For (un)Official Use Only: Poet of the week from Cameroon: Mbella Sonne Dipoko

Friday, May 20, 2011

Poet of the week from Cameroon: Mbella Sonne Dipoko

In celebration of Cameroon's Independence Day (20 May 1972) my poet of the week is Mbella Sonne Dipoko. I have provided a slew of links that can give you more background on his very interesting and colorful life. I think that the poem that I have featured below aptly captures the spirit of the man whose life spanned the breadth of the human experience: poet, writer, chieftain, mayor, rebel and thinker.

NOTE: When I feature these poems I am not cutting and pasting them from anywhere since most of them aren't readily available on the web. Instead I am retyping (transcribing) them from a book of poetry. Initially this was tedious, but I have found that I enjoy it now. Typing out the words, the stanzas, the periods, the capital letters, the commas, illuminates the poet's intent and state of mind for me.

*From what I can tell, Dipoko wrote this poem in English. I intend to translate it into French at a later date.

A Poem of Villeneuve St. Georges

(for M-C)

I am tempted to think of you

Now that I have grown old

And date my sadness

To the madness of your love.

All those flowers you hung

On my gate

All those flowers the wind blew

On the snow!

Why must I remember them now

And recall you calling me

Like a screech-owl

While I watched you

Through the window-pane

And the moon was over the Seine

And Africa was far away

And you were calling

And then crying

In the snow of exile

And the neighbor’s dog barking as if bored

By the excesses of your tenderness?

When I came down for you

And opened the gate

Cursing the cold of your hand

You always went and stood

Under the poplars of the river Yerres

At the bottom of the garden

Silently watching its Seine-bound waters;

And the moon might take to the clouds

Casting a vast shadow

That sometimes seemed to reach our hearts.

And then following me upstairs

You stopped a while on the balcony

As high as which the vines of the garden grew

With those grapes which had survived

The end of the summer

You picked a few grapes

Which we ate

I remember their taste

Which was that of our kisses.

And then in the room

You in such a hurry to undress

And you always brought

A white and a black candle which you lit.

Their flames were the same colour

Of the fire glowing in the grate

And you were no longer white

You were brown

By the light of the fires of love

At midnight

Years ago.

Dipoko was born in 1936 at Mungo, Cameroon. He left Cameroon for Paris in 1960 and lived there for about 25 years (I think); he died in Tiko, Cameroon in 2009 . He published two novels: A Few Nights and Days and Because of Women. He also published a book of his poetry entitled Black and White in Love. From what I have been able to research, he was also a controversial figure in his service as a mayor in Cameroon (in Tiko) under the CPDM after previously denouncing authoritarianism.

LINKS:

http://fuuo.blogspot.com/2012/05/african-poets-of-week-compilation.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbella_Sonne_Dipoko http://anglocamlit.blogspot.com/2007/11/profile-mbella-sonne-dipoko.html