Summary
Summary English Home Language - an African thunderstorm
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Sufficient summaries for an African thunderstorm to get full marks in the exam for the section on this poem.
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I love the imagery of this poem, I love that the language is like the storm.I like the allegorical way of questioning the “west”, the storm that rides in
and disorganizes, that is lapped up by the children and women (the weak,
ignorant, naïve?) but ultimately is abrupt and harsh!
For students, I think you’ll relate to the description of the storm in a literal
sense as you have/or will experience African rain storms of different
varieties in different settings!
But I also thought those reading this poem would appreciate knowing a bit
more about the author so here’s a bit more to know:
Poet, novelist, playwright, university professor and diplomat, DAVID
RUBADIRI was born in Liuli, Malawi, in 1930. He attended King’s College,
Budo, in Uganda from 1941 to 1950 and thereafter studied at Makerere
University, where he graduated with a BA degree in English Literature and
History. He went on to the University of Bristol in England (1956-1960),
where he obtained an MA degree in English Literature.
Rubadiri became Malawi’s first ambassador to the United States and the
UN after independence in 1964, but fell out with President Hastings Banda
in 1965. As an exile, he taught at Makerere University but was again
exiled during the Idi Amin years. Rubadiri then joined the University of
Nairobi and also had a brief stint, with Okot p’Bitek, at the University of
Ibadan (Nigeria), at the invitation of Wole Soyinka. He spent his remaining
exile as Professor of Education at the University of Botswana. After
Banda’s death, Rubadiri was again appointed Malawi’s Permanent
Representative to the UN.
He subsequently became Vice-Chancellor at the University of Malawi,
before he retired in 2004. His novel, No Bride Price criticised the Banda
regime and was, along with Legson Kayira’s The Looming Shadow, one of
the first published works by a Malawian.
Rubadiri ranks as one of Africa’s most celebrated and widely anthologised
poets to emerge after independence.
The poem describes a typical African thunderstorm, with all its intensity.
In African society, rain is a blessing; everything loves the approach of rain,
not just children. It is good for the crops and the animals, as it increases
the harvest. However, when we read this poem, we don’t get the feeling
that the author is happy; he concentrates on telling us about the damage
that the rain and wind do. For example, a plague of locusts is never a
good thing, at least for the crops. It calls attention because the poet uses
this simile while referring to the wind that brings rain, a good thing.
It is possible to interpret the poem as the effect of colonial domination on
the native land. The time that the poet has lived- his country got
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