Poems, Hide and seek and Once Upon a Time by Gabriel Okara Share a Theme of Childhood

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Recommended: Poems that reminisce about childhood

‘Hide and seek’ and ‘Once Upon A Time’ both share a common perception on the theme, ‘Childhood’ and both have a significant messages which are played out through a nostalgic tone. Childhood has its pleasures and fears that are both valuable and insignificant to are modern selves, in ‘Hide and seek’ it presents a both demoralizing yet scarce message to us in the form of a commonly played childhood game in doing so making the poem feel a bit more personal and something you can relate to. The message being that as a result of over flowing insolence/ confidence, you may drop yourself into a pit of self-despairing failure even though a lap of luxury lay around the corner. We see this in the poem as the boy starts with a happy, fresh confidence about him ‘I’m ready! Come and find me!’ then the boy goes on to realize the harsh truth that the ones that ‘sought’ him have abandoned him. ‘Once Upon A Time’, written by Gabriel Okara, is a poem in which the writer reminisces about a time when people we’re more sincere and more authentic about themselves and the way they treated others, he speaks cynically about the present time, and begs for the past. Gabriel Okara in this poem feels people have lost their innocence and openness, that he now see’s in his son; he wants to regain that innocence and openness that he once had as a child.

‘Once Upon A Time’ begins with a conversation between what seems to be a father and son, where the father wants to understand and learn from his son how to go back to normality and no longer have a ‘false’ personality. The poem 'Once Upon A Time' starts by the father telling his son how the people, or 'they', 'used to laugh with their hearts'. The word 'they' refers to western people, whom he sees as people tha...

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...he seaside’, the senses are used ‘smell’ to help us relate to the poem. We also see another use of alliteration in line 12/13, ‘Someone stumbles…scuffle’ creating a more playful messy tone. The language that is used is also colloquial, making the poem feel a bit more relaxed, and to help emphasis the fact that the author is talking to his younger self. Simple sentences are repetitively used in the poem, ‘You’ve never heard them so hushed before.’ ‘The darkening garden watches’ to help create a feeling of suspense, thus injecting drama and tension in the poem. Personification is used in line 19, ‘cold bites’ emphasizing how cold and miserable the boy is. Another example of personification is near the end when a series of them are used: ‘The darkening garden watches.’ ‘The bushes hold their breath’, to help us picture a quiet and calm atmosphere of where the boy lays.

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