ONCE UPON A TIME

A presentation by
Pathum
Sachin
Nipun
Mindula
Asna
Rajini
Gabriel Okara was a Nigerian poet and
novelist born on April 21, 1921 in
Bomoundi, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State,
Nigeria.He is considered the first
modernist poet of Anglophone Africa and
is best known for his early experimental
novel, The Voice (1964), and his award-
winning poetry, published in The
Fisherman’s Invocation (1978). In his
works, Okara drew on African thought,
religion, folklore, and imagery, and he has
been called “the Nigerian
Negritudist”.His poetry has been
translated into several languages. Okara
passed away on March 25, 2019 in
Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria at the age
Once upon a time, son,
they used to laugh with their hearts
and laugh with their eyes:
but now they only laugh with their teeth,
while their ice-block-cold eyes
search behind my shadow.

There was a time indeed

they used to shake hands with their hearts:
but that’s gone, son.
Now they shake hands without hearts
while their left hands search
my empty pockets.

‘Feel at home!’ ‘Come again’:

they say, and when I come
again and feel
at home, once, twice,
there will be no thrice-
for then I find doors shut on me.
So I have learned many things, son.
I have learned to wear many faces
like dresses – homeface,
officeface, streetface, hostface,
cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles
like a fixed portrait smile.

And I have learned too

to laugh with only my teeth
and shake hands without my heart.
I have also learned to say,’Goodbye’,
when I mean ‘Good-riddance’:
to say ‘Glad to meet you’,
without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been
nice talking to you’, after being bored.

But believe me, son.

I want to be what I used to be
when I was like you. I want
to unlearn all these muting things.
Most of all, I want to relearn
how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror
shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs!
So show me, son,
how to laugh; show me how
I used to laugh and smile
once upon a time when I was like you.
 10
01.Who is talking ?09
08
The father of the
02 Questions
child 07

03 04 05 06
 10whom is the 09
02.To
speaker talking?
01 08
The speaker is talking to his son
Questions 07

03 04 05 06
 10 09
03.What is the dramatic
context of the poem ? 08
01
In this poem , the author expresses his distress about the
02 Questions
false and dishonest behaviour of grownups. He claims
that individual back then acted more honestly and claim
07
to be kind to every one in simple words. He got the
desire to get poor heart again. He changed due to this
generation and worrying about that. So he asked his son
04 05
to change him poor hearted person once again. 06
 10 09
04.What happens during
the poem ? 08
01
The poem is a conversation between father
and his son where the son does things with
02 Questions
emotion and the father wants to forget his 07
fake personality and re-learn and create real
personalities from his son and he is asking
03 the son to show him how to express true love
05
and show real personalities to other. 06
 10 09
05.What motives the
01 speaker to speak now in the 08
tone he or she uses?

02 Questions
The tone of the poem is sad. The mood of 07
the poem is nostalgic. The person is
remembering how things used of when
03 04
he was young and innocent, like his son. 06
 10
06.How does the language of the 09
poem contribute to its meaning?
01 08
Repetition of words and phases to emphasize the point and
provides a way of contrasting different forms of and act – for
example laughter and shake hands.
02 Questions
Direct speech used to highlight contrast – feel at home and come
again.
07
Regret the tone of that he learned these failed insincere ways.

03 04 05
Simmilles - “like a snake’s bare fangs” Showing that he doesn’t
like what he sees.
 10 is the poem09
07.How
organized?
01 08
The 43 lines of this poem are broken up in to
seven stanzas. According to the topic matter,
02 Questions
the lines are divided. The narrator’s
prospective if used to write this poetry.

03 04 05 06
 10 09
08.Do patterns of rhyme and rhythm
contribute to the meaning and effect of the
01 poem?

Patterns of rhyme & rhythm contribute to the meaning of

Questions
the poem & its effect to the poem. Because the poets
02 choose particular rhyme schemes to impact the audience 07
in different ways the poets shape the atmosphere and
make our response to the poems themes.

03 04 05 06
 10
09.What theme does the
poem contains?
01 08
Okara incorporates the theme of cultural crisis
selfishness, loss of innocence and real emotion vs
02 Questions
fake expression in his poem. ‘Once upon a time’.
The main theme of the poem is cultural crisis, the
07
fake smile of people and their drama between their
day to day life.
03 04 05 06
 10.What was your initial
response to the poem ?
09
01 08
This poem criticism of modern life and narrator also
learnt to

Questions
act like that and for that he confess his wrong and asking
02 his son to change him as poor hearted once again. 07
He is comparing modern life to past life and describing
how people’s behaviour are changed and describes how
fake their behaviour . So he is asking the son to show

03 04
him how to express true love and show real feelings to
others. 05 06
THANK YOU