Jorge Rebelo’s poetry is powerful and direct. The poems I have included are ones which he wrote during the Mozambican revolution. As I discovered in researching this man, Mozambique’s fight for independence from Portugal was one tied uniquely to poetry. Here’s one book that was written about just this connection: The role of poetry in the Mozambican Revolution.
If you are like and love to scoot down rabbit holes when it comes to learning, please check out the following links:
I selected Rebelo’s as my poet of the week in light of the recent revolutions sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East.
My favorite line from the first poem is: “Justice rings in my every shot and ancient dreams awaken like birds.”
Poem for a militant
Mother.
I have an iron rifle
your son,
the one you saw chained
one day
(When you cried as if
the chains bound and battered
your hands and feet)
Your boy is free now
Mother.
Your boy has an iron rifle,
My rifle
will break the chains
will open the prisons
will kill the tyrants
will win back our land
Mother,
Beauty is to fight for freedom,
Justice rings in my every shot
and ancient dreams awaken like birds.
Fighting, on the front,
Your image descends,
I fight for you,
Mother
to dry the tears
of your eyes.
The title of this poem could be heard and seen throughout the 1980’s as South Africa revolted. Upon first examination, the association of flowers and bullets initially seems to be a preposterous one. That is until the author shows the reader (listener) that: “here my mouth was wounded because it dared to sing my people’s freedom.” Rebelo has a gift in illustrating the struggle of ‘the people’ and in framing their fight, their revolt as a part of something as inevitable and pure as nature, as a flower’s growth. As you read this poem, you can imagine the people of Egypt or Iran or Tunisia reciting and chanting the words.
In our land, bullets are beginning to flower
Come, brother, and tell me your life
come, show me the marks of revolt
which the enemy left on your body
Come, say to me ‘Here
my hands have been crushed
because they defended
The land which they own’
‘Here my body was tortured
because it refused to bend
to invaders’
‘Here my mouth was wounded
Because it dared to sing
My people’s freedom’
Come brother and tell me your life,
come relate me the dreams of revolt
which you and your fathers and forefathers
dreamed
in silence
through shadowless nights made for love
Come tell me these dreams become
war,
the birth of heroes,
land reconquered,
mothers who, fearless,
send their sons to fight.
Come, tell me all this, my brother.
And later I will forge simple words
which even the children can understand
words which will enter every house
like the wind
and fall like red hot embers
on our people’s souls.
In our land
Bullets are beginning to flower.
(Jorge Rebelo was born in Maputo, Mozambique. A lawyer and a journalist, he joined FRELIMO (Mozambican anti-Portuguese guerrilla group) , becoming its Director of Information.)
Some of my favorite poetry books:
