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Joshua Jerome

Mr. Gallagher

AP Literature

12 Oct. 2010

“Kenyatta Listening to Mozart” Explication

In the poem, “Kenyatta Listening to Mozart” Amiri Baraka juxtaposes African politics

and intellect with traditional Western thought. Through metaphor and personification, Baraka is

able to establish the differences and similarities between the two cultures in terms of societal

norms and intellectual gains. Baraka also allows the reader to make their own conclusions about

the tow. This is evident from the title, Kenyatta Listening to Mozart: and how Jomo Kenyatta

served as the president of Kenya all throughout the mid sixties to the late seventies and helped

Kenya gain its freedom, while Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prominent pianist of the

classical era, who was able to master many pieces of music that others could not. Both of these

men are legends in their own right, but when their legacies are compared, one is able to make

loose comparisons as to how both of them were able to triumph over great difficulties, that their

predecessors failed to accomplish: one politically, and the other musically. Ultimately, it is as

though both men are serving as representatives for their respective nations, and by doing this,

Baraka is able to elicit the relevance and magnitude of both groups: though both groups are

different in terms of race, and ethnic practices, they were both able to make equally important

achievements for their own people politically and culturally yet also for the world.

Baraka sets the reader in the environments that are specific to each culture: one in an

urban and structured setting, and the other indigenous and wild, ultimately toying with the

____________. This is seen when Baraka states how “warm air blows cocaine from city/to river,
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and through the brains of/American Poets in San Francisco” (lines 2-4). By mentioning cocaine,

Baraka may be doing a number of things, such as making a statement about the availability and

usage at the hands of politicians, artists, and average citizens alike of drugs in the US, or

presenting the idea that it is the Government that is implementing the cocaine the minds of

American poets. From here, the reader is able to see that though the city is usually thought of as

being structured and tame, it is actually plagued by maladies and the unpredictable nature of the

events that occur in the urban jungle. Secondly, Baraka sets the scene specifically in the city of

San Francisco, which was at the time, and remains to this day, a very heated, and fast paced

environment. From here, Baraka immediately begins his next stanza, with the line “Separate/and

loose”, which is probably meant to set the divide between the two ideas (lines 5-6). Unlike its

western counterpart, Baraka depicts Africa as being “undressed and in sympathy with

absolute/stillness, and the neutrality of water” (lines 7-9). Once again, he reinforces the idea that

jungles of Africa are not the infrastructural breeding grounds of western nations, yet both of

them are equally magnificent and share the ability to mystify the minds of all who encounter

them. One is very rigid, modern, and up to date, while the other is simplified and calm, however

Baraka maintains that “we do not/right poetry in the rainy season”. Through the use of the

pronoun we, Baraka eliminates the separation of the two entities, ultimately revealing the

commonality between the two, in addition to how in actuality, the two cultures are not that

different after all.

The next few stanzas of Baraka’s poem are broken up, in a chain pattern, and through the

use of metaphor, he is able to depict the interaction between the two. This is seen towards the

end of the second stanza when he states “light to light,/the weighted circumstance prowls like

animals in the/bush” (lines 9-11). From a literary standpoint, it is clear that light is symbolic of
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knowledge and enlightenment, making it so that Baraka is actually comparing the two ways of

thought, and acknowledging their relevance. Moreover, by comparing the “weighted

circumstances” to lurking animals, Baraka may in fact be commenting on the difficulty

surrounding the two subjects, and possibly his inability to make a decisive judgment about them.

This dilemma may be the “Zoo of consciousness” that Baraka is referring to in line 12 of his

poem. Baraka goes on to juxtapose the two once again, when he says “stillness/motion/beings

that fly/beings/that swim exchanging in-/foratmtion (lines 15-20). Baraka is depicting the two

subjects as these beings, and through their interaction, Baraka is revealing just how much the two

influence each other. Form here, Baraka goes on to say how “choice, and/style,/ avail/and are

beautiful/categories” (lines 21-5). It is possible that at this point, Baraka is making a statement

about how the beauty of having both styles to choose from, rather than being restricted to only

one, and how it serves to increase the relevance of both in the world. Finally, Baraka closes his

poem with “If you go/for that” (lines 26-7). In closing of the poem this way, it is as if Baraka is

commenting on the ability of readers to choose for them, and ultimately come to their own

conclusion regarding the topic.

It is clear that through his poem, Kenyatta Listening to Mozart, Amiri Baraka ,juxtaposes

African styles of thought, against the Western styles of thought in order to accentuate how

similar the two actually are, in addition to providing his readers with the ability to draw

comparisons and conclusions for themselves about how profound the accomplishments of

Western and African intelligence are, in addition to opening their eyes to the fact that the

combination of the two only serves to compliment these achievements, and the various cultural

gains that they have made.