QUESTION 2: POETRY
Lesego Ramapolokeng’s poem, Johannesburg is a figurative poem representing his
disappointment, hopelessness and bitterness towards this city and its people. In this
essay I will argue that Ramapolokeng critises the ways in which the city seems to
value materialism, greed and personal gain while dehumanising its inhabitants,
through tropes, diction and schemes throughout the poem.
The poem is a figurative, non-fiction poem as it deals with the actual feelings and
experiences of the speaker. It is informal writing because it contains contractions and
pronouns such as “we’re” , “my” , and “we.” The theme of the poem is
disappointment, hopelessness and bitterness. Even though the Ramapolokeng
refers to the city as “my city” he feels disappointed. He feels the city has failed so
many people including himself. Deception could also play a part in contributing to the
theme of the poem. Rampolokeng feels deceived by the city and also the people
coming to Johannesburg looking for “gold” and “the green pastures of wealth.”
According to the speaker’s reality, “nothing is secure.” People are working like
robots. He says in lines 12 to 14, “we’re all recession whipped / into the repression
machine / mirrored in the glass-towers” which refers to corporate buildings being
compared to machines, working constantly, chasing after money and seems to
oppress their employees and restrain them from growing.
In this poem, one can observe that the poem is free verse. There is a rhyme
scheme, but it is not consistent. The poem has an internal rhyme scheme, as well as
irregular rhymes. This rhyme scheme helps to accentuates the fast pace of the poem
just like the fast pace lifestyle of people living in Johannesburg and the city itself. The
type of free verse employed in the poem is used to mirror the speaker’s
hopelessness, disappointment and bitterness. It also shows the inconsistency of
Johannesburg as a city and its people.
In line 2 the speaker says Johannesburg is “paved with judas gold.” This is a
metaphor using allusion to state that Johannesburg is covered with betrayal. From
the outside, Johannesburg looks rich and wonderful, filled with “gold” but it is only a
lie. People work hard to attain their dreams in Johannesburg, but they die without
ever fulfilling them. At the end of the day people feel betrayed by believing the
deception of the city. He further says in line 4, “dreams come here to die.” He uses
personification. Only living things can die. Dreams fade, come to pass, get fulfilled or
not, but it cannot die literally.
In line 5 he says, “the traffic flows in the sick / vein of life as we tick / with the eternal
time-bomb.” This indicates the busy roads of Johannesburg from people traveling
from work to home or from home to work. In return of all this busyness, people get
sick from all the pollution in the air. The lives of the people from Johannesburg,
literally and figuratively, becomes so toxic from all the busyness that people are a
ticking time-bomb of their own lives. Their own lives are placed at risk and in danger
of illness and disease. Ticking time-bomb is also a hyperbole to show the reader how
much danger people put themselves in. It accentuates and dramatises the overall
poem which is that, we as people will never stop putting out lives at risk for
materialistic things which tends to dehumanise us. He further says in line 25, “to
keep the money belt spinning” which indiciates people’s greed. The only goal people
1 ENG2062. Assignment 2
