African Thunderstorm

Coming storm by Nick Duke

An African Thunderstorm

By David Rubadiri

From the west

Clouds come hurrying with the wind

Turning

Sharply

Here and there

Like a plague of locusts

Whirling

Tossing up things on its tail

Like a madman chasing nothing

Pregnant clouds

Ride stately on its back

Gathering to perch on hills

Like dark sinister wings

The wind whistles by

And trees bend to let it pass

In the village

Screams of delighted children

Toss and turn

In the din of whirling wind

Women

Babies clinging on their backs

Dart about

In and out

Madly

The wind whistles by

Whilst trees bend to let us pass

Clothes were like tattered flags

Flying off

To expose dangling breasts

As jagged blinding flashes

Rumble, tremble, and crack

Amidst the smell of fired smoke

And the pelting march of the storm.

 (Culled From: A Selection Of African Poetry-Longman)


I love the imagery of this poem, I love that the language is like the storm.  I like the allegorical way of questioning the “west”, the storm that rides in and disorganizes, that is lapped up by the children and women (the weak, ignorant, naïve?) but ultimately is abrupt and harsh! 

For current and coming students, I think you’ll relate to the description of the storm in a literal sense as you have/or will experience African rain storms of different varieties in different settings!

But I also thought those reading this poem would appreciate knowing a bit more about the author so here’s a bit more to know:

Poet, novelist, playwright, university professor and diplomat, DAVID RUBADIRI was born in Liuli, Malawi, in 1930. He attended King’s College, Budo, in Uganda from 1941 to 1950 and thereafter studied at Makerere University, where he graduated with a BA degree in English Literature and History. He went on to the University of Bristol in England (1956-1960), where he obtained an MA degree in English Literature.

Rubadiri became Malawi’s first ambassador to the United States and the UN after independence in 1964, but fell out with President Hastings Banda in 1965.  As an exile he taught at Makerere University but was again exiled during the Idi Amin years. Rubadiri then joined the University of Nairobi and also had a brief stint, with Okot p’Bitek, at the University of Ibadan (Nigeria), at the invitation of Wole Soyinka. He spent his remaining exile as Professor of Education at the University of Botswana. After Banda’s death, Rubadiri was again appointed Malawi’s Permanent Representative to the UN.

He subsequently became Vice-Chancellor at the University of Malawi, before he retired in 2004. His novel, No Bride Price criticised the Banda regime and was, along with Legson Kayira’s The Looming Shadow, one of the first published works by a Malawian.

Rubadiri ranks as one of Africa’s most celebrated and widely anthologised poets to emerge after independence.

http://dbnweb2.ukzn.ac.za/cca/images/pa/PA2009/cat/PoetryAfrica2009%2018.pdf