Mwaifuge, Eliah S.2018-09-042018-09-0420172343-6530http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11810/4761This paper examines representations of Africa in Shilia Kaaya’s poetry. Kaaya’s The Bleeding Heart and other Poems (2009) features thirty-eight poems covering diverse themes. This paper focuses on ten poems which are devoted to colonialism, neo-colonialism and political problems besetting contemporary Africa. It argues that Kaaya’s poetry interrogates the dynamics of colonialism, neo-colonialism and the political problems in Africa and their effect on the development of Africa. It demonstrates how Kaaya’s poems raise salient issues about how Africa’s development — economically and politically, is undermined by both the European coloniser and Africans themselves. The Archetypal approach, which describes images found in a variety of poems written by a single poet, is applied to enhance understanding of the core message (s) of the poems.enAfrica, Colonialism, Image, Neo-colonialism, DevelopmentJournal Article, Peer Reviewed