READ!
Read the alphabets of mankind,
The common subject of thought,
Taught by the moon above the sun.
Tell knowledge it is but to know.
Tell man he is but an error.
Tell them that wisdom is a gift
That resembles knowledge.
Like a broken conversation
Laid to rest in the grave of sensation,
Whirling to a stop
In the middle of a sentence.
The human mind stammers,
Endlessly hoeing an arid patch,
Fuelled by the aridity of petrol.
Low vocabulary is not knowing many words.
As a result,
Fraying into the gutters of deception,
The string of the balafon beats,
Its sound preceding legends into beetles.
Cowardly spoken, silken old cottons
Dress the human of my description,
Fitting into the ignorant cap worn
On the heads of civilian flies,
Buzzing around lust and love.
Let greed judge the creed for bearing grudges,
The guilty for not being innocent.
Tell betrayal it is but courage,
Nakedly pronouncing time.
Readers do know,
And the ignorant read not.
READ!
Iqra! (Read) in the name of your Lord.
Read not to gain this world.
Read religion, read God—just read.
When you learn, teach.
When you arrive, act like you have not reached.
When you have, give.
When you know, do not say all.
Trek where the fools fall.
Read, shall you?
Knowledge is found in reading,
And ignorance is reading nothing.
Read!
If you want to know—read!
READ!
I see Muslims who do not know the Qur’an,
Christians who do not know the Bible.
From my far left, I see a nation without citizens,
Driving around in the car of the lost.
I see animals creating an Animal Farm.
I saw the ghost of George Orwell.
I saw a divided Africa as a result of not reading—
Ironically divided for reading in the name of Satan.
Explanatory Note
This poem, READ!, is a passionate literary intervention against illiteracy, intellectual laziness, and moral confusion, using reading as both a spiritual command and a civic responsibility. Rooted in the Gambian and broader African context, the poem exposes how the failure to read—religious texts, history, literature, and the world itself—has contributed to social decay, ethical contradictions, and political disorientation. The poet presents reading not merely as an academic skill, but as the foundational act of becoming fully human.
The repeated command “READ!” functions as a moral alarm. By invoking Iqra—the first revealed word in Islam—the poet reconnects literacy to divine instruction, reminding readers that knowledge in African societies was historically sacred, purposeful, and transformative. The poem contrasts this sacred reading with what the poet calls “reading in the name of Satan”: selective, manipulative, and self-serving interpretations of knowledge used to justify greed, betrayal, division, and exploitation. In this sense, the poem critiques not only ignorance, but also miseducation and intellectual hypocrisy.
Through dense imagery—the moon teaching above the sun, broken conversations buried in graves of sensation, flies buzzing around lust and love, and the echo of the balafon—the poet illustrates a continent trapped between inherited wisdom and abandoned responsibility. References to Animal Farm and George Orwell signal political allegory: societies repeat oppression because they have not read history deeply enough to resist it. The image of “a nation without citizens” reflects populations physically present but mentally absent, disengaged from critical thought, civic duty, and ethical reflection.
Ultimately, the poem is both indictment and invitation. It indicts societies where Muslims do not know the Qur’an, Christians do not know the Bible, and citizens do not know themselves. Yet it also invites humility, action, and generosity—teaching after learning, giving after having, and remaining modest after knowing. For Modou Lamin Age-Almusaf Sowe, reading is not for status, profit, or power, but for truth, God-consciousness, and collective awakening. The poem insists that Africa’s healing begins with a return to meaningful reading—reading that enlightens the mind, disciplines the ego, and restores moral clarity.
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