SYMBOLISM IN POETRY

A symbol refers to a person, place, thing or event that has meaning in itself and that stands for something more than itself. Symbols as a figure of speech are common in everyday life.

For instance,

the heart is a symbol of love,

the dove is a symbol of peace,

a blindfolded woman holding a balanced scale is a symbol of justice,

two snakes coiled around a stuff is a symbol of the medical profession,

while a picture of a skull and crossbones in public places is a symbol of death or danger.

These are examples of public symbols, those universally accepted, on the other hand, we have which are acceptable to specific communities, groups of people and countries also known as personal symbols. For example, in British, a horseshoe is a sign of good luck, which may not be the case in our country.

Poets and writers sometimes create new symbols that can only be understood from their context.

A Leopard Lives in a Muu Tree

A leopard lives in a Muu tree
Watching my home
My lambs are born speckled
My wives tie their skirts tight
And turn away -
Fearing the mottled offspring.
They bathe when the moon is high
Soft and fecund
Splash cold mountain stream water on their nipples
Drop their skin skirts and call obscenities.
I'm besieged
I shall have to cut down the Muu tree
I'm besieged
I walk about stiff
Stroking my loins.
A leopard lives outside my homestead
Watching my women
I have called him elder, the one-from-the-same-womb
He peers at me with slit eyes
His head held high
My sword has rusted in the scabbard.
My wives purse their lips
When owls call for mating
I'm besieged
They fetch cold mountain water
They crush the sugar cane
But refuse to touch my beer horn.
My fences are broken
My medicine bags torn
The hair on my loins is singed
The upright post at the gate has fallen
My women are frisky
The leopard arches over my homestead
Eats my lambs
Resuscitating himself.

By Jonathan Kariaria

What do you think the “Leopard”, “My beer horn”, “Sword” and “Lambs” symbolise?

The Weaver Bird

The weaver bird built in our house

And laid its eggs on our only tree.

We did not want to send it away.

We watched the building of the nest

And supervised the egg-laying.

And the weaver returned in the guise of the owner.

Preaching salvation to us that owned the house.

They say it came from the west

Where the storms at sea had felled the gulls

And the fishers dried their nets by lantern light.

Its sermon is the divination of ourselves

And our new horizon limits at its nest.

But we cannot join the prayers and answers of the communicants.

We look for new homes every day,

For new altars we strive to rebuild

The old shrines defiled by the weaver's excrement.

By Kofi Awoonor

Despite the title, this poem is not about a bird since birds do not preach salvation. The weaver bird is a symbol of something else. What does it symbolise? Identify other symbols employed in the poem.

Read the poem titled Piano and drums by Gabriel Okara and explain how he makes use of symbolism.

Piano and Drums

When at break of day at a riverside
I hear jungle drums telegraphing
the mystic rhythm, urgent, raw
like bleeding flesh, speaking of
primal youth and the beginning
I see the panther ready to pounce,
the leopard snarling about to leap
and the hunters crouch with
spears poised;

And my blood ripples, turns torrent,
topples the years and at once I’m
in my mother’s lap a suckling;
at once I’m walking simple
paths with no innovations,
rugged, fashioned with the naked
warmth of hurrying feet and
groping hearts
in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing

Then I hear a wailing piano
solo speaking of complex ways
in tear-furrowed concerto;
of far away lands
and new horizons with
coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint
crescendo. But lost in the labyrinth
of its complexities, it ends in the middle
of a phrase at a daggerpoint.

And I lost in the morning mist
of an age at a riverside keep
wandering in the mystic rhythm
of jungle drums and the concerto.

By Gabriel Okara

Learn how to pick out themes correctly in poems here.