This article is based upon the following concept: Poetry is a chain of representation of the sub-conscience that is the creative source. We can read the poetic text in many ways, but if we imagine the text as the stage of images, we can understand the fundamental abstraction of the conscience. In this sense, oneiric images in some of Euphrase Kezilahabi’s poems will be analysed by using insights from psychoanalytic theory.

Makala haya yanachanganua jinsi dhana za kifalsafa zinavyoakisiwa katika ushairi wa Kiswahili yakizingatia hasa tenzi zilizoandikwa kuhusu historia za dola za Kiafrika baada ya kupatikana kwa Uhuru. Tenzi nyingi za kundi hili zilitungwa Tanzania wakati wa ujamaa, ndiyo maana itikadi zinazoelezwa zaidi katika tenzi hizi zinahusiana na falsafa ya ujamaa. Uelekeo huu unaonyeshwa katika uchambuzi wa Utenzi wa Pambazuko la Afrika uliotungwa na Mohammed Seif Khatib na kuchapishwa mwaka 1982, ambao unaakisi falsafa ya ujamaa, itikadi za umoja wa Afrika (Panafricanism) na upingani wa ukoloni, ukigusana pia na imani ya Afrika kuwa chanzo cha mawazo mengi ya kifalsafa (Afrocentrism). Kwa namna hii, inaonekana kwa uwazi kwamba utungaji wa tenzi ni njia muhimu sana ya kueleza falsafa ya kisiasa na ya kihistoria katika utamaduni wa Kiswahili. Njia hii inalingana na njia nyinginezo: mawazo hayohayo yanaelezwa vilevile katika vitabu vya kitaaluma (kwa mfano, vitabu vya Mwalimu Nyerere kuhusu ujamaa), katika riwaya, au katika ushairi wa aina nyingine (kama vile mashairi, ngonjera, n.k.). Tenzi nyingine za hili kundi la ‘tenzi za Uhuru’ zinaakisi vilevile falsafa za aina nyingine, ikiwemo falsafa ya kidini inayotokana na dini ya Uislamu au falsafa ya ‘utu’, ambayo ina mizizi mirefu sana katika tamaduni nyingi za Afrika. Kwa kumaliza, makala yanasisitiza kwamba, tukipenda kufahamu ‘falsafa ya Kiafrika’ ni nini, ni lazima tutazame njia zilizoko na vyombo vilivyoko katika tamaduni za Kiafrika vya kuelezea dhana na thamani, bila ya kutarajia kwamba njia hizo na vyombo hivyo vitakuwa vilevile au vitafanana kimsingi na vyombo vya kawaida vya kuelezea falsafa katika tamaduni za Magharibi (yaani maandishi ya kitaaluma kuhusu falsafa). Ushairi ni njia mojawapo, tena muhimu sana, ya kueleza mawazo ya kifalsafa katika utamaduni wa Kiswahili, lakini ziko na njia nyingine, kama vile maelezo ya taaluma mbalimbali na tanzu nyingi za fasihi na sanaa, ambazo inafaa zitambulikane na ichambuliwe katika fani ya falsafa.

For the past 150 years studies on Kiswahili language, literature and culture have engaged the scholarly attention of many researchers (Hauner 1979. In their analyses of Kiswahili literary works, however, most critical studies have, generally, tended to neglect the aspect of artistic design. Instead, the central focus has primarily been on two interlocking aspects of these works: (1) their content, values or thematic messages and (2) their cultural and socio-historical contexts (Dorsey 1988). This widespread tendency to undervalue the importance of artistic design in Kiswahili literary works is not surprising as it was largely promoted by some of the earlier European authorities who popularised the idea that Kiswahili literature `is not of literary interest´ and `that social, cultural, and historical commentary by anthologists are more relevant to this literature than literary study´ (Biersteker and Plane 1989:451). It is encouraging to see, however, that in recent years more and more scholars, like Mlamali (1980), Fiedel and Shariff (1986), Biersteker (1991) and Mbele (1996), to mention but a few, address issues of artistic design in their critical appraisals of Kiswahili literary works. This article is a modest attempt to follow their example by looking at Utenzi wa Shujaka as an object of design; how the poet has used the technical instruments of verbal craftsmanshjp in his bid to elicit an aesthetic response from his audience.

Kasida ya Hamziyyah, yumkini, ndiyo tafsiri ya Kiswahili ya zamani zaidi. Kiswahili kilichotumiwa katika ukawafi huu kimechakaa sana hata maneno mengine hayatumiki tena. Hii ni kasida ambayo ni maarufu sana katika ulimwengu wa fasihi na dini ya Kiislamu na Waswahili huikariri wakati wa sherehe za Maulidi ya Nabii Muhammadi au wanapocheza Twari la Ndiya. Kasida hii ya Hamziyah pia hujulikana kama Chuo cha Hamziyah au Utenzi wa Hamziyah. Kasida ya Hamziyyah ilitafsiriwa kutoka kwa Kiarabu na Sayyid Aidarus bin Athumani bin Sheikh Abubakar bin Salim hapo mwaka wa 1652b. Pamoja na kuinukuu kwa hati za Kirumi nimebawibu Hamziyah katika sehemu mbalimbali, kulingana na maudhui yake, ili iweze kusomeka kwa urahisi na iweze kuwavutia wasomaji. Katika miswada ya Kiswahili niliyoipata, mswada mmoja una ubeti mmoja zaidi.

Iba Ndiaye Diadji, a Senegalese professor of aesthetics, sees water as intrinsic to African ontology. He also argues that water is the most important substance to inspire African artists. (Diadji 2003: 273–275.) Water certainly has a significant role in Swahili poetry, written traditionally by people living on the coast of the Indian Ocean. Swahili poems have used aquatic imagery in expressing different ideas and sensations, in different contexts and times. Water imagery can be found in hundreds of years old Islamic hymns as well as in political poetry written during the colonial German East Africa. This article discusses water imagery in traditional Islamic Swahili poetry.

Contemporary Swahili poetry is developing according to three main trends. The followers of the first trend - the so called "traditionalists" - stick to classic forms of old Swahili poetry. Following the Swahili canon of versification, traditionalists continue to be within the limits of two main genres of old Swahili literature - tendi (long poems) and mashairi (moderate lyrics and philosophical verses). In Swahili poetry foregoing sudden changes were marked by the appearance of a group of young authors on the poetic stage in the 1970s, who gave a dare to tradition. Their venture radically changed the character of Swahili literature, marking the appearance of the second trend of Swahili poetry, the \\\"new\\\" or \\\"modernistic\\\" poetry. But along with traditional and \\\"modernistic\\\" schools there exists a third trend of Swahili poetry - it is that sort of versification, which one may call \\\"transitional\\\". In general it looks lile pure \\\"modernism\\\", where at first sight one cannot see even the faintest resemblance with the traditional canon, but the more careful search makes it obvious that there is a true continuity between traditional and contemporary art. The best examples of such transformation are the poems of two prominent figures of contemporary Swahili poetry, the Tanzanians Theobald Mvungi and Said Ahmed Mohamed.

In old Swahili tendi and homiletic poems about 50% of vocabulary is of Arabic origin (Bertoncini 1973), and besides single words, they include noun phrases or even whole Arabic sentences. In order to prove my point, I will discuss some verses taken from the Utendi wa Shujaka by one Hasan bin Ali from Lamu. The only extant manuscript of this epic poem in 295 stanzas was brought to Germany in 1854 by Ludwig Krapf and is kept in the Library of the Orientalistic Society in Halle. The poem is written in the Lamu dialect with many archaic features, like the incomplete palatalization of KI, the demonstratives in S- and others. But what is striking is the great amount of Arabic phrases and whole sentences, to the extent that we may perhaps speak of a case of code-switching. In fact, several verses of the poem cannot be understood properly without some knowledge of the main features of Arabic grammar, such as verb conjugation (both perfective and imperfective), verb forms (or classes), active and passive participles, noun inflection (masculine and feminine, broken plurals, construct state), personal, relative and possessive pronouns, prepositions and their combination with enclitic pronouns, numerals, conjunctions and particles, as well as word order.

Sanaa ya ushairi inajisawiri kama nyenzo muhimu katika maendeleo na ukuaji wa binadamu ulimwenguni. Ujenzi wa taswira zinazowasilisha mada nyeti za kijamii ni changamoto ya kiusanii inayoibua maswala tata. Ndiposa wasilisho hili linachunguza mjadala wa usawiri wa mwanamke katika ushairi wa kisasa. Mada nyingi zinazohakiki matini za kishairi hulenga miuundo, mitindo na maswala mengineyo ya kijamii bila kuangazia swala la utata wa mwanamke. Uzingatifu wa vipengee hivi umefifisha uangafu wa taswira ya mwanamke katika ushairi wa Kiswahili kana kwamba ushairi umempuuza mwanamke kama mhusika mkuu. Tunachukulia kwamba matini za kishairi za kisasa zinahusisha mbinu na nyenzo mpya ambazo zimebadilisha sura na taswira ya mwanamke. Maswali yanayoibuka ni; Je, Mwanamke angali tata katika ushairi wa kisasa kwenye enzi ya karne ya ishirini na moja? Je, umbo jipya la mwanamke ni lipi katika ushairi wa kisasa?

Kithaka wa Mberia (b.1956) is one of the most innovative Kenyan poets. Until now he has published four collections of poems and three plays. His poems contain a strong political and social criticism, sometimes in the form of animal allegories. He condemns various acts of violence done to women, like rapes of schoolgirls or prostitution caused by poverty. Some compositions seem life-stories of real persons, others are overtly didactic and moralizing, but in all the theme of social justice is almost obsessive. Another group of poems highlights the author’s concern with his surroundings and with the “health conditions” of the Earth in general; thus, for instance, he denounces the devastation of Kenyan soil in order to get foreign currency. His love of nature makes him address affectionate verses to animals, insects and plants. Formally the poems have little in common with the poetic tradition of the Swahili coast as they are in free verse. Kithaka exhibits a rich vocabulary of botanical and zoological terms and is fond of various forms of word-playing like chiming and punning; an important role in his poetry is played by parallelism. Moreover, he introduces into Kiswahili visual poems where typography is relied upon to perform expressive effects. Kithaka wa Mberia, together with other East African contemporary poets, proves that Swahili poetry is able to express universal themes and can reach a high artistic value even without repeating traditional models.

In contrast to the \''classical Islamic tendi\'' where the action as well as the setting is commonly detached from the environmental context of the Swahili coast, the Liyongo poems show an abundance of detailed descriptions and enumerative reviews of material items crucial and characteristic of the particular East African shares of Swahili culture. Frequently reference is also made to the natural environment as plants and their fruits play a prominent role as requisits of both the Swahili natural and cultural setting. Apart from being exploited as central requisite and being referred to as material source in the poems, plants are also extensively used for similes. The Liyongo poems are full of culturally metaphors which are context-dependent and sometimes render the text rather obscure. Without denying that there is, of course, also contemporary poetry employing plants as subject matter or metaphors, in this article I focus on two thematically close poems which we vaguely have to classify as \"old\" while not being able to give exact dates. Although the article suggests to be a thematic view on Swahili poetry, it is primarily a text edition of two poems, the \"Song of the Mjemje\" and the \"Shairi la Mtambuu\", which are both presented together with a critical apparatus.