track (1)
The use of these repetitions here emphasizes how fast events
unfold before us. If we do not prepare early, we will be caught
unawares. Events will be so fast in unfolding before our eyes that
there may not be any enough time to remedy our wrongs or
mistakes. We will be surprised by what we will see,
As we tramp the bush paths
As we traverse corrugated roads
As we perambulate searing streets (1)
We are all travelers on the road of life and if we do not set out in
time, we will become chroniclers of post-mortem events, we will
not be afforded the opportunity of being there when events unfold,
our essence as the representative of our society will become
defeated. The significance of setting out early is what is
emphasized in this poem using the elements of music. This is why
“set out” is repeated four times in the poem within different
clauses. Another poem in the collection that uses poetry as music
to expand human emotions as well as expand the vision of the
reader or audience in a way that the reader begins to gain an
education from the way the poet handles his subject-matter is the
poem entitled: “Song of a Traveler.”
The traveler and persona in the poem is the poet himself. The
experiences in the poem are personal ones which are made public.
Thus the experiences in the poem are no longer the poet’s but
ours. This poem is about the poet going back to school for a
second degree. This is indicated in the first and second stanzas of
the poem
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I go to give birth to a revolution
In the innermost recess of a university. (3)
In the above two lines of the first stanza using alliteration and
assonance, the poet talks about what he is going to school to do,
“to give birth to a revolution.” That he had been in the university
before is indicated thus:
I go back
Along a new route
Back to tomb of lectures (3)
“Back” is repeated twice in this stanza for emphasis. His opinion
on what kind of place a university is, is also visible in the above
lines. It is a place of “innermost recess” and “tomb of lectures.” It
is a place of seclusion for learning. The last two lines of the
second stanza are parallel and they talk about the kind of
knowledge he has received
With sedimented knowledge
With pieces of analytic alum. (3)
The knowledge is sedimented or broken into tiny little bits. Note
that apart from parallelism, the poet has used synonymy as a form
of repetition. The main idea is that we learn by analyzing bits and
pieces of an idea, one bit or piece at a time.
The most musical part of the poem is the third stanza of
the poem:
Steamed books cooked books
Baked books fried books
Ate books urinated books
Shit books vomited books (3)
This stanza uses repetition to intensify the experiences of the
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poet/persona in school. The first and most prominent kind of
repetition is the repetition of a word. The word, “books” is
repeated eight times in this stanza, showing that this poem is all
about books or getting an education. The second form of
repetition used in this stanza is consonance. The sound “d” is
repeated at the end of the words “steamed”, “fried,” “urinated,”
and “vomited.” The sound “t” is repeated in the words “cooked,”
“baked,” “ate,” and “shit”. The sound “t” is also repeated in the
middle of the words “urinated” and “vomited.”
The fourth stanza of the poem at intervals makes use of the
repetition of a phrase or phrasal structures. The first time this is
done does not only exemplify what we have just mentioned but
also stand as an example of the use of pun which is another form
of repetition. And “the masters and the master” in the second line
of the fourth stanza refers to the man and the degree. The poet has
gone back to school for a Master’s degree and his professor is the
master, for he is a foreigner probably because he is “imported
from valley of seven hills.” The repetition of words of equivalent
value in the seventh line of the fourth stanza helps to create
immediacy on how the lectures are delivered by the master, for
he;
Over cups of tea and pieces of jokes
Analysed tested deciphered
The shit the vomit the urine (4)
The lines that follow the seventh are highly humorous but very
meaningful. That the lecturer has time to analyse, test and
decipher “the shit,” “the vomit,” and “the urine,” shows that the
lecturer will leave no stone unturned to ensure that required
studies are carried out , even in different ways or stages. In the
poet/persona’s days, under-graduate university students were well
and excellently taught (unlike is currently the case?) This poem
clearly emphasizes this as the repeated words tend to indicate or
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suggest. The importance of education notwithstanding, the
poet/persona is worried about the time it takes to be fully trained,
and the delay in reaping the fruit of the labour of children by the
parents who need their son’s care (as the years roll by). This is
what the last part of the poem concentrates on.Through the use of
different forms of repetition, Ezenwa-Ohaeto has been able to
make his poems fit to be called songs and fit to allow an
expansion of our emotions and vision, performing an educating
function in addition to its aesthetic function.
Poetry shows the delight of poets on the sound of language. Thus,
to conclude, the essence of music or sound in poetry, particularly
the poetry of Ezenwa-Ohaeto is to achieve the two major
functions of poetry cum literature to delight or entertain and to
educate or teach. The poetry of Ezenwa-Ohaeto can be said to
possess two core values, aesthetic values and utilitarian values.
Poetry that meets this standard can be said to be highly successful.
Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s Songs of a Traveler is definitely a volume of
distinction. Even if he did not publish other collections, this work
would definitely have underscored his high worth as a poet. The
music in the poetry would have guaranteed him this distinction.
Prof. Tony E. Afejuku, Ph.D
[email protected]
&
Samson O. Eguavoen
Both of the Department of English and Literature, Faculty of Arts,
University of Benin, Benin City
Works Cited
“Alliteration.” Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2011 ed. A.P.
Thomas R. Perrines. Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry.
Forth Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997.
Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms.
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Oxford: Oxford, University Press, 2004.
Ezenwa-Ohaeto Songs of a Traveller. Awka: Towncrier, 1986.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Poetic Principles.” Anthology of American
Literature, 2 Vols. Ed. George McMichael. New York:
Macmillan, 1989. 1005-1010.
Pope, Alexander. “An Essay on Criticism.” The Oxford Anthology
of English Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth
Century. Ed. Martin Price. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1973.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. London and Harlow: Longmans
Green, 1968.
Senghor, Leopold Sedar. Selected Poems. London: Rex Collins,
1976.
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