The question of Kiswahili style again? The poetry of Kithaka wa Mberia

Even after reaching ‘the age of maturity’, Kiswahili poetry which does not follow the traditional guidelines of ‘tenzi’ and ‘mashairi’ is still considered either ‘non-Kiswahili’ or ‘non-poetry’. Kithaka wa Mberia (b. 1955) of Kenya is one of the few modern Kiswahili poets who uses free verse, employing traditional poetic patterns only as allusions. Using poems from his second – and latest – collection, ‘Bara jingine’ (2002), the author analyses Wa Mberia’s poetic language: rhythm of lines, semantic devices, sonic devices, rhyme schemes and syntactic devices. The variety of stylistic devices used by Wa Mberia is hardly applicable to traditional Kiswahili poetry, primarily because of the rigidity of its forms. Searching for beauty in contemporary Swahili poetic language, the author finds it in the poetry of Wa Mberia. Bibliogr., note. [ASC Leiden abstract]