In the poem "Piano and Drums" by Gabriel Okara, Okara shows the contrasts between the past life and the modern world. Some aspects in his poem date back before the beginning of civilization

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Piano and Drums Essay

Introduction

In the poem "Piano and Drums" by Gabriel Okara, Okara shows the contrasts between the past life and the modern world. Some aspects in his poem date back before the beginning of civilization and other aspects are of the current day and age.

Theme

The theme of the poem is the effect that the music has on the poet. The first stanza is the poet's response to hearing the jungle drums. So we can say that he thinks of them as a primitive instrument and he believes that there is a certain amount of violence in the rapid beating of the drums.

Then in the third stanza, when he hears the piano, the poet is telling us the effect that this piano has on him. We can see that he thinks of the piano as a complex instrument. The poet also sees the piano as a different culture from the drums. He sees he complexities in the piano. He uses technical words to show this complexity "coaxing diminuendo".

Structure

The poem consists of four stanzas. The first three stanzas are telling us the story and