Sierra Leone poetry: its appearance and characteristics as it struggled to take shape

Sierra Leonean poetry began in the late 19th century with poems published in English and the lingua franca, Krio in Sierra Leone weekly newsamong the first newspapers to be established in the colony in 1860. The most famous of all Sierra Leone newspapers (which were of high quality) in the late 19th and 20th century, it was founded in September 1884 by Rev. JC May with the help of Dr EW Blyden and edited by JC May’s brother Cornelius, who later became Mayor of Freetown in the 1920s.

Sometimes the colonists, mostly Europeans, who had immigrated to the country wrote poems. Krio’s earliest poems appeared in the Saturday, April 21, 1881, issue of The Sierra Leone Weekly News. Others appeared in the June 23, 1888, and July, 1907 issues. Although most of the poems were written by people who they were not from Sierra Leone, they served as sources of inspiration. to the educated Sierra Leoneans who thus became eager to prove that they were as competent poets as their European counterparts. Poems were usually written in regular patterns of feet, lines, and rhyme schemes, as was then fashionable. Consequently, there was an increase in the publication of poems in newspapers, a practice that continued for quite some time, according to Leo Spitzer. Sierra Leone Creoles who contains a whole range of such poems.

Then came Gladys Casely-Hayford and Thomas Decker, who were writing poems on Krio. Gladys Casely-Hayford’s first published selection of poems was titled En Krio take it like this (1948). In 1948, Thomas Decker published three Krio poems. They were ‘Plasas’, ‘Yesterday, Tiday in Tumara’, ‘Slip Gud’.

But these first publications of poems in Krio in Sierra Leone weekly news it had a constraining and constraining effect on the balanced development of Sierra Leonean poetry. Because it helped to confine Sierra Leonean poetry to the western area. Therefore, parts of the country were left preoccupied with oral poetry, as there was no written literature available there at the time.

There has always been a direct relationship between the development of written literature and education. Education in Sierra Leone was mainly concentrated in that early colonial period in the western area. It was only later that some schools were built in the provinces. But despite this, education was not so widely received by the provincials, as many did not send their children to school early. It was only in 1906 that the first high school in the provinces was established.

The advantage that the Western Area had in education and the lukewarm attitude of people in the other areas towards education led to most of the recognized poets coming mainly from the Western Area. This also resulted in the poets being a manly Krio who largely failed to penetrate and exploit the country’s rich cultural traditions and customs of which they were largely ignorant. As a result, his works were characterized by the absence of myths, legends and traditional lore, unlike the case of other West African writers writing at the time, especially Nigerians Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka and JP Clark, who made much use of that oral knowledge Christopher Okigbo, for his part, often used the water maiden myth in his poems, while both Wole Soyinka and JPClark used the Abiku myth in common, among others.

The poetry of Sierra Leone’s pioneer poets was infused instead of traditional and cultural materials with Christian religious doctrines and principles and moral platitudes. Little of the emerging Krio culture was passed down through them. But they also wrote about burning social issues of the time.

But in a poem like ‘Joseph’s Betrothal’, Gladys Casely-Hayford transposes the traditional Krio ‘put-stop’ ceremony onto the Jewish situation of Joseph and Mary, Jesus’ earthly parents. In ‘Nativity’, the baby Jesus is wrapped in ‘blue macaw’ and placed in ‘home-tanned door skin’, instead of swaddling clothes and manger. Later poets made use of some cultural material. Lemuel Johnson in ‘Prodigal’s Canticle’ presents ‘Awujoh’ and ‘KuOmojade’, two traditional Krio ceremonies.

The subsequent spread of education accompanied by missionary activities in almost all parts of the country furthered the spread of literature which led to the breaking of the previous monopoly held by the Western Area on the production of poetry. As a result, there has been a considerable increase in the volume of poetry written in the country over the past four decades. The impetus for this was given by the efforts at Fourah Bay College, Njala University College, Milton Margai Teachers College in promoting and organizing literary events such as creative writing, poetry reading, among others. These efforts were supplemented by those of the writers’ association, the Fourah Bay College Bookstore, and various campus newsletters and magazines.

Thus, most of Sierra Leone’s poetry could be said to have been written in the 20th century. But the poetry of this period departed markedly from the earlier forms of poetry being produced, especially in its style and, to some extent, in its subject matter. Pioneer poets had stuck to conventional forms of poetry using regular line lengths and rhyme schemes. His simplistic poetry generally expressed vapid sentiments and strong religious Christian doctrines, and most of the poets were avid churchmen heavily influenced by 19th-century English poets and by the Bible, common prayer books, and hymns. One of them, Crispin George, was a longtime showgirl. That they lived in a turbulent period of much political clamor for nationalism and self-determination and other destabilizing social and political movements is not overly evident in their poetry, except for the subtle use of Christian doctrines to conceal their aspirations for social justice. This is very true of the poetry of Crispin George and Jacob Stanley Davies and, to a lesser extent, Gladys Casely-Hayford.

Modern poets, contemporaries of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Christopher Okigbo, who while at university abroad, mainly in Britain, were exposed to modern English poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins, TS Eliot, Ezra Pound and DH Lawrence began to break with the previous poetic tradition through the modern influence of his style. They also began to infuse some African customs and traditions into their poetry, as they felt estranged and cut off from their roots. Therefore, they abandoned the old methods of writing in regular lines and rhymes for free verse, distortion of logical syntax, obscurity and symbolism, and personal imagery. They critically examined hitherto easily accepted British and American values ​​and standards. They questioned racism and other social ills by being exposed in their foreign home to racial discrimination and its degrading consequences.

Abioseh Nicol’s poetry, for example, encompasses younger pioneer and modern poets who show some African consciousness and do not blindly accept foreign values ​​longing for an eventual return home to Sweet Sierra Leone.

Most of Gaston Bart-William’s poetry deals with racism and racial discrimination. Jacob Stanley Davies, though a pioneering poet expressing Christian doctrines in his poetry, has some poems like ‘Libretone’ that seem to speak to timeless themes. Crispin George in ‘Help Deferred’ breaks free of the restrictive effect of the rhyme scheme.

Since then, there has been a lot of development to change the profile of Sierra Leone poetry, although print publishing opportunities are not as welcoming as then. But such a changing profile will make an interesting study.