knowing robs us...maybe not

If you want to know African writing, then you must know Chinua Achebe. He is probably one of the most well known Nigerian authors living today and actually paved the way from hundreds and thousands of African children who preferred the pen over the stethoscope. Thanks to him, we could point to an example of a Nigerian who was doing what he loved and making money, in something other than the ever-stable medical profession. If you have immigrant parents, you know what I mean:-)

Fortunately for me, my parents were lovers of literature and used to rave about Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart when I was young. It wasn't until I took an African literature course in college, though, that I began to fully appreciate his vast contributions for myself. In addition to his over 25 novels, essays, and children books, Achebe is also a prolific poet. The poem I've included below is from the 1998 book Another Africa, which featured poems and essays by Achebe and photographs by the famous Robert Lyons.

If you don't know, friends, please get hip:-) Enjoy this third installment of African Poets Week and click here to read more from Another Africa.

Knowing Robs Us
BY Chinua Achebe

Knowing robs us of wonder.
Had it not ripped apart
the fearful robes of primordial Night
to steal the force that crafted horns
on doghead and sowed insurrection
overnight in the homely beak
of a hen; had reason not given us
assurance that day will daily break
and the sun's array return to disarm
night's fantastic figurations--
each daybreak
would be garlanded at the city gate
and escorted with royal drums
to a stupendous festival
of an amazed world.

One day
after the passage of a dark April storm
ecstatic birds followed its furrows
sowing songs of daybreak though the time
was now past noon, their sparkling
notes sprouting green incantations
everywhere to free the world
from harmattan death.

But for me
the celebration is make-believe;
the clamorous change of season
will darken the hills of Nsukka
for an hour or two when it comes;
no hurricane will hit my sky--
and no song of deliverance.

© 1998 Chinua Achebe. All rights reserved