literatureandpoetry

A far cry from Africa – Derek Walcott

A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:
"Waste no compassion on these separate dead!"
Statistics justify and scholars seize
The salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews?

Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
In a white dust of ibises whose cries
Have wheeled since civilization's dawn
From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
The violence of beast on beast is read
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,
While he calls courage still that native dread
Of the white peace contracted by the dead.

Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?

"And if all I know how to do is speak, it is for you that I shall speak. My lips shall speak for miseries that have no mouth, my voice shall be the liberty of those who languish in the dungeon of despair… And above all my body as well as my soul, beware of folding your arms in the sterile attitude of spectator, for life is not a spectacle, for a sea of pain is not a proscenium."

"there was a heightened perception that the identity of the nation-state was in a substantial way bound-up with its grander imperial identity" ~ Robert Young

Postcolonial Banter is Suhaiymah’s debut collection. It features some of her most well-known and widely performed poems as well as some never-seen-before material. Her words are a disruption of comfort, a call to action, a redistribution of knowledge and an outpouring of dissent.

Whilst enraged and devastated by the world she finds herself in, in many ways that world is also the normalized and everyday reality of her life. Hence, whilst political and complex in nature, her poetry is also just the reality of life for her and others like her. Life in a world where structural violence is rife makes it a shared knowledge, and sometimes, when possible, that shared knowledge is the subversive in-joke, the bonding glance of solidarity, or the passing nod of affection used by those who know it to survive those structures themselves. This collection is first and foremostly for them.

Ranging from critiquing racism, systemic Islamophobia, the function of the nation-state and rejecting secularist visions of identity, to reflecting on the difficulty of writing and penning responses to conversations she wishes she’d had; Suhaiymah’s debut collection is ready and raring to enter the world. الله أكبر

DUTCH POETRY
- HABITUS, RADNA FABIAS

The voice of Habitus is contemplative yet subversive, critically and boldly exploring issues like origin, identity, and the body. In the last part of the collection, the poet introduces a migrant character (Fabias calls her a ballotant, meaning a prospective member) and thus convincingly depicts the general Dutch approach to migrants in a way that is as critical as it is ironic.

Fabias’ voice makes use of all possible poetic space. Some of her poems are prose and part of a series, others are short. Within the poems there is great variety as well: an ultra-short line can be followed by one that almost spills over the margins. Some poems are clear and precise, others experimental and conceptual. This lyrical variety gives the collection extra layers of meaning, boosting Fabias’ wavering between worlds and her exploration of identity and destination.

The strong poem “gieser wildeman” addresses femininity and role of women. With its constant repetitions, insistent rhythm, and ironic humor, this sure-to-be classic poem will inevitably stick in your memory:

the gieser wildeman is a stewing pear
I am a woman
[…]
a man is no hobby
a man is no hobby
a man is no hobby

a man is no punishment
a man is no throne to sit on cross-legged like a lady
I am no lady
I am a woman

For Habitus Radna Fabias has been awarded The Grand Poetry Prize 2019 .

© Feline Streekstra (Translated by Florian Duijsens ) Poetry international - https://www.poetryinternational.org/pi/poet/29583/Radna-Fabias/en/tile

‘Two different religions, two different continents, both filling the heart with the pain that is joy’
Derek Walcott is a Caribbean poet and playwright who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992 for his poetry. His poetry relates his own hybrid existence due to his mixed European and African ancestry. His heart filled with pain which relates to the pain experienced due to his fragmented identity. This is explored further in the ‘A far Cry from Africa.’ This poem explores the idea that both European and Kenyan were responsible for the bloodshed and hence he cannot decide who he is. At the same time, he is critical of colonial discourse that is extremely present in the laws and stereotypes that justified the killing of the Kenyan people. Walcott confronts the psychological conflict of not really belonging to both the European and African ancestry but never answers the paradoxes in his identity that remain past this conflict.
08/05/2020 – Group 2