Nossa
10-20-2007, 05:38 PM
I was going through my books yesterday, and came across a book that I didn't even know I had. It's called 'Poems Of Black Africa' by Noble Prize winner, poet and playwright Wole Soyinka.
I started going through it, and it's amazing how beautiful and touching these poems were. I then thought how neglected this kind of peotry is, and this kind of literature is in general.
So, if you have a favorite African poem, written by African, African-American, African European, please share with us here.
I loved this one the most (from the ones I had the time to read last night)
It's named after the month in which the Angolan revolution took place.
Fabruary by Agostinho Neto
It was then the Atlantic
in the course of time
gave back the carcases of men
swathed in white flowers of foam
and in the victims' boundless hate,
brought on the waves of death's congealed blood.
And the beaches were smothered by crows and
jackals with a bestial hunger for battered flesh
on the sands
of the land, scorched by the terror of centuries
enslaved and chained,
of the land called green
which children even now call green for hope.
It was then that the bodies in the sea
swelled up with shame and salt
in the course of time
in blood-stained waters
of desire and weakness.
It was then that in our eyes, fired
now with blood, now with life, now with death,
we buried our dead victoriously
and on the graves made recognition
of the reason men were sacrificed
for love
for peace
even while facing death, in the course of time,
in blood-stained waters.
And within us
the green land of San Tome
will be also the island of love.
I started going through it, and it's amazing how beautiful and touching these poems were. I then thought how neglected this kind of peotry is, and this kind of literature is in general.
So, if you have a favorite African poem, written by African, African-American, African European, please share with us here.
I loved this one the most (from the ones I had the time to read last night)
It's named after the month in which the Angolan revolution took place.
Fabruary by Agostinho Neto
It was then the Atlantic
in the course of time
gave back the carcases of men
swathed in white flowers of foam
and in the victims' boundless hate,
brought on the waves of death's congealed blood.
And the beaches were smothered by crows and
jackals with a bestial hunger for battered flesh
on the sands
of the land, scorched by the terror of centuries
enslaved and chained,
of the land called green
which children even now call green for hope.
It was then that the bodies in the sea
swelled up with shame and salt
in the course of time
in blood-stained waters
of desire and weakness.
It was then that in our eyes, fired
now with blood, now with life, now with death,
we buried our dead victoriously
and on the graves made recognition
of the reason men were sacrificed
for love
for peace
even while facing death, in the course of time,
in blood-stained waters.
And within us
the green land of San Tome
will be also the island of love.