Showing posts with label poem of the week. Show all posts

Monday, July 30, 2012

FUUO Poet of the Week from Namibia: Mvula ya Nangolo

FUUO Poet of the Week from Namibia: Mvula ya Nangolo

Nangolo is widely acknowledged as the national poet of Namibia. He studied in Europe for several years before returning to Africa in the mid 60's. An active member of SWAPO (South West Africa Peoples Organization), a political liberation movement, the South African government sentenced him (after a year in solitary confinement without being charged) along with a large group of his compatriots. He spent 16 years (of a 20 year sentence) in Robben Island beginning in 1968.

After his release in 1984, he remained active in the Namibian independence movement and in the Namibian government after the country's independence in 1990. He continues to write today.

Nangolo's second poem, Guerilla Promise is GANGSTER! These lyrics could very well have been spit by NWA or ICE-T back in the days.

Robben Island

Dedicated to comrade Andimba Toivo ya Toivo who spent eighteen years of a twenty year sentence on Robben island.

Just how far is Robben Island from a black child at play?
What forces take his father there with all the world between?
Oh! Mother caution your warrior son again
or else he'll show his might

Just how far is Robben Island from the United Nations
headquarters?
Have I time to ponder now when patriots are drilling fast?
Spears are flying and the shields are once more bloody
for the drums of war are beating again

Just how far is Robben Island from the London Stock Exchange?
You couldn't hear my talking war drums
for uselessly loud is the enemy's cannon roar

Just how far is Robben Island from the Yankee's White House?
I have no sight for I do not speak languages so foreign
the stars and zebra stripes are dazzling me
the US President speaks--his foreign secretary cheats

Then just how far is Robben Island from the field of Waterloo?
A few bushes away
a village or two in between
and the warrior son will take you there.

Guerilla Promise

I'll rush upon you
like escaping newborn sunray
that dazzle you with my lethal swiftness
'cause I'm the Fight
As unknown as an unborn battle
labouring with steel and hand grenade
I'm death conceived
'til my moment arrives
with pain...blood and terror
I'm a soldier of this realm
I'm a poisoned arrow
I'm a string-bow
I'm a sharpened spear
I'm a sword
waiting in my sheath
only for your death.

Robben Island

Toivo

Nangolo

LINKS:
http://www.brownturtlepress.com/authors/nangolo.html
http://www.klausdierks.com/Biographies/Biographies_T.htm
http://allafrica.com/stories/201205030140.html

Some of my favorite poetry books:

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

FUUO Poet of the Week: Oensimo Silveira from Cape Verde

I haven't had a poet of the week in about two months. FUUO's Poet of the Week (or month) is Onesimo Silveira from Cape Verde. He was born in the 1930s and also lived in Angola and Sao Tome. He was active in liberation movement throughout West Africa. After much international work from the 1960-80's, he returned to Cape Verde in the 90's when a multi-party system was instituted. He served a term as the mayor of Mindelo and was elected to the nation's parliament in 2006.

A Different Poem

The people of the islands want a different poem
For the people of the islands;
A poem without exiles complaining
In the calm of their existence;
A poem without children nourished
On the black milk of aborted time
A poem without mothers gazing
At the vision of their sons, motherless.
The people of the islands want a different poem
For the people of the islands:
A poem without arms in need of work
Nor mouths in need of bread
A poem without boasts ballasted with people
On the road to the South
A poem without words choked
By the harrows of silence.
The people of the islands want a different poem
For the people of the islands:
A poem with sap rising in the heart of the BEGINNING
A poem with Batuque and tchabeta and the badias of St Catherine,
A poem with shaking hips and laughing ivory.
The people of the islands want a different poem
For the people of the islands:
A poem without men who lose the seas' grace
and the fantasy of the main compass points.

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

Monday, April 18, 2011

Poet of the Week from Libya: Fatima Mahmoud

Poet of the Week from Libya: Fatima Mahmoud

This week’s poet of the week once again hails from Libya. I came across this poem in the excellent collection:

african-poets-of-week-compilation.html

Some of my favorite poetry books:

Friday, February 18, 2011

Poet of the Week from Mozambique: Jorge Rebelo

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:

Liberation Leadership: The Men Behind the Mozambique Independence Movement This is an article written in 1975 (their year of independence).

Obligatory Mozambique Wikipedia Page

http://newritings.wordpress.com/2007/08/30/the-story-of-a-poem/ Hassen Lorgat has a great writeup on Jorge and on the second poem that I have listed here. He actually went and interviewed Rebelo, and reading his blog would be time well-spent.

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:

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Poet of the Week from Zambia: Gwendoline Konie

Poet of the Week from Zambia: Gwendoline Konie

Gwendoline is a former Zambian Ambassador to the UN. Following that she was a businesswoman in Lusaka, and edited Women's Exclusive. She remained politically active contesting the 2001 election of President Mwanawasa.

The following is from the article Dr Kenneth D. Kaunda wrote on his blog after Gwendoline's funeral service.

"Gwen, my dear Sister, you were part of this wonderful revolution. You were part of this fight against British colonialism in Zambia. Yes, you were part of this great revolution against colonialism in Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and in the fight against racism and apartheid in South Africa. Rest ye well, beloved Sister."

I thought her poem really captures the fire she felt as she and her countrymen struggled to break free from colonial rule. She uses striking imagery of blood to characterize the oppression. I especially liked her closing phrase: "my hidden courage will saw off your first."

IN THE FIST OF YOUR HAND

Like a worm I write in your tight fist
As you try to smother my voice
And my mind with your brutal grip;
Fear stalks the house of my brain
As your pepper-red eyes shout blood.

Your grip strangles my tongue
Your fingers sprinkle seeds of fear in my mind
And it sprouts like a raging bush fire.
You have set up fear as my companion
And I cringe from your bloodshot eyes.

Secret alarm bells sear my brain
And leave me burning with a wild rage
For I will not let fear swallow
My breath, my dreams, and my hopes!
My hidden courage will saw off your fist.

FUUO Past Poets of the Week:

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

Some of my favorite poetry books:

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FAO Quotables

Monday, July 30, 2012

FUUO Poet of the Week from Namibia: Mvula ya Nangolo

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

FUUO Poet of the Week: Oensimo Silveira from Cape Verde

Monday, April 18, 2011

Poet of the Week from Libya: Fatima Mahmoud

Friday, February 18, 2011

Poet of the Week from Mozambique: Jorge Rebelo

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Poet of the Week from Zambia: Gwendoline Konie