UPYA KATIKA MASHAIRI YA: SOKOMOKO NA USHAIRI WENU KATIKA GAZETI LA TAIFA LEO

Abstract

This study investigated new trends, styles and themes in Swahili Poetry of Ushairi Wenu and Sokomoko as published in Taifa Leo Newspaper for the period between January 1st 2018 and August 31st 2019. Poetry is an old genre which has gone through various developmental stages in terms of writing, styles and themes over a long period of time. Kiswahili poetry has continued to evolve at different historical periods since the time prosodic rules were followed by all authors of Kiswahili poetry to emergence of popular poetry published in newspapers. New trends and style are always exhibited by different authors of poetry because of creativity. A lot of research has been done in scholarly poetry as compared to popular poetry, especially poems published in newspapers. In order to fill the scholarly gap, the researcher wanted to find out if poets in this newspapers exhibit new trends and style. The objectives of this study were to: Establish new trends in poems of Ushairi Wenu and Sokomoko; analyse new style in the poems of Ushairi Wenu and Sokomoko; and evaluate new themes in the poems of Ushairi Wenu and Sokomoko. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, the research was guided by two theories: The realism theory by Hegel (1979) and the stylistic theory by Leech and Short (2007). The realism theory was employed to identify themes reflected in these poems while the stylistic theory was used to analyze the new trends and perspectives in stylistic features. The data used in this research was collected in the library where the researcher read books, journals, newspapers and thesis which were handy in apprehending the topic of study. The research used purposive sampling to select 38 poems in Ushairi Wenu and Sokomoko because out of the 160 poems, researcher was only interested in poems that depicted new trends in Swahili poetry, new perspectives in style and themes. The researcher used descriptive design in data presentation and analysis. The findings from the research indicated that poems in Ushairi Wenu and Sokomoko depicted new trends in how they were written. These included the use of sheng’, use of second person narration and use of opening and closing formula. Consequently, new style perspectives identified were: Use of nicknames, second person narration, length of poems, brief titles, setting and language. Human character, corruption, drug abuse, love among others were the themes identified in those poems. This research will benefit teachers of Kiswahili and language researchers through informing them about the new poetic developments. Parents will also benefit, given that the CBC curriculum (Competence Based Curriculum) requires parental involvement in the learning of their children.