what the poet is saying. It is not often that we can come to any final conclusions. Reading poetry involves interpretation, and different readers will have different conclusions.We know that one of the consequences of global warming and climate change is that people are forced to leave their country which is no longer able to provide them with food because of drought or flooding or because of civil war over land and power. They become refugees in another country. The poem in the activity below gives a poignant example of suffering caused by famine.
Activity 1.7 - Reading a poem (individual)
Pre-reading:
Skim the poem to get an idea of what it is about and then read it softly to yourself, confirming your ideas (during reading).
Refugee mother and child
by Chinua Achebe
1 No Madonna and Child could touch
2 That picture of a mother’s tenderness
3 For a son she soon would have to forget.
4 The air was heavy with odours
5 of diarrhoea of unwashed children
6 with washed-out ribs and dried-up
7 bottoms struggling in laboured
8 steps behind blown empty bellies. Most
9 mothers there had long ceased
10 to care but not this one; she held 10
11 a ghost smile between her teeth
12 and in her eyes the ghost of a mother’s
13 pride as she combed the rust-coloured
14 hair left on his skull and then –
15 singing in her eyes – began carefully
16 to part it … In another life this
17 would have been a little daily
18 act of no consequence before his
19 breakfast and school; now she
20 did it like putting flowers
21 on a tiny grave.
[From Beware Soul Brother by Chinua Achebe. Heinemann]
Post-reading:
1. Answer the following questions in writing:
a. Briefly describe the situation the mother and child are in.
b. Make a list of all the evidence that points to the state the child is in and what this suggests. You can use a table like the one below.
| Evidence | Possible causes |
| odours of diarrhoea | |
| unwashed children, dried-up bottoms | |
| washed-out ribs | |
| blown empty bellies | |
| rust-coloured hair left on his skull | |
| tiny grave |
c. What are the associations the poet intends us to make in the first verse? Give reasons for your answer.
d. What is meant by ‘touch’ in the first line?
e. The word ‘ghost’ is used twice in the poem. What connotations does it bring to mind?
2. Achebe is not simply describing something that he sees. What is the purpose of the poem and who does he hope will read it; in other words who does he intend as his audience?
3. ‘Most mothers … not this one.’ What does this tell us about the situation of the mothers? What makes this mother different from others? Do not simply refer to her actions.
4. The poet describes the act of the mother as something of ‘no consequence’. What is meant here? Why does the poet include this?
5. Look at the simile in the following lines: ‘now she/did it like putting flowers/on a tiny grave.’
a. What does ‘it’ refer to?
b. Discuss the effect of the simile. How does it add to the image the poet is creating?
6. Discuss the various emotions aroused by the poem in a paragraph. Use the writing process. Here is a reminder of what this process is:
Your teacher will go through the rubric for assessing a paragraph with you.
Your teacher may ask several of you to read out your paragraphs for general discussion and feedback, or take them in for evaluation.
Sentence construction
You will revise sentence structure throughout this book. Here we will remind you of the terms ‘subject’, ‘verb’, ‘predicate’ and ‘simple sentence’. Here is an example:
The child in the poem dies of starvation.
The child: subject (article and noun)
dies: verb ( finite form, present tense)
in the poem: (prepositional phrase)
of starvation: (prepositional phrase)
‘dies of starvation’ is the predicate.
The simplest form of this sentence would be: ‘The child dies.’ The two phrases added tell us which child dies and what causes his death.
You will practise writing different kinds of sentences in the activity below in preparation for writing the two letters which follow.
Activity 1.8 - Writing proper sentences (individual)
1. Correct the following sentences by changing or adding to them.
a. Because refugees can be a drain on the
