📚 Need a custom study guide on any literary text? Get the best study guide money can buy from us at Literature PADI! Detailed, insightful, and crafted by literature experts to give you maximum value for your money.
[See Pricing & Details!]
Air Raid Poem
Air Raid
It comes so quickly
the bird of death
from evil forests of Soviet technology
A man crossing the road
to greet a friend
is much too slow.
His friend cut in halves
has other worries now
than a friendly handshake
at noon.
– Chinua Achebe
Reference
Achebe, C. (1973). Christmas in Biafra and other poems. Doubleday & Company, Inc.
“Air Raid” Analysis
“Air Raid” is a ten-line poem written by Chinua Achebe to project the destructive impact of war, with emphasis on the life-snuffing capability of airstrikes. While the message of the poem is universal, the catastrophe of war therein is reflective of the human destruction during the Nigerian civil war.
The late Chinua Achebe was an active player in the Nigerian civil war (alternatively known as Biafran war), at least on the diplomacy front. He was a first-hand witness of the brutalities of the war, the needless deaths, its fleeting moment, and the cheapness of human life: one moment, you “are crossing the road to greet a friend” (lines 4-5), the next moment you or your friend are “cut in halves” (line 7) by the bomb dropped by “the bird of death” (l. 2). His friend, another fine writer, Christopher Okigbo was killed in this war.
Much has been written about the Nigerian civil war. Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Songs in a Time of War and Sozaboy, J. P. Clark’s Casualties, and Isidore Okpewho’s The Last Duty are stellar examples of the fictional narratives in the civil war subgenre of Nigerian literature. Achebe’s poetry collection, Christmas in Biafra and other Poems, in which “Air Raid” is featured belongs to this literary tradition.
The poem is divided into two stanzas. The first stanza describes the swiftness of an enemy war plane over Biafran skies at noon. It is there to wreak havoc on Biafran soil with descent of bombs. The second stanza gives a human angle of the airstrike with the narrative of a man whose friend is killed in the air raid on the other side of the road. The poet demonstrates, using the dark humour of the man being “much too slow” (l. 6) and his dead friend having “other worries than a friendly handshake” (l. 8-9), the destructive ease of war planes and other killing weapons of mass destruction, the bonds they break, the memories they shatter, and in all these, the helplessness of the pawns mowed down.
Achebe could not pass on the involvement of foreign powers in the escalation of the bloodshed which was fuelled by their supplies of arms to the warring parties. His metaphoric allusion in “the bird of death” which alternatively describes a war plane supplied by the Soviet Union (“from evil forests of Soviet technology”) points to the complicity of world powers who stood as benefitting scavengers and vultures from the outcome of the war. The Soviet Union and the United Kingdom were main supporters of the Nigerian government during the civil war, something Achebe frowned at in this poem.
Finally, “Air Raid” is one poem that captures the human destruction that accompanies wars. If you want us to analyse more poems by Achebe or if you have a particular in mind, let us know in the comment section. Do you think the war was worth it in the long run?
Related:
- Chinua Achebe’s BIAFRA, 1969: Poem and Commentary
- A Review of Chinua Achebe and John Iroaganachi’s HOW THE LEOPARD GOT HIS CLAWS
- A Review of Chinua Achebe’s “No Longer at Ease”
Join Our Social Media Channels:
- WhatsApp: Literature PADI
- Telegram: Literature PADI
- YouTube: @literaturepadi
- Facebook: Literature PADI
We also have two WhatsApp chatrooms with a little above 1,300 like-minded members. You can join any of them for further literary discussions:
Ensure you join one at a time to allow others to be part of our wonderful community.
