Selected poem no 2.

4:27 PM |

Module 9: Once Upon a time

Posted by: Cleofe G. Coquilla

Source:

http://www.amyscott.com/poetry_+_emotion.htm

http://www.jrank.org/literature/pages/5280/Gabriel-Okara-(Gabriel-Inomotimi-Gbaingbain-Okara).html

This module intends to let the students:

1.Compare African society to the Philippine society by reading the poem

2.Internalize the content of the poem

3.Construct an essay about the piece

Once Upon a Time

By: GABRIEL OKARA

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,

while their ice-block-cold eyes

search behind my shadow.

There was a time indeed

they used to shake hands with their hearts:

but that’s gone, son.

Now they shake hands without hearts:

while their left hands search

my empty pockets.

‘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.

So I have learned many things, son.

I have learned to wear many faces

like dresses – homeface,

officeface, streetface, hostface,

cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles

like a fixed portrait smile.

And I have learned too

to laugh with only my teeth

and shake hands without my heart.

I have also learned to say, ‘Goodbye’,

when I mean ‘Good-riddance’;

to say ‘Glad to meet you’,

without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been

nice talking to you’, after being bored.

But believe me, son.

I want to be what I used to be

when I was like you. I want

to unlearn all these muting things.

Most of all, I want to relearn

how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror

shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs!

So show me, son,

how to laugh; show me how

I used to laugh and smile

once upon a time when I was like you.

BIOGRAPHY Of the AUTHOR:

Gabriel Okara (Gabriel Inomotimi Gbaingbain Okara) is a Nigerian poet and novelist, born in Bumoundi in the Niger delta, educated at Government College, Umuahia, Yaba Higher College, and Northwestern University, USA. He became a book-binder, and wrote plays and features for broadcasting. Later, he was employed as Information Officer for the Eastern Nigerian Government Service. Together with Chinua Achebe, and at the time of the Nigerian Civil War, he was roving ambassador for Biafra's cause during part of 1969. His poetry appeared in Black Orpheus and major anthologies for many years, before the publication of his first collection, Fisherman's Invocation (1978; Commonwealth Poetry Prize, 1979), which is partly based on the Ijaw oral tradition. The Voice (1964), a short novel which experiments with rendering Ijaw speech patterns into English, made a great impact in its depiction of the doomed ‘hero’ Okolo, a charismatic and prophetic figure, undergoing Kafkaesque trials in his quest for truth and integrity (it) in the modern world.

Assessment:

1. Who is talking in the poem?

2. Who do you think is the son mentioned in the poem?

3. Explain the second stanza and its implication to the society.

4. How do African society differ from the Philippine society?

5. Summarize the thought of the poem.

6. Make an essay about the piece.