PAN-AFRICAN POETRY: "BETWEEN TWO GOWNS" BY BISHOP SAHR ISAAC PETERSON

Drums call ancestors  

Elders wear pride  

Palm cloth speaks  

Names unbroken here  

White sails arrive  

New gown drops  

Paper replaces earth  

Chiefs bow down  

Our gown carried  

Blood, oath, season  

Mothers wove respect  

No borrowed grammar  

Campus gown arrives  

Four years wasted  

Graduates walk hungry  

Jobs hide shadows  

Respect starves thin  

Crosses replace shrines  

Mosques replace drums  

Names change baptism  

John kills Kande  

Blessing wears accents  

Bells silence drums  

Worship wears gown  

Tradition called evil  

Ancestors called madness  

Two gowns choke  

Neck bends double  

Fame speaks English  

Pride dissolves whitewash  

Dust covers lineage  

Names renamed rivers  

Maps redrawn foreign  

Krio drowns Temne  

Tongue learns colonizer  

Chieftaincy gown buried  

Under mortar board  

Respect sold cheap  

Leadership wears tie  

School fees bleeding  

Parents sell cassava  

Children chase paper  

Dreams rot classroom  

Hypothesis of blessing  

Fame without harvest  

Prayers echo empty  

Miracles wear visa  

Masjid calls azan  

Church rings bell  

Shrine stones silent  

Gods become tourists  

Grandfathers turned ghosts  

Council fire cold  

Stool gathers dust  

Oath breaks slowly  

Youth wear sneakers  

Abandon barefoot wisdom  

Walk foreign streets  

Hearts carry maps  

English cuts tongue  

Proverbs lose meaning  

Elders speak alone  

Silence answers back  

Diplomas stack walls  

Empty stomachs growl  

Certificates cannot cook  

Degrees hide shame  

Mining gowns glitter  

Foreign hands profit  

Land bleeds red  

Children drink poison  

Gown of power  

Worn by thieves  

Leadership masked greed  

Respect died poor  

Servitude wears smile  

Chains called employment  

Whips turned policies  

Cruelty dressed civil  

Huts stood free  

Earth gave shelter  

Now concrete cages  

Prices crush bones  

Land once open  

Freedom walked barefoot  

Now deeds demand  

Papers, taxes, borders  

Westernization sells dreams  

Neocolonial desert grows  

Crops refuse rain  

Soil forgets names  

Colonial boats left  

But gown remains  

New masters speak  

Accents of London  

Debt replaces whips  

IMF writes laws  

Freedom sold cheap  

Chains wear suits  

Palms cut down  

Palm wine gone  

Coca-cola replaces  

Ancestral drink thirst  

Children learn London  

Forget their rivers  

History rewritten white  

Heroes wear wigs  

Housing costs blood  

Rent eats salary  

Three jobs, one  

Roof leaks still  

Freedom chained money  

Passport costs hope  

Visa decides life  

Worth measured dollars  

Bring back weaver  

Bring back iron  

Gown must breathe  

Earth remembers touch  

Unbend broken names  

Leadership rooted earth  

Blessing not hypothesis  

One people stand  

Ancestors witness now

©Bishop Sahr Isaac Peterson

President at Association of Pan-African Authors (APA-SL)

Vice President at Poetry Reading Club (PRC), FBC)

A Creative Writing & Public Speaking Coach

Sierra Leone.

+23288309535

ANALYSIS

BY Chuks Oladipo Chemze, Kano State, Nigeria

BETWEEN TWO GOWNS: A Simple Reading

What the title means

'Between two gowns' means being stuck in the middle. One gown is African tradition — 'palm cloth', chief's stool, drums, ancestors. The other gown is western — 'campus gown', lawyer's wig, paper, English. The poem says wearing both at once chokes you. You bend double and belong nowhere fully.

The language

The poet uses only three words per line. No waste. Early lines use earthy words: 'drums', 'ancestors', 'mothers wove'. Later lines turn hard: 'paper', 'choke', 'wasted', 'cages', 'poison'. The words themselves change, just like our lives changed after colonization. Verbs are violent: 'kills', 'silence', 'dissolves'. Then at the end they become commands: 'Bring back', 'Unbend'. The poem moves from pain to instruction.

Where it happens

First, we are in the village. Council fire, weaving, names intact. Then colonizers arrive by sea — 'white sails'. The scene shifts to classrooms, churches, courts, and IMF offices. By the middle the setting is the city slum: 'concrete cages', 'rent eats salary'. In the last stanzas the poet pulls us back to earth — 'earth remembers touch'. So the poem walks us from wholeness, to invasion, to displacement, to a call for return.

The feeling

The mood starts proud and calm. Then it turns bitter. You feel the frustration of graduates with no jobs, elders with no listeners, youth with no roots. Stanza 19 hits hardest: 'Servitude wears smile / Chains called employment'. That line names modern slavery. But the poem doesn’t end in anger. It ends standing. 'One people stand / Ancestors witness now'. The final mood is firm, like someone deciding to rise.

The main image

'Gown' is the big metaphor. Gown = identity. Chief’s gown = culture and leadership rooted in earth. Lawyer’s wig + mortar board = western law and education. When the poet says 'Two gowns choke', he means two systems fighting inside one person. Other strong images: 'White sails' for colonization, 'whitewash' for losing your color/pride, 'visa' for modern chains.

What the poem is saying

The poem argues that political independence meant nothing if we kept wearing the colonizer’s gown. Flags changed, but law, language, religion, and economics stayed foreign. That’s why 'graduates walk hungry' and 'respect starves thin'. The solution is not to reject schools or courts. The solution is balance. 'Bring back weaver / Bring back iron'. Put leadership back on earth, not just on paper. Unbend our names. Heal the nation by healing identity first.

Bottom line: You can’t fix a country until you fix what people wear on the inside.