Read the Analysis Of I Think It Rains By Wole Soyinka

Read the Analysis Of I Think It Rains By Wole Soyinka: 

Please read with carefulness - I Think It Rains by Wole Soyinka is a poem of difference; it differs in every form both structure, diction and message. The poem looks into the practice of smoking though one cannot predict the author’s stand (whether of likeness or dislike)

The poem is built on metaphor since the puffing smoking is liken to a rainfall and every other imageries are in support of the raining, the dryness before the rain, the descriptive picture of the smoke being a Rain-Reeds and circling spirit, etc.

Soyinka, in the last stanza of the poem claimed that the act of smoking had no reasonable effect but done for the fun of its routine outcome:
"Rain-reeds, practised in
The grace of yielding, yet unbending
From afar"

"this, your conjugation with my earth
Bares crounching rocks"
There is ambiguity in the line above with the

poet’s use of "this, your" which created an address either to the smoker or the puffed smoke. If to the puffed smoke, then it should be considered an apostrophe. "your conjugation with my earth/ Bare crounching rocks" means your mingling with the early space, causes the smoker’s teeth to be exposed in tightened as if in grinding. Another ambiguity is in "circling spirit" which might mean the smoke coming out in a circular motion or the odour of smoking always circulating.

Metaphor in "a ring of grey" "The circling spirit" "Rain-Reeds" Asyndeton in "Uncleave roof-tops of the mouth, hang heavy with knowledge” Alliteration "Rain-Reeds" Symbolism "crounching rocks"

One of the themes to derive from this poem is the futility in the act of smoking which requires more action than its derived wasteful result.
Probably people’s addiction to smoking must have motivated the poet into crafting this poem. Even the structure looked imbalance, unable to hold, and wavery like a puffed smoke.