From songs of Lawino

Hello,welcome to my blog. I decided to try this path of incorporating people's work and talking about it. The work I have chosen is poetry for today;songs of Lawino. Undeniably my best poem and the poet,Okot p'Bitek too is a darling. I would like to categorically state that maybe my interpretation isn't similar to yours but hey,poem enthusiasts and readers should  have open minds..so here we go:

My husband has read much

He has read extensively and deeply

He has read among white men 

And is clever like white men

And reading has killed my man

In the ways of his people

He has become a stamp..

Its along poem and I really wish I could give you the whole of it here. You can get it on Poems of East Africa. This poem has been used largely in literature classes in Kenya. To be able to fully understand the concern of the persona,you'll need to understand the setting of the poem. Okot is from Uganda among the Acholi. Prior to the colonial rule,Africans learnt informal education. It mainly focused on skills and the ways of the people. Colonialists brought with them formal education which was meant to civilize Africans. This civilization meant doing away with a couple of African beliefs dimmed retrogressive. Songs of Lawino is a lamentation of a wife who describes the books of his husband in a spiteful tone. She compares the shiny nature of one of the books back to a dangerous Ororo snake. It is worth a read.