Cameron Alston-Hinton

                                                 

             Death Foretold
           By: Kofi Awoonor
   Sometimes, the pain and the sorrow return
   particularly at night.
   I will grieve again and again tomorrow
   for the memory of a death foretold.
   I grieve again tomorrow
   cull a flower across the yard
   listen to the birds in the tree.


  I grieve again tomorrow
  for a pain that grows on
  a pain a friend of my solitude
  in a bed emptied by choice;
  I grieve again this grievance
  immemorial for
  this pain
  this load under which I wreathe and grieve

  Yesterday I could not go
  for my obligatory walk,
  instead I used the hour
  to recall the lanes, the trees
  the birds, the occasional snarling dog
  the brown sheep in a penned field
  the dwarf mango tree heavy with fruit
  the martian palms tall and erect
  the sentry-pines swaying
  in a distant field.
                                                                     Five Facts:
                                                 *Kofi Awooner was born March 13th 1935.
                                                 * He was a Ghanian poet that combined the poetic traditions
                                                    of his native Ewe people and contemporary. (Ewe means spirit.)
                                                 * He taught African literature at the University of Ghana and that's
                                                    where he wrote his first poetry.
                                                 * He was the eldest of 10 children in his family.
                                                 * He died in September 21st 2013 from a attack at a mall
                                                    in Nairobi , Kenya.
 
Analyzing:
  In the beginning of the poem it talks about grieving over and over again along with sorrow, and it seems like as if the author is going through something such as losing a family member, regret or depression. Having an emptied bed could mean he felt alone. Alliteration is being used in the poem. He repeats a lot of words like grieve, tomorrow, again, birds. He repeats bird twice in the poem because he listens to them and he sees them. Grieve is repeated six times. It makes you think about wonder what he was going through. The tone of the poem is very sorrowful and mournful  because he says grieving a lot in the beginning of the poem , and in the beginning of the poem the tone sounds sad. The feeling the was being expressed in the beginning of the poem as if he could've been living in regret because in the poem he says "Sometimes, the pain and the sorrow return particularly at night". When you regret or something or live in regret you continuously think about it all the time and can't seem to let it go. The theme of this poem is even though he grieves he takes his mind off his grieving somehow and think about things in his surroundings. 

Works cited: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-death-foretold-2/