Alpha - Edward Kamau Brathwaite

Introduction

Brathwaite is a Poet, playwright, critic, and historian, whose works deal with the complex Caribbean heritage and its African roots. He has been a major proponent of the use of "nation language", which is closely allied to the African experience in the Caribbean. His poetry is a part of the collective search of Caribbean identity and racial wholeness. Feelings of rootlessness emerge often from Brathwaite's poems, and in an interview he has confessed that his travels have given him a sense of movement and restlessness.

Substance of the Poem

'Alpha' by Brathwaite is a pathetic poem, a near elegy, which describes the deterioration of Africa. The poem is ironical and anguishing, as it underlines the plight of the African in alien shores. the dominating image of the poem is that of the dynamic river slowly shrinking and ultimately drying up. Brathwaite seems to bemoan the loss of African fluidity caused by the tyrannical greed of the white masters and the credulousness of the native African. The breaking of familial unity suggested by the poem is heart-breaking and filled with pathos.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE POEM

The poem has two parts, underlining the division in the African family - the husband who is away slaving for his white master, and the wife waiting for him patiently at home. In fact, the poem does not speak of spousal separation. The narrator of the poem gives a graphic description of his father and mother. In the first half of the poem, he describes his mother. In the second half, he speaks of his father.

The Narrator's Graphic Description of His Mother

The first part describes how the ancient watercourses of Africa ('my island') have disintegrated into the "echo of river" and "trickle" and are now "worn stone." The springs of Africa have thus petrified. They have now a "sunken voice" inching to the sea. The once copious waters today are just "memory of foam, fossil..."

Once upon a time, the harbour river was navigable for miles. But now the situation has changed. The flowing rivers are now no more. Now, "my mother is a pool." She is not any more flowing on the plaings. She sits on her 'mountain curl', dreaming of her husband working in the plantations away from home.

The narrator remembers how ancient watercourses have become dead stream, with footsteps carved on the sands which once contained the streams. The mother now has become old (‘grey’) but her love for her husband is green.

“and my mother rains upon the island with her loud voices

With her grey hairs

With her green love”

The Narrator’s Description of the Work Place of His Father

The second part of the poem starts dramatically as the narrator asks us to watch “the grey street where my father works”.

He has gone through busy streets full of bicycles, donkey carts and the cries of fish sellers. He is working in a warehouse owned by a “white man of sugar”. He is a ‘marker of bags, maker of chalk dust’. He carries jute loads climbing up an old and creaking staircase. He has left Africa for America. Ironically also, he has left Africa only to transport chalk dust (the miner’s treasure) in America.

In the meantime, the mother is pining away for him with her ‘gold rings of love’.

“While my mother sits and calls on Jesus name

She waits for his return

With her gold rings of love”.

She has been waiting for such a long time that the poet says that,

“She waits with back

Slowly curving to mountain

From the deeps of her poor soul”.

She imagines that her husband is minting money, though in reality, he is working as a slave in a plantation answering the ‘roll call’. The irony is complete when the narrator ends the poem saying, “I’ll be there”. Not knowing the reality of the situation in the plantations, every African dreams of going to the land ‘Columbus founded’.

The poem ends with the burthen,

“When the roll is called up yonder” repeated four times to stress the fact of slavery. Maybe, the mother referred to here is Africa. The father is evidently the African citizen who has forsaken his motherland foolishly to work elsewhere. As a consequence, Africa is drying up. The irony is heightened when the poem ends with ‘I’ll be there’. The poem ends on a note of pessimism as the problem of Africa seems to be incurable with the prospect of continuous drain looming large.

Conclusion

The title ‘Alpha’ is significant as it is ironic. ‘Alpha’ means the beginning. The poem contrasts the beginning of Africa, its ancient water courses, with the plight of the Africans abroad. The last line which reiterates the idea of the drain with ‘I’ll be there’ is also ironical as it suggests that it is also beginning the ‘alpha’ of the exodus.