A Far Cry from Africa (1962)

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     A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
     Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies,
     Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
     Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
5     Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:
     "Waste no compassion on these separate dead!"
     Statistics justify and scholars seize
     The salients of colonial policy.
     What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
10     To savages, expendable as Jews?

     Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
     In a white dust of ibises whose cries
     Have wheeled since civilization's dawn
     From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
15     The violence of beast on beast is read
     As natural law, but upright man
     Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
     Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars
     Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,
20     While he calls courage still that native dread
     Of the white peace contracted by the dead.

     Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
     Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
     A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
25     The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
     I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
     Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
     I who have cursed
     The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
30     Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
     Betray them both, or give back what they give?
     How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
     How can I turn from Africa and live?

Editor´s Comments

Poems have many different ways of unfolding, of moving on beyond where they begin. The first stanza of Derek Walcott's poem ends with two rhetorical questions: "What is that to the white child hacked in bed? / To savages, expendable as Jews?" The rhetorical question is a traditional device that isn't really trying to find anything out. It assumes what the answer is, but it draws listeners in by asking them to supply the answer. It's a device that is often used in public speaking, and it's a powerful way to advance an argument, to persuade people of something. It makes a speaker seem to be very solidly grounded, sure of himself. The details which Walcott uses in his question, an innocent child hacked in bed, people labeled as "savages," and then compared to Jews who are "expendable," are highly charged. They evoke an emotional response, and the judgment they make against such brutality is unquestioned.

But "A Far Cry from Africa" goes on to use the device of the question again -- five more times, in fact. And the questions that end the poem are different than the ones which began it. As the poem goes on, more historical details are added, the issue of violence is placed in a broader context, the heritage of an individual person is shown to be complex, divided. The poem's form is symmetrical, as the last stanza ends with questions just as the first one did. But the questions are no longer rhetorical: now they're real questions.

How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?

The tone of urgency was certainly not any less at the beginning, but that urgent call to choose sides is increasingly frustrated as the poem develops. Cultural identity for a poet writing in the Americas is overdetermined: he can't help but hear many cries for his loyalty, from many distant places. There's not much room left for question that don't need answers.

Historical Considerations

"A Far Cry from Africa" was written in 1962, a year before Kenya gained its independence from British rule. Its speaker is forced to question his own cultural identity against a background of historical events which all seem to make some claim on him. The immediate occasion is the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya; even though it is taking place on the other side of the Atlantic from his own Caribbean, the uprising speaks both to his African blood and to his own opposition to imperialism. The campaign of terror in the name of anti-colonial theory and its equivalent response on the part of British colonial power, however, raise questions about how the slaughter on both the Holocaust, in his fierce examination of the issues at hand.

The Mau Mau campaign was carried on from 1952 to 1959. Kenya gained its independence from British rule on December 12, 1963. A news photograph was sent from Kenya on October 6, 1953, with this text: "Nairobi, Kenya: Because the situation in the city was such that local police were unable to handle growing Mau Mau unruliness, men of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers patrol the streets and make identity checks at junctions. Here, as one holds his bayonet poised, another examines the papers of an African cyclist." To see the photograph, click below.

"As with Spain," an allusion to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), which was characterized by terrible atrocities on both sides.

Click here to see a photograph of Spanish Civil War troops.

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