The rhythm of this poem is very slow and thoughtful and the stanzas act like paragraphs. This works well because it creates a sense of him crushing his growing anger and hostility as he remembers his childhood. There are however some striking short lines for effect, these represent a growing struggle inside him to keep his fury under control. Examples of this are 'Anger of my eyes' 'brash with glass' 'it's in the bone' 'hands burn' The poet uses these short lines because they are dramatic, simple but powerful and memorable.
There are many examples of poetic devices in 'Nothings Changed', especially in the third stanza: my first choice is line 18, where the poet describes the name as 'flaring like a flag'. This simile is effective because 'flaring' suggests a fire and it is a provocative image. The restaurant 'squats in the grass and weeds'. I think the poet compares the restaurant to something lurking and sinister because this place represents everything that they are fighting against. In conclusion, I think that the poem does not really work well, it fails to truly break the surface of thought and although it tries to put across the poet's thoughts and feelings on racism it fails quite miserably because of the simple fact that the writing is bound by literary laws of poetry.
'In the greyness and drizzle of one despondent dawn, unstirred by harbingers of sun break.'
Vultures (by Chinua Achebe) opens in a grandiose and portentous fashion that immediately fills the reader's mind with a sense of a macabre and unhappy morning, the grey skies do not encourage a sense of happiness or contentment nor does it give any indication that this story will be anything but miserable. The poem is about death, quite simple and frank, it is about the Nazi concentration of Belsen, where Jewish prisoners during WWII were held, tortured and murdered.
The poem introduces us to the vultures and their unpleasant diet; in spite of this, they appear to care for each other. From this Achebe goes on to note how even the worst of human beings show some touches of humanity – the concentration camp commandant, having spent the day burning human corpses, buys chocolate for his 'tender offspring' (child or children). This leads to an ambiguous conclusion:
on the one hand, Achebe tells us to 'praise bounteous providence' that even the worst of creatures has a little goodness, 'a tiny glow-worm tenderness'
On the other hand, he concludes in despair, it is the little bit of 'kindred love' (love of one's own kind or relations) which permits the 'perpetuity of evil' (allows it to survive, because the evil person can think himself to be not completely depraved).
The poet's reasons for writing this verse are not entirely clear, unlike in 'Nothings Changed' where Tatamkhulu Afrika is writing about his own experiences from childhood and then his latter years, the Nigerian born Chinua Achebe doesn't seem to have any sort of link to the various forms of people who were “Controlled” at Nazi camps such as Belsen.
In conclusion I feel that this poem is quite good at getting across whatever point it was that Chinua Achebe tried to portray, and even though it does not really stir much thought inside my own head, I'm sure there are a great deal of people who it not only touches emotionally due to their own ties with WWII but who also find it a wonderful piece of literature and story-telling.
