“The Sea Eats the Land at Home” is a 1964 poem by the Ghanaian author Kofi Awoonor, describing the devastation that occurs in a coastal town following a flood, while simultaneously exploring themes of colonialism and cultural erosion. It was originally published in Awoonor's first collection Rediscovery and Other Poems. Written in free verse, the poem spans two quintains, a quatrain, and a long, eighteen-line closing stanza. Like much of Awoonor's early poetry, it borrows stylistically from Ewe folkloric forms.
"The Sea Eats the Land at Home" personifies the sea, describing the way it destroys property and endangers townspeople. The poem specifically explores the losses of two characters, Aku and Adena. It explains that Aku experiences a crisis of faith following the natural disaster, feeling abandoned by her ancestors and gods. Meanwhile, it describes Adena's physical losses: beloved items that were intended to serve as her dowry.
Like much of Awoonor's work, this poem has also been interpreted through a postcolonial lens. The poem can be read as an allegory about colonialism, in which the sea represents a colonizing nation or military. In this sense, the poem critiques colonialism not merely as a form of legal or material subjugation but as a source of cultural damage and communal corrosion. The Ewe folkloric inspirations behind the poem serve, given its postcolonial themes, as an affirmation of indigenous African identity.
