Comparison of 'Once upon a time' by Gabriel Okara and

Comparison of ‘Once upon a time’ by Gabriel Okara and

‘A Martian sends a postcard home’ by Craig Raine

Gabriel Okara was born in 1921 in Ijaw country in the Niger Delta, in Nigeria. He was educated at Government College, Umuahia, and then slowly rose from a humble bookbinder to international success. He began to write plays and features for broadcasting and his poetry appeared regularly in 'Black Orpheus', a newspaper, starting with the first number. He became an Information Officer in Enugu, then Head of the Newspaper Division, Ministry of Information, Port Harcourt and is now currently Writer-in-Residence of the Rivers State Council on Arts and Culture. However, his poems strike a chord with many of the population, namely “Once upon a time”.

Craig Raine was born in Shildon, County Durham in 1944. He was briefly educated at Exeter College, moved on to Oxford, and finally became a man of many qualities that led to his wide range of jobs - editor, essayist, journalist, librettist, literary critic, playwright, publisher, scholar and translator. Like Okara, he is also famous for being a critically acclaimed poet famous for his figurative language and concrete details. It begs the question somewhat, how did these two men from very different backgrounds manage to write two separate poems that, however differently the style of writing was, conveyed a similar message that brought the two together?

In “Once upon a time” by Gabriel Okara, the poem consists of 11 couplets, and states in the first couplet-

“ Once upon a time, son

They used to laugh with their hearts

And laugh with their eyes;

But now they only laugh with their teeth”.

These lines trap the reader into wanting understand these lines properly, who is the “they” in question? It goes on-

“There was a time indeed

They used to shake hands with their hearts;

But that’s gone son.

Now they shake hands without hearts”.

It is left to the reader’s common sense to determine what this poem is really about, as there are no specific details given to what it might mean. To try and resolve what the story is behind the poem, the reader will have to skim through the text and try to see where the poet is coming from. The first line contains the line-

“Once upon a time, son”, and the poet’s name is Gabriel Okara, which gives some idea that the poet may originate from Africa or Nigeria, “son” indicating the Afro-Caribbean slang that is commonly used. Judging from this discovery, one can now read on and start to uncover the message at what the poet may be aiming towards. It continues-

“Feel at home! Come again!

They say, and when I come

Again and feel

At home, once, twice

There will be no thrice

For then I find doors shut on me”.

This is a preview of the whole essay

“Feel at home! Come again!

They say, and when I come

Again and feel

At home, once, twice

There will be no thrice

For then I find doors shut on me”.

One’s imagination must start to delve deeper and deeper into the mind of this narrator who so far has not included in his writing where he has come from and where he is now. Well, as the reader has already guessed what country the poet hails from, it is now the time to solve whereabouts the narrator is situated now. The customs he describes seem very westernised, such as “shaking hands with no heart”. The words “Feel at home, come again” seem to be written in a very British manner, so one can guess the narrator has immigrated to the United Kingdom, although this might not be true.

Nigeria, the poet’s roots, is a very close-knit country, where there are tribal groups situated, and the people are genuinely warm and friendly towards each other. It is possible that the narrator in the poem is actually speaking from the poet’s point of view on how life is in a westernised country, in stark contrast to their native Nigeria.

In the seventh couplet, we make a startling discovery of the narrator, who so far has been critiquing the country he is in (United Kingdom?).

“And I have learnt too

To laugh with only my teeth

And shake hands without my heart

And to say ‘It’s been nice

Talking to you’ after being bored”.

It seems the narrator, has now too, become one of the many cold people of Britain that he has despised ever since he experienced them.

However, the narrator has not completely forgotten his warm roots-

“But believe me, son

I want to be what I used to be

When I was like you. I want

To unlearn all theses muting things”.

The narrator has seemingly panicked about becoming, in his opinion, some sort of robot, one that has totally lost all sense of warmth and friendliness and doesn’t speak from the heart. It seems that he is longing to retain the innocence he had as a child when everybody seemed to welcome him from the heart. He has now turned his son (I am guessing it’s his own child, or it could just be slang), to help him find his sense of belonging and inner innocence to protect him from the dark world he is in.

The poem concludes with the stanza-

“So show me, son,

How to laugh; show me how

I used to laugh

Once upon a time, when I was like you”.

The poet has written this poem in such great understanding and detail that it is greatly possible he is speaking from his heart in his writing, and not from another person’s point of view. We know understand that the poem is entitled “Once upon a time”, (like a fairy tale, indicating a long time ago), because it discusses how people used to be in contrast to what they are nowadays.

In "A Martian Sends a Postcard Home," Craig Raine uses many metaphors to describe what a Martian would see if he came to earth. The poem consists of seventeen stanzas. All of the stanzas have two lines.

We know it’s about this subject by the title and simply skimming through the text, which makes it all very understandable. However, the language used is more difficult to interpret and takes some thought. It is mysterious from the very first stanza-

“Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings and some are treasured for their markings –

They cause the eyes to melt or the body to shriek without pain”.

This is a reference to William Caxton who was the first to print books in England in the late 1400’s. These ‘mechanical birds’ are books, with many ‘wings’, meaning pages. The body shrieking without pain is laughter and the eyes melting are the reader’s tears.

“Model T is a room with the lock inside –

A key is turned to free the world

For movement, so quick there is a film

To watch for anything missed”.

These seventh and eighth stanzas are talking about a car. This is simple as Raine refers to "Model T", a well-known car. Raine says it is a room because you go inside of the car and you are away from the outside world. You need a key to turn the car on and off and to lock the car.

As you read on, you can see some of the poet’s influences for his writing. Raine is participating in a very ancient poetic ancient tradition. If you look at the poem as a series of riddles to be deciphered by the reader, then that takes us back centuries to the riddle poems in Anglo Saxon literature. In stanzas 10-13, the following lines are-

“In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,

That snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it

To their lips and soothe it to sleep with sounds. And yet they wake it up deliberately, by tickling it with a finger”.

This is a reference to a phone, a ‘haunted apparatus”. If it cries- ‘rings’, we pick it up to our lips and ‘soothe it to sleep with sounds’, meaning we speak into it. If we tickle it with a finger, we dial into it.

The following lines have possibly the most bizarre descriptions of the whole poem-

“Only the young are allowed to suffer

Openly. Adults go to a punishment room

With water but nothing to eat.

They lock the door and suffer the noises

Alone. No one is exempt

And everyone's pain has a different smell”.

These are probably the hardest stanzas in the poem, but with some hard thinking, the lines all make sense- A "punishment room with just water" is a bathroom. When Raine writes, "only the young are allowed to suffer openly" he is talking about a baby getting their nappies changed in the open. Yet, us adults have to go to the bathroom and suffer our pain alone. Raine has written three exceptional stanzas, nobody really thinks about their own or other people’s daily use of the toilet. It is generally unspoken about and could almost be seen as a taboo subject, not to be raised in public.

The last two stanzas end on a peaceful note-

“At night when all the colours die,

They hide in pairs

And read about themselves –

In colour, with their eyelids shut”.

This is a normal full day seen in the Martian’s eyes. It has now come to an end, reading about yourself in colour with your eyes shut, is quite obviously understood as dreaming.

These two poems both share one very significant subject which links them together overall, but it is important to state first the similarities and differences between each person’s work. Gabriel Okara seems to feel strongly about the idea of such falseness in our mannerisms and ways of speaking in everyday western life, as it is not like the hospitable place his homeland was. Gabriel Okara seems to be speaking from his own mind, about how he feels about this environment. Craig Raine has been born and bred in England, and doesn’t talk about a strange westernised country like Gabriel Okara, but about life on this planet in general. Craig Raine does not seem to be annoyed at our everyday customs (or if he is, he hides it in his wording very well), merely humoured at how humans generally structure their lives. With Gabriel Okara’s style of writing, there are no riddles to unveil and his poem is structured very differently in contrast to Craig Raine’s. Okara simply starts with “Once upon a time, son”, which is straightforward enough, rather than “Caxton’s are mechanical birds with wings”, which can baffle most readers.

Gabriel Okara is quite dark about the ‘cold’ place he has come to, not at all like his native Nigeria. He certainly did not intend to humour the readers. I think that Raine wrote this poem to give his mind a rest from the real world. Perhaps he wrote it for pleasure and humor. I think this would be an enjoyable type of poem to write. Raine wanted his readers to be humored, to see life through somebody else’s eyes, who has never seen life on Earth before. Also, the Martian seems merely bemused by human life and our everyday rituals. Mysteriously, the Martian never discusses what life on his planet was like, unlike Gabriel Okara whom describes the warmth he used to experience before.

However, despite these many differences, the poets come together on one extremely important subject. It is, the way we take our lives for granted while others, unsuspectingly wander around feeling confused at all the social and physical complexities of the strange and alien world around them. The poets both write about separate characters commenting on their experience in another place, and not feeling at ease with it as the other members of the population are. It is true that one poem is quite dark and the other is lighthearted, the stanzas and couplets are differently placed, the wording is different etc, but overall, the characters in question are both feeling out of place and confused about all the common perplexities. They comment on life on this Earth we experience every day and take for granted. We hardly notice how a car may sound to an outsider or how “It was nice having you here today with us” could hurt a guest or client who knows you didn’t mean what you said. We are all so accustomed to our lives; we do not think much of how it may seem to anybody else who has never been in that state of environment.