“The Opening Minutes of a Film” is a poem written by an award-winning South
African poet with the name Gabeba Baderoon. She was born 21st of February of 1969 and her literary
contribution has won the Daimler Chrysler Award in 2005. Based on personal
perspective, the eight stanza poem speaks of the unwavering companionship of human
shadow (I hope I’m correct on this one). The poet expressed the thoughts of the
abstract shadow from a first person point of view with the reoccurring “I” in
the poem and the use of “we” proved the shadow’s spirit of unity.
At first, the innocence expressed in stanza one
and six made me feel the poet is referring to a baby but further lines in the poem
showed otherwise. It is a general believe that wherever we go, whatever we do,
our shadow is our witness; The poem “The Opening Minutes of a Film” by Gabeba
Baderoon restated the believe. In the first stanza, we see the person’s
standing position, then in the second stanza when the person was walking to the
station “against the adverts in the subway” and how deep the trust of the
shadow in stanza 4 “I want you to look at me/ You look back, maybe to see/ if
we’re going in the same direction” The second last stanza seems complex “We
both know something is about to happen/ I don’t want to talk” then she ended
the poem with “Keep walking, but look back/ So we know we are together”.
The
messages from the poem are of trust, innocence, companionship, while the
setting is a place where ray of light does cast shadow namely the subway. The
free verse opened with simile “like the opening minutes of a film” and
proceeded with other poetic devices such as assonance “against the adverts in
the subway” alliteration “slow down so much” metaphor “your hair seems liquid” and
repetition of “slow” “want” “walking”.
Samuel C. Enunwa aka samueldpoetry
(the Leo with wings flying)
