Poetry Essay - English Studies

English Studies 171

Poetry Assignment

18 August 2016

Sharne Landsberg

19842465

Suffering, violence, heartbreak, despair and outrage. These are only a few of the words found in resistance poetry from all over the world. Resistance poetry can be regarded the trademark of literature found in different countries that suffer from oppression. In the following essay differences and similarities will be compared between resistance poetry from Palestine and South Africa. Even though these countries differ in many ways, both are suffering from oppression in one way or another. Palestine is suffering because the Israel military infiltrated their country, and South Africa is suffering because of the wounds left by apartheid and colonialism. The two poems that will be used in this essay are District Six. One by James Matthews and The Olive Tree by Tawfiq Zayyad.  

The first difference is that these two poems come from different countries of origin, District Six. One comes from a South African poet and The Olive Tree was written by a Palestinian poet. The second difference is the tone and the progression that can be found in the poems.  Even though both poems start off in a sad, hopeless tone, these poems do not equally progress and both end in a different tone. The poem by James Matthew screams of hopelessness, the speaker in the poem gives the reader the idea that he/she has already given up completely. The repeating words “Moving out” (Matthews line 2) implies that this person has accepted their fate and is not willing to fight back. The words “futile rage will flare and fade” (Matthews 17) indicates that the speaker believes that their fight had no meaning and was pointless. Thus this poem remains sad and depressing throughout the entire piece.

Whilst The Olive Tree gives the reader the idea that the speaker still has a glimpse of hope left in him/her as the poem ends on a more hopeful note. The poet starts the poem in a dark manner by using words such as “hunted” (Zayyad line 1), “raided” (Zayyad 2) and “bitter” (Zayyad 4). But this changes when nearing the end of the poem. “I shall continue to carve all the chapters of my tragedy” (Zayyad 17), this line indicates that the speaker will continue to fight for what they believe in and for what they believe is right.

During the apartheid era people were forcibly removed from farms and homes, this was because of their race, which evidently influenced their basic human rights. In Palestine wars were also being started because of issues such as race, which led to families losing their homes and everything they owned. This led to families being relocated, sometimes even separating family members from each other. This is the essence of resistance poetry, these poets base their writing on political issues that were critical at that current time. Both poems radiate feelings and emotions of sadness, anger, despair and depression. Displacement is a very clear theme in both of these poems and thus a similarity between the poems.

In the poem by James Matthew words such as “Moving out” (Matthews 2) and “Uprooted from places of their own” (Matthews 5) indicate displacement from their homes. This is also an indication of families being forcibly removed from their homes due to oppression from the government, which happened during apartheid in South Africa. In the poem by Tawfiq Zayyad words such as “my house is always raided.” (Zayyad 1-2) and “uprooted trees” (Zayyad 10) are also indicating homes being infiltrated by forces (maybe the military in this case) and families being forcibly removed from where they originated.