This post is going to give you the full text of Kofi Awoonor’s poem, The Sea Eats the Land at Home. Make sure to also read my analysis of the poem.
Remember that this is one of the prescribed poems for the 2021 to 2022 Cambridge IGCSE Literature-in English test.
The full meaning of IGCSE is International General Certificate of Secondary Education.
You can learn more about IGCSE at Cegast Academy.
The Sea Eats the Land at Home
by Kofi Awoonor
At home the sea is in the town,
Running in and out of the cooking places,
Collecting the firewood from the hearths
And sending it back at night;
The sea eats the land at home.
It came one day at the dead of night,
Destroying the cement walls,
And carried away the fowls,
The cooking-pots and the ladles,
The sea eats the land at home;
It is a sad thing to hear the wails,
And the mourning shouts of the women,
Calling on all the gods they worship,
To protect them from the angry sea.
Aku stood outside where her cooking-pot stood,
With her two children shivering from the cold,
Her hands on her breasts,
Weeping mournfully.
Her ancestors have neglected her,
Her gods have deserted her,
It was a cold Sunday morning,
The storm was raging,
Goats and fowls were struggling in the water,
The angry water of the cruel sea;
The lap-lapping of the bark water at the shore,
And above the sobs and the deep and low moans,
Was the eternal hum of the living sea.
It has taken away their belongings
Adena has lost the trinkets which
Were her dowry and her joy,
In the sea that eats the land at home,
Eats the whole land at home.
Analysis of The Poem
Look out for an in-depth analysis of this poem by Kofi Awoonor.
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