INTRODUCTION TO THE POEM “THE DINING TABLE” BY GBANABOM HALLOWELL

CONTENT

1. Author’s Background
2. Plot
3. Subject Matter
4. Themes
5. Poetic Devices
6. Language and Style

The Dinning Table (Gbanabom Hallowell)

Dinner tonight comes with
gun wounds. Our desert
tongues lick the vegetable
blood-the pepper
strong enough to push scorpions
up our heads. Guests
look into the oceans of bowls
as vegetables die on their tongues.

The table
that gathers us in an island where guerillas
walk the land while crocodiles
surf. Children from Alphabeta with empty palms dine
with us; switchblades in their eyes,
silence in their voices. When the hour to drink from the of life ticks,
cholera breaks its spell on cracked lips
under the spilt

Milk of the moon, I promise
to be a revolutionary, but my Nile, even
without tributaries comes lazy
upon its own Nile. On this
night reserved for lovers of fire, I’m
full with the catch of gun wounds, and my boots
have suddenly become too reluctant to walk me.