- This is another African poem that focuses its subject on the conflict of culture_ sharing the same theme with the poem titled “Piano and Drums” by Gabriel Okara.
- The speaker in the poem found himself between the two opposite lifestyles which made him liken himself to an iron to be reshaped by the anvil and the hammer.
- The poem is said to be cultural inclined with a colonial setting.
- Structurally, The Anvil and The Hammer by Kofi Awoonor is a free verse; a free verse is a poem that does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.
- Repetition; we see words like “new” “songs” “washed”
- Personification; seen in line 21 “the splash and moan of the sea”
- Symbolism; where the title of the poem symbolizes African and European. “The Anvil” represent the African culture while “The Hammer” represent the European culture.
- Imagery; both sight and sound instances are “listen to the reverberation of our songs” which is in line 20, “The trapping of the past, tender and tenuous” in line 5, “we lift high the banner of the land” in line 19.
