Last year, I read a poem by Laban Erapu titled, The Guilt of Giving for a class I was taking. The reason I am writing about this a year later is because after all the time that has passed, the poem is still ringing in my mind, it’s words still fresh as a daisy. This might seem odd but it’s not,for years I have learnt and heard of how impactful literature can be in the lives of people and yet have only recently have had my own personal account.

Take for instance, it can be food or poison depending on the material you’re exposed too. It can be used as a learning tool for example, literature can help sharpen your speech if you read frequently they’re more words you learn and are exposed too .This helps enrich your vocabulary. Another way literature is used as a teaching/learning tool is through fairytales and folklores. Fairytales and folklores were and still are an effective way to teach children how to distinguish between good and evil, right from wrong from an early age.

Literature is not only used as a educating and moral tool but it is also a source of entertainment and pleasure to most of us. Literature in it’s different forms be it plays or the novel can be filled with humor or have a very humourous plot that just warms ones heart. All this and more are the different functions of literature.

Which brings me back to Laban Erapu’s The Guilt of Giving. I think we all agree that the title is surprising and striking and immediately captures our interest. I mean when you first read the title you think to yourself, how does giving associate with guilt? Then you start to read the poem and realise that the poem is actually a condemnation of an entire society that is both insensitive and callous. In the poem, instead of the beggar drawing pity, draws contempt .The person being addressed in the poem tosses a coin to the beggar, who the persona refers to as a heap of rugs and louse pushing the persona’s point further, I think the persona’s trying to tell us if we regarded beggars as actual living breathing people then we wouldn’t act or treat them the way we do. We would treat them with kindness, respect and give them they help they need and thus we wouldn’t have any beggars or homless people on the streets.
After the act of kindness the crowd who has done nothing for the beggar gets irritated by a single act of kindness so much so that the addressee flees into the nearest shop just to escape their stares. I think Laban Erupa is a genius for writing this well crafted piece and clearly brings out a situation that can be better described as a pandemic common in our societies today, the pandemic of poverty amidst plenty.Which is a man-made situation that can be stopped once we the people of modern day society realise that.

Literature both written and performed has a number of great benefits for individuals and our societies as a whole, it can be an effective tool to change common misconceptions and also share a people’s culture, whatever the reason literature in whatever form has great power.