Your Cigarette Burnt the Savannah Grass by Charles Owuor

Read the poem below and attempt the practice questions given at the bottom.

Come
Listen to a boiling pot
Torch its heart and tell me
What do you hear?
The sun sent down sowers of it
That burnt to cinder your fingers
Cracked
Color melts at your stare
Orange white blurred and all
Are the same to you
Your cigarette burnt the savannah
The scorpion bit me and I cried.

Practice Questions and Answers

1) Identify and illustrate any three appeals the persona put across to his adversary

• Sight – color melts at your stare
• Touch – touch in heart
• Hearing – listen to the boiling pot

2) What is the subject matter of this poem?

• The persona making an invitation to his foe /adversary
• He accuses him for being the cause of discomfort he is experiencing
• The persona is offended by the adversary and suffering in pain (color melts your taste)

3) Identify and explain any Three aspects of style and explain their functions.

• Rhetoric question – what do you hear? Provokes readers feelings
• Personification – touch its heart. The pot has been personified to have a heart
• Imagery – metaphor-boiling pot.

4) What is the mood of the poem?
The mood of the poem is desperate/hopelessness/disillusionment:- the scorpion bit me and I cried