You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed - Gabriel Okara - Explanation of poem

 

 

You (White people) Laughed and Laughed and Laughed (White people are making fun of dance, color, culture, sounds and actions of Black people)

Gabriel Okara

 

In your (White) ears my (Black people) song
is motor car misfiring (car fails to start)[YB1] 
stopping with a choking cough; (harsh voice of engine or break)
and you laughed and laughed and laughed.

In your eyes my ante-
natal walk (Clumsy) was inhuman, passing
[YB2] your ‘omnivorous (undiscriminating) understanding’
and you laughed and laughed and laughed[YB3] 

You laughed at my song, (Emotions – pains)
you laughed at my walk. (Way of walking and physical structure)

Then I danced my magic dance (Cultural dance - magical)
to the rhythm of talking drums pleading[YB4] , but you shut your eyes
and laughed and laughed and laughed

And then I opened my mystic
inside wide like the sky,[YB5]  (heart of the land – African land evoked wonder)
instead you entered your
car and laughed [YB6] and laughed and laughed

You laughed at my dance,
you laughed at my inside. (Culture that made black people)
You laughed and laughed and laughed.

But your laughter was ice-block
laughter (emotionless) and it froze your inside froze (lost warmth)
your voice froze your ears (sense of understanding)
froze your eyes and froze your tongue. (Sense of expression/expressing)

And now it’s my turn to laugh;
but my laughter is not
ice-block laughter. [YB7] For I
know not cars, know not ice-blocks.[YB8] 

My laughter is the fire
of the eye of the sky,(sun) the fire
of the earth, the fire of the air,(lightening)
the fire of the seas and the
rivers fishes animals trees
[YB9] and it thawed (softened/melted) your inside,
thawed your voice, thawed your
ears, thawed your eyes and
thawed your tongue. (Attitude of white is melted)

So a meek (gentle) wonder held
your shadow and you whispered; (White realized the wonder)
‘Why so?’
And I answered:
‘Because my fathers and I
are owned by the living
warmth of the earth (mother earth)
through our naked feet.’[YB10]  (Close communication with nature – absorbs the values of nature)

---

 [YB1]White people are comparing the sound of Black people’s songs of emotions or pains with misfiring of car, because they used to criticize the voice of black people as harsh and annoying.

 [YB2]Black people have more powerful body than Whites, and that’s why they have different style of walking – White people make fun of that style of walking

Ante-natal walk – walk of a pregnant woman

 [YB3]Here poet satirizes white people because they reflect their point of views as they are having every kind of understanding – universal understanding towards everything.

Omnivorous is also an animal that eats plants and animals both.

 [YB4]Culture – Drum sounds can make Black people dance and they used to dance freely – White people used to call them barbarians because of their traditional dance

 Shutting of eyes and ears can consider here as insult

 [YB5]Black people opened the land of Africa which is full of wonders – Beauty of Nature – to make White aware about Black people’s connection with nature

 [YB6]White people ignored the beauty of land and entered in their car and again started laughing

 [YB7]White’s attitude towards Black versus Black’s attitude towards white

 [YB8]Blacks are not materialistic or living luxurious life- They still have warmth in their heart – they are not like white - Cold

 [YB9]Connection with nature – That created a fire by which they can melt the ice-block laughter of whites – Black people are deeply connected with natural elements

 [YB10]Organic life – Nature as father – rawness – organic life