Lusophone poetry and the quest for liberation

The emotive and combative nature of Lusophone poetry, goes beyond ideological theorising, which find favour in Thomas S. Bvuma and Dambudzo Marechera in the poems “The Real Poetry” and “In Jail the only Telephone is the Washbasin Hole: Blow and we Will He

ALTHOUGH protest takes many forms, which makes it necessary for the African poet to capture as much his/her history of suffering, subjugation, displacement and alienation as a result of slavery and colonisation, it is not entirely true to say that his/ her preoccupation is protest, since he/ she also has to harness the joys, thrills and aspirations of his/her people.

The African poet, as will be discussed using Lusophone poets Agostinho Neto, Noemia de Sousa, and Marcelino dos Santos, faces the unenviable contradiction of time and place, which makes it imperative for him/her to shift ideological bases to effectively capture the prevailing events in his/her time because he/she cannot help being a philosopher and a town-crier at the same time, as Franz Fanon posits in “The Wretched of the Earth” (1967).

The poet in the African worldview plays a plethora of roles, which makes it possible for him to identify with his people through articulation of the cultural mores and values that shape his or her society through language.

African philosophers like Chinua Achebe, Ngugi waThiong’o, Okot p’Bitek and Chinweizu et al, though perching on different branches of the same tree, are in agreement that the African artist plays a significant role in mapping out the destiny of his/her society, therefore, to him/her form ceases to be a preoccupation, but rather an unconscious endgame in his/her battle with the oppressive machinations of slavery, imperialism and colonialism; which he/she can only fight through content, for “the artist’s feeling is his law”, (Casper David Friedrich).

According to Fanon (1967), the African artist cannot entirely abandon (or purport to grow out of) the contradictions of colonial education inculcated in him, because of its subtle nature, but he should go beyond it to instil a sense of combat in his people.

Fanon (1967:193) writes: “The continued cohesion of the people constitutes for the intellectual an invitation to go farther than his cry of protest. The lament first makes the indictment; then it makes an appeal. In the period that follows, the words of command are heard.

“The crystallisation of the national consciousness will both disrupt literary styles and themes, and also create a completely new public.”

A “completely new public”, indeed and a completely new audience, hence, he/she has to go beyond individual limitations.

Slavery, colonialism or segregation are evils that the African poet cannot wish way, or pretend that they never happened, hence, he/she cannot avoid expressing “a degree of objective realism”, through “an appeal to the history, sufferings and struggles of the people,” (Ngara, 1990: 108).

The emotive and combative nature of Lusophone poetry, goes beyond ideological theorising, which find favour in Thomas S. Bvuma and Dambudzo Marechera in the poems “The Real Poetry” and “In Jail the only Telephone is the Washbasin Hole: Blow and we Will Hear”, respectively.

To Bvuma: “The real poetry/Was carved across centuries/Of chains and whips/It was written in the red streams/ Resisting the violence of ‘Effective Occupation’. . . Its beat was bones in Bissau/Its metaphors massacres in Mozambique/Its alliteration agony in Angola/Its form and zenith/Fighting in Zimbabwe,” (“The Real Poetry” in “Every Stone That Turns”, 1997).

It is, indeed, “the pain and pleasure/ Of a people in struggle”, (Bvuma, 1997), hence, to reduce that to contrived formalism, as Formalists like Fish, Robert Frost (1930) and Jacobson (1916) advocate, is rather atrocious because the history of suffering cannot be articulated through “classroom lectures”, or “from the rhyme & reason of England/ Nor the Israeli chant that stutters bullets against Palestinians,” (Marechera).

The people’s poet, therefore, should write: “about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out,” (Cesaire, 1994:21); because he/she functions as the custodian of the mores and values that inspire societal aspirations, thus, he/she cannot avoid the protest tag.

Agostinho Neto’s poetry, like that of Antonio Jacinto, Marcelino dos Santos and Noemia de Sousa, reflects the history of resistance in Angola spearheaded by the People’s Movement for the liberation of Angola (MPLA), in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde under Party for Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) and Mozambique under the tutelage of Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO).

Although his earlier poems, especially “The Blood and the Seed”, expose an intellectual alienation, bordering on unassailable revolutionary rhetoric, Neto combatively shifts with the tide in protest in “February”, “Contract workers”, and “Hoisting the flag”.

It is imperative here to follow Fanon’s train of thought, in putting Neto’s poetry in context, not merely as liberation poetry, but as a record of the events prevailing at the time.

Theory precedes action, which makes the poem “The Blood and Seed”, evocative and thought provoking.

The poem strikes chords with David Diop’s “Africa” and Noemia de Sousa’s “Black Blood”, not so much in their obtrusive way as Ngara (1990) puts it, but putting into context the reasons for combat, without necessarily being overt, since the colonial censorship machinery was ever oiled.

Imagery and metaphors become a rallying point as Neto makes effective use of “cries”, “voices”, “drums” and “hymns”, in “The Blood and the Seed”, as is illustrated in the following lines: “Our cries/are drums heralding desire/in the tumultuous voices, music of nations/our cries are hymns of love that hearts/might flourish on the earth like seeds in the sun/the cries of Africa/ cries of mornings when the dead grew from the seas/chained/the blood and the seed.”

There may be an aspect of idealism, inclined towards Formalism, which appears to be divorced from concrete action, but protest is inferred through a revisit to the seas of slavery where the seed of protest is soaked in blood.

The “cries” merge with the “drums” of a yearning hope to erupt in “tumultuous voices” reflective of revolt, which in the end brings joy or “music” to “nations”. The revolutionary consciousness is inculcated through the cries that stir “desire” for nationhood, patriotism, historical awareness and hope.

This rather theoretical grounding for combat also obtains in Noemia de Sousa’s poem “Black Blood” which has the trappings of Leopold Senghor’s “Black Woman”, only different in its effective use of irony; as is illuminated in the following lines: “Oh my mother Africa/ Great pagan, sensual slave/mystic, charmed/to your transgressing daughter/Give forgiveness.”