For Us, Who Dare Not Dare
For Us, Who Dare Not Dare - meaning Summary
Claiming Ancestral Identity
This poem is a direct, declarative act of identification with Africa. The speaker asks to be imagined as landscapes, animals, trees, and sensory experiences—pyramids, the Nile, Congo, baobab, birds, fruit—invoking shared heritage and ancestral belonging. Through vivid, cumulative images the poem asserts a reclamation of origin and presence, asking readers to recognize and empathize with a deep, embodied connection to African land and culture.
Read Complete AnalysesBe me a Pharaoh Build me high pyramids of stone and question See me the Nile at twilight and jaguars moving to the slow cool draught. Swim me Congo Hear me the tails of alligators flapping waves that reach a yester shore. Swing me vines, beyond that baobab tree, and talk me chief Sing me birds flash color lightening through bright green leaves. Taste me fruit its juice free-falling from a mother tree. Know me Africa.
This is fire