Question
In a paraphrase of a letter from Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne, the poem “Lament of the Silent Sisters” repeatedly asks, “And how does one say NO in [this phenomenon]?” For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this title phenomenon of a poem in which a town-crier leaves the speaker in a desert “with labyrinths of footprints.” Hunters kill an elephant in a “Hurrah for” this phenomenon from a sequence subtitled “Poems Prophesying War.”
ANSWER: thunder [accept “Hurrah for Thunder” or “Path of Thunder”]
[10m] The author of those poems, Christopher Okigbo, described “gonads of our thunder” in a “Lament” for these objects. His poem “Elegy for Alto” begins with a parenthetical instruction to use these objects.
ANSWER: drums [accept “Lament of the Drums”]
[10e] Path of Thunder was published a year after Okigbo’s death in this war, whose forces are called the “Eagles” and “Robbers” in “Elegy for Alto.” Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun is set during this war.
ANSWER: Nigerian Civil War [or Biafran War; or Nigerian–Biafran War]
<Keyal, Poetry>