Población Objetivo

While African poetry in English only began to impact upon literary circles during the nineteen fifties, there is enough evidence suggesting the existence of written poetry in earlier times. Written poetry in English has been shaped largely by, and has reacted to, colonial experience which, because of its imperialistic nature, brought with it a great sense of cultural dispossession on the part of the indigenous population.

In the tension between old and new, African poets and other writers in general began to revalue the oral literary traditions of Africa. Ama Ata Aido contends that:

From various cultures sacred songs, praise poems, religious chants, funeral dirges have influenced the poets writing in English who have mediated between inherited African modes and poetic techniques and the English language they have acquired. In some cases the poem was first written in the indigenous language - Song of Lawino (p’Bitek’s 1967:10).

Literary production began overtly to acquire political and ideological ambitions. A figure worth mentioning in this development is Edward Blyden, the nineteenth-century Afro-American essayist who foresaw both the romanticism of enigmatising Black Africa and the tendency by both African Nationalism and Pan Africanism to rely upon the West. As a consequence of the six conferences that were organized by William Du Bois and the inimitable Marcus Garvey between 1900 and 1945, the spirit of nationalism amongst African students who were studying abroad grew. It was at about this time that negritude was appropriated as a literary movement. This was to have far-reaching implications in as far as literature was concerned. Because political leaders and writers in general were inclined to emanate from the literary elite, it became easy for literature to be tied to the struggle for political liberation because as Harlow (1987) aptly maintains that:

Poetry is capable not only of serving as a means for expression of personal identity or even nationalist sentiment. Poetry, as part of the cultural institutions and historical existence of a people, is itself an arena of struggle.

That written African poetry owes much to, and reflects major influences of, traditional African culture and colonial experience beyond doubt. Although traditional cultural influences often vary from one region to another, and thus shape the nature, character and identity of a specific regional poetry, colonial experience is a common denominator which is not only shared, but also spans a variety of African cultural experiences. This commonality of colonial experience amongst African people has had significant influence in the development of literature in general and poetry in particular. Nkosi (1985) observes that:

What linked the various African people on the continent was the nature and depth of colonial experience; and this was the final irony. Colonialism had

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not only delivered them unto themselves, but had delivered them unto each other, so to speak, with a common language and an African consciousness;

for out of rejection had come affirmation.

He emphasises on the interplay between traditional and colonial experiences which made it feasible to divide literature into clearly discernible traditions: East African, West African and Southern African, and each with its own distinctive style, themes and experiences dictated by local material conditions prevailing in each circumstance.

The founding of Black Orpheus in Ibadan in 1957 by Ulli Beier and Janheinz Jahn, a journal which became very influential in and greatly impacted on literary circles, introduced the literate English-speaking elite to black literary accomplishment in French by first translating from French to English and later on by publishing inventive work in English.

Beier was also instrumental a few years later in the establishment of what became known as the Mbari Club in Ibadan, which fostered an atmosphere in which literature in general could thrive by publishing, staging plays and encouraging exhibitions. In the club’s publication writers of note including Dennis Brutus, John Pepper Clark, Wole Soyinka and Christopher Okigbo made significant regular contribution. In South Africa and East Africa the nature of events took a different turn. Where West African writers had Mark Orpheps as their literary outlet and mouthpiece, their counterparts in the East were largely dominated by Makerere University College - once hailed as the home of Africa’s intelligentsia - until the coup de tat that brought General Amin Dada to power signalled the demise of that institution. The College’s demise coupled with Tanzania’s policy of promoting literature in Swahili exclusively, left Kenya as a dominant force in East Africa. On the other hand written African poetry can be said to have come in three phases. Historical consciousness of each period matters in its thematic preoccupation.

As you continue with this unit, you come to discover that these phases dovetail into each other and the dividing line becomes so thin because poems, poets and issues reoccur in each phase. Much as the poets address historical issues and happenings in their environment actually dictate their themes. The poets sought to commend their faith in Africa and so they show no interest in historical accuracy. As a result, there is little of direct historical documentation and dating as would refer to in historical material in the poems.

Senanu and Vincent in their anthology entitled: Selection of African Poetry (1976) suggest the divisions into generations from the pioneering phase to the contemporary. Those who started to write poetry in the written way are called the pioneers. Their works are more of apprentice literature. This group include Dennis Odadebay of Nigeria, H.I.E. Dlomo and Bendict Wallet of South Africa, Michael Dei Anang, Gladys Casely-Hayford and R.E.G. Armottoe of Ghana. These poets approved colonialism without reservation. Osadebay’s “Young Africa Thanks” ignored loss of indigenous culture, forced labour of natives, unfair taxes, siphoning of natural resources and suppression of local freedom. This group was generally preoccupied with themes of race, Christianity and heroism and was influenced by missionary hymn books, the Bible, Greco-Roman allusions and mimicry of Victorian diction. While the ones already listed are poems of English extraction when we include the Negritude poems of the French extraction, and that of Portuguese extractions which were written much later,

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we shall have a solid period of 20 years of poetry writing i.e. 1931-1943. It is this period that is referred to as the pioneering phase of written Africa poetry.

3.2.1 Long, Long Have You Held

This is a poem by Léopold Sédar Senghor of French extraction.

Long, long have you held between your hands the black face of the warrior

Held as if already there fell on it a twilight of death.

From the hill I have seen the sun set in the bays of your eyes.

When shall I see again, mu country, the pure horizon of your breast?

Hidden in the half-darkness, the next of gentle words.

I shall see other skies and other eyes

I shall drink at the spring of other mouths cooler than lemons

I shall sleep under the roof of other heads of hair in shelter from storms But every year, when the rum of springtime sets my memory ablaze, I shall be full of regret for my homeland and the rain from your eyes on the thirsty Savannahs. (Senanu 2001:65)

3.2.2 Night

Agostinho Neto’s “Night” best illustrates the Lusophone pattern from the Portuguese type.

I live

In the dark quarters of the world Without light, without life They are slave quarters Worlds of misery.

Dark quarters where the will is watered down.

And men have been confused With things.

Anxious to live, I walk in the streets Feeling my way

Leaning into my shapeless dreams Stumbling into servitude.

I walk lurching

Through the unlit unknown streets crowded With mystery and terror,

I arm in arm with ghosts,

And the night too is dark. (Senanu 2001:80)

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You should note the ambivalent target of its protest: both oppressors and their victims.

This surrounds the use of “walk” to describe the only living activity of the speaker.

Although the poem begins by refereeing to “dark quarters of the world”, the rest of the poem gives a specific character to the speaker’s situation. The vague references as well as the specific location are very important for the total effect of the poem.

However, the second phase of written African poetry came of age at the end of colonialism in the late 1950s and 1960s. The poetry of this period condemned colonialism and was characterized by freshness of imagery, innovative use of language, utilization of the African experience in a personal way, and established the cannon of the written African poetry. The poets were educated, mostly taught by Europeans in African universities and very much aware of literature as an art form. Poets like Senghor and Okara expressed historical grievance against slavery and colonialism as demonstrated in racial /culture conflict of African versus European, identity issues as in negritude and African personality.

These poets lived in a period of transition, so they expressed their unease with the new ways, as in Pbitek’s Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol. These poets wrote in one voice for all Africans, acted as defenders of all Africa against denigration and as a result of education, important elements of the Western structure of mind were integrated in their works. The use of individual and universal experiences as Mtshali, Nwosu, Senghor, Soyinka and Clark is characteristics of their poems. These poets were influenced by the writtenists’ use of language: paradox, irony, allusiveness and difficulty/obscurity. Hence, intertextuality and acute sense of craft in Dennis Brutus, Okigbo, Clark and Soyinka. This is ironical as they used Western writtenist techniques while advocating African culture.

The third generation is made up of the new poets who came of age from the mid-1970s, a period characterized by declining economies due to energy crisis, civil wars, military coups, apartheid, civilian /military dictatorships, and other forms of social, economic and political instability. Some examples of these poets include Mapanje, Ojaide, and Osundare who were highly educated and exposed. They see themselves as agents of change –attacking corruption, injustice, and economic mismanagement. In their writing is a growing rebelliousness –anti-establishment and anti-status quo. The women in particular write about their private lives and individual experiences, their bodies and sex. This group of poets attached so much importance to communicating a message; so, the poets use simple language i.e., the syntax of prose as in African oral tradition and loosening of form in the use of Pidgin English and colloquialisms. This phase is often criticized for ignoring craft at the expense of urgent meaning and differs from the first phase in the use of repetition for emphasis, not just for music, as in Okigbo.

The more recent period is characterized by military /civilian dictatorships, religious/ethnic violence, political thuggery, energy crisis, corruption, misrule, unemployment, god-fatherism, human trafficking and terrorism. These are issues that made available themes for poets to address. Poets like Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide, Kofi Anyidoho, Jared Angira, Funso Ayejina, and Cyl-Cheney Cooker, feature prominently. Niyi Osundare and Funso Ayejina particularly have shown a firmer grasp

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of the contemporary situation through the intensity of their understanding of traditional aesthetics.

Written African poets of these phases created a clear difference from their European counterpart by shedding of conventions like rhyme, alliteration and assonance for traditional forms like dirges, abuse, praise songs, proverbs, axioms and folklore.

This gives birth to national literatures; thus, we have Nigerian, Kenyan, South African, Ugandan and Zimbabwe.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

Discuss the historical background to written African poetry.