Commentary On Piano And Drums

Commentary on Piano and Drums
In the poem, Piano and Drums by Gabriel Okara, we see a comparison between the primal, old world and the more developed new world. Okara compares the two through the representation of the two eras in musical form. Throughout the poem, as we experience the two different music forms, the poet, Okara displays the various allures that the two different societies have on him. The old world displays itself as a very rugged but simple time, one that speaks to the primal man within Okara and beckons him back to more basic times. The New world however, speaks to the more ambitious side of Okara alluring him to ‘new horizons’ both in a physical sense representing the great exploration of the world witnessed in the renaissance period of the world and in terms of the great advancements in science and expansions on academic work the likes of which had not been seen for hundreds of years. Okara speaks in the first person in the poem, describing how the effects of the music on him and his response to it. His description of both the old world and the new world so close together may not just be a simple comparison but may, in fact, be the conflicting difference experienced in colonial nations, one that Okara himself has experienced.
In the first two stanzas we see the description of the Old world by Okara. Through describing the jungle and the old world through a drum beat, it reflects the primitive and rugged atmosphere of the old world; simple, loud and untamed. He uses vivid descriptive language and imagery such as ‘naked’ and ‘rugged’ to establish just how primitive the jungle scene is. In the first stanza we are introduced to the raw nature of the old world and the beauty found within the contrast between its savagery, simplicity and mysticism. The sight of the hunt at the end of the first stanza invokes images of Okara’s childhood. He likens the simple way of the old world to his first days on earth on ‘mother’s lap a suckling’. He revels in