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    From "Song of Lawino": The Iowa Review

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    kiokoveronica01
    Song of lawino poem

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    From "Song of Lawino": The Iowa Review

    Uploaded by

    kiokoveronica01
    12 views4 pages
    Song of lawino poem

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    61172508

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    Song of lawino poem

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    12 views4 pages

    From "Song of Lawino": The Iowa Review

    Uploaded by

    kiokoveronica01
    Song of lawino poem

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    You are on page 1of 4

    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.

    uk brought to you by CORE


    provided by Iowa Research Online

    Masthead Logo The Iowa Review


    Volume 14
    Issue 2 Spring-Summer: Writing From the World:
    Article 44
    Selections from the International Writing Program
    1977-1983

    1984

    From "Song of Lawino"


    Okot p'Bitek

    Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview


    Part of the Creative Writing Commons

    Recommended Citation
    p'Bitek, Okot. "From "Song of Lawino"." The Iowa Review 14.2 (1984): 132-134. Web.
    Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.3037

    This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Iowa Review by an
    authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact lib-ir@uiowa.edu.
    Okot p'Bitek Uganda

    from Song of Lawino

    Listen, my clansmen,
    I cry over my husband
    Whose head is lost.
    Ocol has lost his head
    In the forest of books.

    When my husband
    Was still wooing me
    His eyes were still alive,
    His ears were still unblocked,
    Ocol had not yet become a fool

    My friend was a man then!

    He had not yet become a woman,


    He was still a free man,
    His heart was still his chief.

    My husband was still a Black man


    The son of the Bull
    The son of Agik
    The woman from Okol
    Was still a man,
    An Acoli. . . .

    The papers on my husband's desk


    Coil threateningly
    Like the giant forest climbers,
    Like the kituba tree
    That squeezes other trees to death;
    Some stand up,
    Others lie on their backs,
    are interlocked
    They
    Like the legs of youths
    At the orak dance,

    132

    University of Iowa
    is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to
    The Iowa Review ®
    www.jstor.org
    Like the legs of the planks
    Of the goggo fence,
    are interlocked
    They tightly
    Like the legs of the giant forest climbers
    In the impenetrable forest.

    My husband's house
    Is a mighty forest of books,
    Dark it is and very
    damp,
    steam
    The rising from the ground
    Hot thick and poisonous

    Mingles with the corrosive dew


    And the rain drops
    That have collected in the leaves. . . .

    O, my clansmen,

    Let us all cry


    together!
    Come,
    Let us mourn the death of my husband,
    The death of a Prince
    The Ash that was produced
    a Fire!
    By great
    O, this homestead is utterly dead,
    Close the gates
    With lacari thorns,
    For the Prince
    The heir to the Stoolis lost!
    And all the young men
    Have perished in the wilderness!
    And the fame of this homestead
    That once blazed like a wild fire
    In a moonless night
    Is now like the last breaths
    Of a dying old man!

    There is not one true son left,


    single
    The entire village
    Has fallen into the hands
    Of war captives and slaves!
    one of our
    Perhaps boys

    133
    Escaped with his life!
    Perhaps he is hiding in the bush
    Waiting for the sun to set!

    But will he come?


    Before the next mourning?
    Will he arrive in time?

    Bile burns my inside!


    I feel like vomiting!
    For all our young men
    Were finished in the forest,
    Their manhood was finished
    In the classrooms,
    Their testicles
    Were smashed
    With large books!

    134

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