Günter Grass e a Poesia Angolana Contemporanea…

O que teem em comum?
Aparentemente, nada.
Mas…  

"Um dos nobres objectivos da Bienal Internacional de Poesia é o de legitimar, no sentido pedagógico, a história da poesia angolana, consubstanciada na produção dos seus mais dignos poetas, invertendo a tendência de um certo tipo de criação, de pendor subversivo, que desrespeita o bom nome das instituições angolanas."

Essa declaracao do “manifesto oficial” dos organizadores da primeira Bienal Internacional de Poesia que hoje termina em Luanda parece ter algo “a ver” com esta polemica gerada a volta de um poema recentemente publicado pelo Nobel da Literatura Alemao Günter Grass, tambem autor do livro em que se baseou um ‘tremendo’ filme que vi em Luanda naqueles tempos que aqui recordava: O Tambor.

O poema, entitulado “O que tem que ser dito”, constitui uma critica contundente ao estado de Israel, com particular enfase na sua politica nuclear. Tal “atrevimento” valeu-lhe uma onda de criticas por entre algumas salvas e a sua declaracao pelo Estado de Israel como “persona non grata” no seu territorio por, alegadamente, o poema ser algo como “de pendor subversivo e desrespeitador do bom nome das instituicoes israelitas”…

Isso do ponto de vista politico. Do ponto de vista estritamente literario, houve quem o declarasse “indigno” da sua obra anterior, tendo um proeminente critico literario afirmado “nao ter a certeza de se um texto sem rima nem ritmo pode ser considerado um poema”…

Enfim, materia para alguma reflexao…
Ou talvez apenas para algumas piadas de mau gosto, por entre umas boas 'pomadas' de alem-mar, ao som e vista de algumas escutas e vigias, enquanto se conjuram mais algumas "medidas de caracter profilatico" (pedagogico?), depois do funge de domingo...


[Poema que "nao tem nada a ver": Terra Queimada]

Post (nao) Relacionado:

Gostei de Ler (?) ... [3] 

O que teem em comum?
Aparentemente, nada.
Mas…  

"Um dos nobres objectivos da Bienal Internacional de Poesia é o de legitimar, no sentido pedagógico, a história da poesia angolana, consubstanciada na produção dos seus mais dignos poetas, invertendo a tendência de um certo tipo de criação, de pendor subversivo, que desrespeita o bom nome das instituições angolanas."

Essa declaracao do “manifesto oficial” dos organizadores da primeira Bienal Internacional de Poesia que hoje termina em Luanda parece ter algo “a ver” com esta polemica gerada a volta de um poema recentemente publicado pelo Nobel da Literatura Alemao Günter Grass, tambem autor do livro em que se baseou um ‘tremendo’ filme que vi em Luanda naqueles tempos que aqui recordava: O Tambor.

O poema, entitulado “O que tem que ser dito”, constitui uma critica contundente ao estado de Israel, com particular enfase na sua politica nuclear. Tal “atrevimento” valeu-lhe uma onda de criticas por entre algumas salvas e a sua declaracao pelo Estado de Israel como “persona non grata” no seu territorio por, alegadamente, o poema ser algo como “de pendor subversivo e desrespeitador do bom nome das instituicoes israelitas”…

Isso do ponto de vista politico. Do ponto de vista estritamente literario, houve quem o declarasse “indigno” da sua obra anterior, tendo um proeminente critico literario afirmado “nao ter a certeza de se um texto sem rima nem ritmo pode ser considerado um poema”…

Enfim, materia para alguma reflexao…
Ou talvez apenas para algumas piadas de mau gosto, por entre umas boas 'pomadas' de alem-mar, ao som e vista de algumas escutas e vigias, enquanto se conjuram mais algumas "medidas de caracter profilatico" (pedagogico?), depois do funge de domingo...


[Poema que "nao tem nada a ver": Terra Queimada]

Post (nao) Relacionado:

Gostei de Ler (?) ... [3] 

Vaclav Havel (R.I.P.)

O Presidente Poeta

O Presidente Poeta

LOVE AND LIBERATION

Sonia Sanchez's Literary Uses of Personal Pain


"To love is to express our humanity, but love cannot exist in a vacuum nor can love flower in the dirt of racism, capitalism and sexism. Time and time again, as Sanchez's personal pain bears witness, we find that all our attempts at love are twisted by systemic exploitation and oppression that deform our psyches and personalities, especially the male psyche. If we are to achieve love, we must fight for liberation."


By Kalamu ya Salaam


Although Sonia Sanchez has been publishing since the mid-sixties, there has been no diminishing of her poetic powers as she has aged; in fact, the exact opposite is the case--the poetry in her first book, Homecoming (1969), is no match for the brilliance of homegirls & handgrenades (1984) and is but a flicker when compared to the incandescent intensity of Wounded in the House of a Friend (1995). Rather than a brief candle who burned lyrically for a few years and then immolated herself in either self-destructive behavior or a selling-out of her talents to produce pap in exchange for momentary popularity and/or pecuniary reward, Sanchez instead has been a consistently blossoming beacon, ever shinning and in fact glowing brighter and brighter, while lesser lights dimmed around her. Like Langston Hughes and fine wines, over the years turned to decades, Sanchez ripened and matured rather than atrophied and lost potency.


But her's has been a hard won consistency. Life for Sanchez has been no crystal stair, particularly in her attempts to actualize a stable woman/man relationship. She has slipped and been tripped, fallen down and sometimes briefly been turned around, but she has never quit, never stopped climbing. Sanchez has, with a minimum of whining and with a courageousness and feistiness inversely proportioned to her diminutive body build, demonstrated a remarkable staying power, an archetypal persistence in embodying the advice the old folks constantly admonished: you just got to keep on keeping on--to keep on going despite whatever hardships and disappointments you suffer in your personal life.
Sonia Sanchez's keeping on has produced a body of work terrible in its honesty about the joys and pains of her personal life as well as profound in the relevance that the lessons drawn from Sanchez's bittersweet years impart to us. Chief among those lessons is a constant refutation of internalized oppression. While there is both greatness and suffering in Sanchez's work, there is no tragedy in the classic sense of the individual suffering because of an alleged fatal flaw in their makeup. As Sanchez sagaciously points out, the majority of our suffering is because of man's inhumanity to man--more specifically, Whites' historic inhumanity to people of color and men's general inhumanity to women.

Although a philosophical investigation of the relationship between suffering and art as illustrated by the work of Sonia Sanchez would be of major interest, my purpose here is much more specific. I intend to review Sonia Sanchez's creative use of the personal pain which resulted from her attempts to actualize long term, intimate female/male relationships. Simultaneously, I will suggest how Sanchez's work and the attitudes expressed In her work mirror what I propose are tenets of a dialectical African-American, African-derived life philosophy/worldview. I will also ascribe to her creative prose a privileged position in both Sanchez's own body of work as well as within the context of 20th century American literature as a whole.

[...]

In Homecoming, Sanchez's poetic debut, amid fanged poetry which snarls at and attempts to bite the alabaster hand of racism, there are also the first inklings that Sanchez's concern is with gender issues as well as race matters. The book ends with the short poem "personal letter no.2," a gem of unsentimental self-definition:


but I am what I
am. woman. alone
amid all this noise.
[H 32]


[...]

The norm of poetry about personal relationships is a romanticizing of the desire for and the struggle to achieve fulfilling intimate unions. But rather than an ingenue cooing romantic pop tunes in search of Mr. Right, Sanchez is a classic blues diva shouting away her blues and concluding that what she really needs is to be in control of herself and her social relations:

i've been two men's fool. a coupla black organization's fool. if ima gonna be anyone else's fool let me be my own fool for awhile,
[USS 99]

This self-assertive, self-affirmative blues-based outlook informs the bulk of Sanchez's personal poetry. Yet as potent as Sanchez's poetry is, there is another aspect of her work which supersedes her poetic achievements.

[...]

By citing her own situations and wrestlings, Sanchez challenges us not only to admit we suffer, she also challenges us to move beyond suffering. She challenges us not with lofty appeals to ideals but rather by pain filled sharings and by identification with the wounds of others, even identification with self-inflicted wounds. Thus, we now come full circle to understand that liberation and love go hand in hand: we need love to be truly human and without liberation (and the struggle to attain and maintain liberation) we are prevented from consummating true love.

To love is to express our humanity, but love cannot exist in a vacuum nor can love flower in the dirt of racism, capitalism and sexism. Time and time again, as Sanchez's personal pain bears witness, we find that all our attempts at love are twisted by systemic exploitation and oppression that deform our psyches and personalities, especially the male psyche. If we are to achieve love, we must fight for liberation. That is the summation of Sanchez's creative use of personal pain. Sanchez's creative poetry and prose is not only physical evidence of an exemplary act of courage, her work is also, and more importantly, a significant contribution to the ongoing battle "to create a human world."
A luta continua--the struggle continues.


[Full essay here]





'Seemingly (un)related' posts:

Sobras

Sankofa

Terra Queimada

Epifania

De Sant'Ana da Muxima com Amor

Sonia Sanchez's Literary Uses of Personal Pain


"To love is to express our humanity, but love cannot exist in a vacuum nor can love flower in the dirt of racism, capitalism and sexism. Time and time again, as Sanchez's personal pain bears witness, we find that all our attempts at love are twisted by systemic exploitation and oppression that deform our psyches and personalities, especially the male psyche. If we are to achieve love, we must fight for liberation."


By Kalamu ya Salaam


Although Sonia Sanchez has been publishing since the mid-sixties, there has been no diminishing of her poetic powers as she has aged; in fact, the exact opposite is the case--the poetry in her first book, Homecoming (1969), is no match for the brilliance of homegirls & handgrenades (1984) and is but a flicker when compared to the incandescent intensity of Wounded in the House of a Friend (1995). Rather than a brief candle who burned lyrically for a few years and then immolated herself in either self-destructive behavior or a selling-out of her talents to produce pap in exchange for momentary popularity and/or pecuniary reward, Sanchez instead has been a consistently blossoming beacon, ever shinning and in fact glowing brighter and brighter, while lesser lights dimmed around her. Like Langston Hughes and fine wines, over the years turned to decades, Sanchez ripened and matured rather than atrophied and lost potency.


But her's has been a hard won consistency. Life for Sanchez has been no crystal stair, particularly in her attempts to actualize a stable woman/man relationship. She has slipped and been tripped, fallen down and sometimes briefly been turned around, but she has never quit, never stopped climbing. Sanchez has, with a minimum of whining and with a courageousness and feistiness inversely proportioned to her diminutive body build, demonstrated a remarkable staying power, an archetypal persistence in embodying the advice the old folks constantly admonished: you just got to keep on keeping on--to keep on going despite whatever hardships and disappointments you suffer in your personal life.
Sonia Sanchez's keeping on has produced a body of work terrible in its honesty about the joys and pains of her personal life as well as profound in the relevance that the lessons drawn from Sanchez's bittersweet years impart to us. Chief among those lessons is a constant refutation of internalized oppression. While there is both greatness and suffering in Sanchez's work, there is no tragedy in the classic sense of the individual suffering because of an alleged fatal flaw in their makeup. As Sanchez sagaciously points out, the majority of our suffering is because of man's inhumanity to man--more specifically, Whites' historic inhumanity to people of color and men's general inhumanity to women.

Although a philosophical investigation of the relationship between suffering and art as illustrated by the work of Sonia Sanchez would be of major interest, my purpose here is much more specific. I intend to review Sonia Sanchez's creative use of the personal pain which resulted from her attempts to actualize long term, intimate female/male relationships. Simultaneously, I will suggest how Sanchez's work and the attitudes expressed In her work mirror what I propose are tenets of a dialectical African-American, African-derived life philosophy/worldview. I will also ascribe to her creative prose a privileged position in both Sanchez's own body of work as well as within the context of 20th century American literature as a whole.

[...]

In Homecoming, Sanchez's poetic debut, amid fanged poetry which snarls at and attempts to bite the alabaster hand of racism, there are also the first inklings that Sanchez's concern is with gender issues as well as race matters. The book ends with the short poem "personal letter no.2," a gem of unsentimental self-definition:


but I am what I
am. woman. alone
amid all this noise.
[H 32]


[...]

The norm of poetry about personal relationships is a romanticizing of the desire for and the struggle to achieve fulfilling intimate unions. But rather than an ingenue cooing romantic pop tunes in search of Mr. Right, Sanchez is a classic blues diva shouting away her blues and concluding that what she really needs is to be in control of herself and her social relations:

i've been two men's fool. a coupla black organization's fool. if ima gonna be anyone else's fool let me be my own fool for awhile,
[USS 99]

This self-assertive, self-affirmative blues-based outlook informs the bulk of Sanchez's personal poetry. Yet as potent as Sanchez's poetry is, there is another aspect of her work which supersedes her poetic achievements.

[...]

By citing her own situations and wrestlings, Sanchez challenges us not only to admit we suffer, she also challenges us to move beyond suffering. She challenges us not with lofty appeals to ideals but rather by pain filled sharings and by identification with the wounds of others, even identification with self-inflicted wounds. Thus, we now come full circle to understand that liberation and love go hand in hand: we need love to be truly human and without liberation (and the struggle to attain and maintain liberation) we are prevented from consummating true love.

To love is to express our humanity, but love cannot exist in a vacuum nor can love flower in the dirt of racism, capitalism and sexism. Time and time again, as Sanchez's personal pain bears witness, we find that all our attempts at love are twisted by systemic exploitation and oppression that deform our psyches and personalities, especially the male psyche. If we are to achieve love, we must fight for liberation. That is the summation of Sanchez's creative use of personal pain. Sanchez's creative poetry and prose is not only physical evidence of an exemplary act of courage, her work is also, and more importantly, a significant contribution to the ongoing battle "to create a human world."
A luta continua--the struggle continues.


[Full essay here]





'Seemingly (un)related' posts:

Sobras

Sankofa

Terra Queimada

Epifania

De Sant'Ana da Muxima com Amor

“Bantuismos na construção poética de Agostinho Neto”

O discurso poético de António Agostinho Neto foi largamente influenciado por uma série de “bantuísmos” como forma propositada de marcar a identidade bantu na poesia, numa sociedade colonial em que tal civilização era rejeitada.

A afirmação pertence ao historiador Simão Souinduila, consultor do Centro Internacional das Civilizações Bantu, quando comentava hoje, na União dos Escritores Angolanos (UEA), em Luanda, sobre o tema “Bantuismos na construção poética de Agostinho Neto”.

Souindoula, que é igualmente perito do Fundo da Nações Unidas para Educação, Ciência e Cultura (Unesco), considerou “muito influenciada, a poesia de Neto, no idioma materno (Kimbundo), o que levou que pouco depois da independência nacional, tomasse como algumas das suas principais decisões de cunho cultural a adopção do acordo sobre o estudo e valorização das línguas nacionais e a criação da UEA e consecutiva eleição dos corpos gerentes.

Disse que o “bantuismo” de Agostinho Neto reflectido de diversas formas, em língua materna kimbundo, representa um conjunto de vocábulos com sistema de concordância com línguas de países da África Central.

No caso específico de Angola, disse que o poeta Neto inculcava nas obras termos como “Kitanda”, “Kalunga”, “Mussunda”, “Kinaxixi”, “Ingombota” e “Kitandeira”, “cubata”, “Musekes”, entre vários outros.

Apontou como um dos exemplos de “pura influência bantu” a palavra Kitanda que, em Umbundo recebe um prefixo, chamando-se “Otchitanda”.

“Neto não estava preocupado a escrever para os timorenses e cabo-verdianos (não são bantu). A sua intenção era dar ênfase à sua civilização, por meio da poesia”, defendeu o perito da UNESCO, para quem, “se quisesse, Agostinho Neto teria feito poesia em linguagem clássica”.

Referiu ainda a introdução do “K” e “W” na escrita da moeda nacional, o Kwanza, ao contrário de “Cuanza”, como uma decisão histórico-cultural, que terá contribuído para introdução no alfabeto da língua de Camões (português), das consoantes “k”, “y” e “w”.

“Agostinho Neto deixa uma poesia platónica, de leitura legível (não obriga ao leitor recorrer ao dicionário para perceber o lê), uma obra que serviu de balizas e orientação para o nacionalismo angolano”, frisou Simão Souindoula, que reconhece a dimensão cultural e social da sua poesia como sendo provocatória para o regime da época.


[Aqui]


Post Relacionado:

No Dia do Heroi Nacional

O discurso poético de António Agostinho Neto foi largamente influenciado por uma série de “bantuísmos” como forma propositada de marcar a identidade bantu na poesia, numa sociedade colonial em que tal civilização era rejeitada.

A afirmação pertence ao historiador Simão Souinduila, consultor do Centro Internacional das Civilizações Bantu, quando comentava hoje, na União dos Escritores Angolanos (UEA), em Luanda, sobre o tema “Bantuismos na construção poética de Agostinho Neto”.

Souindoula, que é igualmente perito do Fundo da Nações Unidas para Educação, Ciência e Cultura (Unesco), considerou “muito influenciada, a poesia de Neto, no idioma materno (Kimbundo), o que levou que pouco depois da independência nacional, tomasse como algumas das suas principais decisões de cunho cultural a adopção do acordo sobre o estudo e valorização das línguas nacionais e a criação da UEA e consecutiva eleição dos corpos gerentes.

Disse que o “bantuismo” de Agostinho Neto reflectido de diversas formas, em língua materna kimbundo, representa um conjunto de vocábulos com sistema de concordância com línguas de países da África Central.

No caso específico de Angola, disse que o poeta Neto inculcava nas obras termos como “Kitanda”, “Kalunga”, “Mussunda”, “Kinaxixi”, “Ingombota” e “Kitandeira”, “cubata”, “Musekes”, entre vários outros.

Apontou como um dos exemplos de “pura influência bantu” a palavra Kitanda que, em Umbundo recebe um prefixo, chamando-se “Otchitanda”.

“Neto não estava preocupado a escrever para os timorenses e cabo-verdianos (não são bantu). A sua intenção era dar ênfase à sua civilização, por meio da poesia”, defendeu o perito da UNESCO, para quem, “se quisesse, Agostinho Neto teria feito poesia em linguagem clássica”.

Referiu ainda a introdução do “K” e “W” na escrita da moeda nacional, o Kwanza, ao contrário de “Cuanza”, como uma decisão histórico-cultural, que terá contribuído para introdução no alfabeto da língua de Camões (português), das consoantes “k”, “y” e “w”.

“Agostinho Neto deixa uma poesia platónica, de leitura legível (não obriga ao leitor recorrer ao dicionário para perceber o lê), uma obra que serviu de balizas e orientação para o nacionalismo angolano”, frisou Simão Souindoula, que reconhece a dimensão cultural e social da sua poesia como sendo provocatória para o regime da época.


[Aqui]


Post Relacionado:

No Dia do Heroi Nacional

Art, Music & Poetry

[The Old Guitarist by Pablo Picasso]


The Man with the Blue Guitar


I

The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."

The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."

And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."

[The Blue Guitar by Edward Reep]

II

I cannot bring a world quite round,
Although I patch it as I can.

I sing a hero's head, large eye
And bearded bronze, but not a man,

Although I patch him as I can
And reach through him almost to man.

If to serenade almost to man
Is to miss, by that, things as they are,

Say it is the serenade
Of a man that plays a blue guitar.

[Guitar, Woman, Snake by Bill Lewis]

III

Ah, but to play man number one,
To drive the dagger in his heart,

To lay his brain upon the board
And pick the acrid colors out,

To nail his thought across the door,
Its wings spread wide to rain and snow,

To strike his living hi and ho,
To tick it, tock it, turn it true,

To bang from it a savage blue,
Jangling the metal of the strings�


[More excerpts from this long poem by Wallace Stevens here. You can also listen to a special BBC3 Radio program dedicated to this poem and its music here]

[The Old Guitarist by Pablo Picasso]


The Man with the Blue Guitar


I

The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."

The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."

And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."

[The Blue Guitar by Edward Reep]

II

I cannot bring a world quite round,
Although I patch it as I can.

I sing a hero's head, large eye
And bearded bronze, but not a man,

Although I patch him as I can
And reach through him almost to man.

If to serenade almost to man
Is to miss, by that, things as they are,

Say it is the serenade
Of a man that plays a blue guitar.

[Guitar, Woman, Snake by Bill Lewis]

III

Ah, but to play man number one,
To drive the dagger in his heart,

To lay his brain upon the board
And pick the acrid colors out,

To nail his thought across the door,
Its wings spread wide to rain and snow,

To strike his living hi and ho,
To tick it, tock it, turn it true,

To bang from it a savage blue,
Jangling the metal of the strings�


[More excerpts from this long poem by Wallace Stevens here. You can also listen to a special BBC3 Radio program dedicated to this poem and its music here]

On Easter: Music & Poetry

"No African poet to date has so successfully registered the delights of discovering classical music. 'Into easter with Bach' is a thoughtful meditation on the Easter Oratorio, while 'Beethoven and Us' attempts, perhaps rather arbitrarily, to interpret Beethoven's life through his music. It is not Beethoven's mood which the poet discerns, however, but his own, since Mensah attributes to the German composer a fulfilment and a completeness in love he never knew. (...) Though the tone sometimes waxes over-philosophical, the reader is constantly buoyed up by Mensah's description of aural delights as one by one they assault the imagination:

Time for new music and new shapes
New colours of sound from voice to noise:
The one pure note's pirouette,
Its beauty showing through, in light;
The mixed notes, which overlapping,
Yield, for joy and sad reflection,
Wider, steep perspectives of the spirit.
[The Dark Wanderer]

The balance maintained in this description of baroque counterpoint between physical almost dizzying sensation and intellectual interpretation of musical structure is a delicate one, depending on a willingness to let feeling follow its course before the mind intervenes."


[Extract from 'Continuity and adaptation in Ghanaian verse: on the poetry of A.W. Kayper-Mensah' - West African Poetry, A Critical History by Robert Fraser]






[Mozart- Requiem Aeternam]

This Requiem was written for a mysterious patron who commissioned it anonymously. Mozart, by now in failing health, came to see the Requiem as an omen of his own death. He uses the Latin texts of the Roman Catholic mass, opening with this prayer that God will grant us eternal rest - Requiem aeternam. The introduction of a soaring soprano line is short lived and the formal, grave mood, is soon re-established.



[Mozart - Hostias]

The gentle melody of the Hostias - meaning sacrifice - is the last music Mozart composed. Accompanied by an arching orchestral line, the choir offers prayer and praise to God, in the hope that they will pass from death into eternal life. After Mozart's own death, the Requiem was completed by his friend and pupil, Süssmayr.

"No African poet to date has so successfully registered the delights of discovering classical music. 'Into easter with Bach' is a thoughtful meditation on the Easter Oratorio, while 'Beethoven and Us' attempts, perhaps rather arbitrarily, to interpret Beethoven's life through his music. It is not Beethoven's mood which the poet discerns, however, but his own, since Mensah attributes to the German composer a fulfilment and a completeness in love he never knew. (...) Though the tone sometimes waxes over-philosophical, the reader is constantly buoyed up by Mensah's description of aural delights as one by one they assault the imagination:

Time for new music and new shapes
New colours of sound from voice to noise:
The one pure note's pirouette,
Its beauty showing through, in light;
The mixed notes, which overlapping,
Yield, for joy and sad reflection,
Wider, steep perspectives of the spirit.
[The Dark Wanderer]

The balance maintained in this description of baroque counterpoint between physical almost dizzying sensation and intellectual interpretation of musical structure is a delicate one, depending on a willingness to let feeling follow its course before the mind intervenes."


[Extract from 'Continuity and adaptation in Ghanaian verse: on the poetry of A.W. Kayper-Mensah' - West African Poetry, A Critical History by Robert Fraser]






[Mozart- Requiem Aeternam]

This Requiem was written for a mysterious patron who commissioned it anonymously. Mozart, by now in failing health, came to see the Requiem as an omen of his own death. He uses the Latin texts of the Roman Catholic mass, opening with this prayer that God will grant us eternal rest - Requiem aeternam. The introduction of a soaring soprano line is short lived and the formal, grave mood, is soon re-established.



[Mozart - Hostias]

The gentle melody of the Hostias - meaning sacrifice - is the last music Mozart composed. Accompanied by an arching orchestral line, the choir offers prayer and praise to God, in the hope that they will pass from death into eternal life. After Mozart's own death, the Requiem was completed by his friend and pupil, Süssmayr.

Furiously Dancing with Alice Walker

Alice Walker is beloved for her ability to speak her own truth in ways that speak for and about countless others. Here she confronts personal and collective challenges in words that dance, sing, and heal. As Shiloh McCloud describes in her foreword, Walker's poems contain “the death of loved ones and the birth of new ideas, the sorrow of rejection and the deliciousness of love, the sweetness of home, familial abandonment, and what it means to belong to the greater world family.”

As Walker writes in her preface, the “empty” half of a glass holds “a rainbow that could exist only in the vacant space.” Musing on the role of dance, which gives this collection its title, she writes, “though we have encountered our share of grief and troubles on this earth, we can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat. No small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one.”


{Yet... she didn't go to 'classical ballet' school... or... precisely because of that!}

[More here]


Related posts:

Sunday Dreads

Jacarandas de Lisboa

E Por Falar em Cinema

Alice Walker is beloved for her ability to speak her own truth in ways that speak for and about countless others. Here she confronts personal and collective challenges in words that dance, sing, and heal. As Shiloh McCloud describes in her foreword, Walker's poems contain “the death of loved ones and the birth of new ideas, the sorrow of rejection and the deliciousness of love, the sweetness of home, familial abandonment, and what it means to belong to the greater world family.”

As Walker writes in her preface, the “empty” half of a glass holds “a rainbow that could exist only in the vacant space.” Musing on the role of dance, which gives this collection its title, she writes, “though we have encountered our share of grief and troubles on this earth, we can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat. No small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one.”


{Yet... she didn't go to 'classical ballet' school... or... precisely because of that!}

[More here]


Related posts:

Sunday Dreads

Jacarandas de Lisboa

E Por Falar em Cinema

Black History Month

October has just passed and with it Black History Month in Britain. Numerous events took place in London and other places where Black and African history and heritage throughout the world are celebrated during the month. I have attended three of such events at one of my local libraries:

- A talk by Daniel Kaluuya, a British born Ugandan who is an up and coming actor and writer best known for playing Posh Kenneth in the E4 teen-drama Skins. Daniel also had huge success earlier this year as Leon in Roy Williams’ Sucker Punch at the Royal Court Theatre.

I regret arriving late to Daniel's talk and having to leave early but got the impression that he is a promising talent whose career is worth following.



- A lecture by Sly Quarcoopome, a Ghanaian, poet and lecturer in Criminal Law/Psychology and Criminology, who read his poetry on the trials and tribulations of African consciousness.

Sly dedicated a special reflection on the experience of his home country, Ghana, Africa's first independent nation and the fate of its first leader, the Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, the author of Consciencism, with his democratic election and then overthrow by a CIA-sponsored coup d'etat. An experience replicated elsewhere on the continent throughout the 60's, which Sly, who presented himself as "an aspiring poet", put into these verses:

African Holocaust

From centuries of Slavery to Colonialism
From Stealing of
Gold to Diamonds
From Massacres to Genocides
From Imperialism to Modern Day Slavery
From Single Party to Multi-party Systems
From Divide & Rule to CIA & MI5 Coup-de-tats
From Dictatorships to Tribalism
From Corruption to Nepotism
From Religious Strives to North & South Divide
From Democracy to Dem-All-Crazy!!!

He also talked extensively about Africa's plight - from the continent's 'discovery' to what he termed 'modern day slavery' of Africans, both at home and in the diaspora, as well as the downtrodden of all nations and origins, with an emphasis on the differential impacts of the current economic crisis in society, especially in Britain. All this he conveyed in this poem inspired on Bob Marley's song of the same title, which was in turn inspired on a speech by Haile Selassie:

WAR!!!

Until the philosophy
This labels some
First World
And others, Third World
There's gonna be WAR!

Until the political tendencies
To name some nations
Under-developing
And others
Developed
There's gonna be WAR!

Until the shenanigans
That some are civilised
Due to richness
And others
Uncivilised n Barbaric
Due to poverty
There's gonna be WAR!

Until all legitimate
Freedom Fighters
Dis-labelled as Terrirists
There's gonna be WAR!

War in the North
War down South
War left side - East
War right side - West
War all over the bleeding place!

War down Wall Street
War up Capitol Hill
War down Parliament Square
War around the White House
War even in the shooters alley
War all over the bloody place.

Sly also had a word on women's discrimination throughout Africa. One particular statement he made that comes to mind was that "if a man is a wife abuser and keeps a lodger, sooner or later that lodger will also start abusing that woman and when a woman is abused in all likelihood she will also become an abuser, particularly towards her children, spawning a vicious cycle of crime and violence in society."

That is something one can observe in societies like the Angolan where, even recently, at least eight women were reported as victims of rape every day in the capital city, Luanda, while child abuse, including sexual, is rampant throughout the country and specially in provinces like Huila. And this sort of violence against women and children is then aped by foreigners in the country – something that my own recent experience in the lusosphere and with some Angolan media circles, even if not direct or physical, can serve as an example…

At the end of his well structured and presented lecture, I intervened just to add some cases to those Sly had mentioned, namely the equally CIA-sponsored overthrow of Lumumba in the Congo Zaire (now DRC) and the recent death (killing!) of Jimmy Mubenga. I also called attention to the need, especially in this year of celebration of the 'African Jubilee', to widen the scope of our reflections and discussions from what others have inflicted upon Africa and Africans throughout History to what we Africans have been inflicting upon ourselves and on the land of our ancestors. In this regard, I gave the specific exemple of the May 27th 1977 'holocaust' in Angola which left thousands of people dead, disappeared, emprisoned, mentally handicapped or psychologically disturbed...
Another example that can be given in that vein is the pogrom known as the Sexta Feira Sangrenta against the Bakongo in Luanda, on January 22nd 1993.

- A presentation by Chinwe Azubuike, a female contemporary voice from Africa, born in Lagos, Nigeria, who describes herself as a spokeswoman for Nigeria’s deprived class.

This last one was that which touched me the most, not least because it was protagonised by a woman. Throughout the presentation of her campaign denouncing violence against women, specifically against widows in Nigeria, and the performance of some of her poems, I was moved almost to tears at times.

There I was sitting in front of this short, slim, yet strong young lady who, with her short-cut hair - which reminded me of exactly how I used to wear mine (... for that I would either go to a barber's shop or cut it myself, and sometimes my late partner, who also liked it very much that way, would cut it for me...) when I was about her age and had also just published my humble first, and so far only, book of poems - holding all my attention and emotions, between the gravity and tension of the subjects she is dealing with and the distension and pleasure of a frank smile conveying to her audience the idea that suffering and healing are facts of life: the first being inflicted upon us by others (and sometimes by ourselves), the second being brought about by our conscious decision to stop both the causes and the consequences of that suffering.

Fears Of A Celibate Woman


The selfish lust of man
Has
earned him my doubt and distrust.

With this vast body of desires,
I
feel forsaken

Who is fit to uncross my twisted legs
And throw them
wide apart?
For my core is burning

Oh! You knight in shining Armour,
Come and prove me wrong.

She followed the paused, pulsating, reflexive (and reflective) reading of each poem (just as I would read my own) by a short explanation - something that I never did with mine, either verbally or in writing (except of late with some I've published on this blog), because it is my belief that poetry either succeeds at being self-explanatory or is ineffective. She also somehow concurred to this assertion by saying after the first reading that it "probably wasn't fair to do that as the author should just leave it to the audience to make sense of the poem." However, in doing so, she was also implicitly acknowledging something that I have experienced myself: the risk of our poems' intended message being lost in "the senses" (translation ... transliteration... prejudgements... prejudices... meaning... projection ... association... appropriation...) the audience, or the reader (not to mention the, often reckless, critics...), may discretionarily attach to them - but then, that's the gamble inherent to poetry writing, especially that of the symbolic kind, isn't it?

To The Memories Of Homage


I still remember the duty your
lips pay
left and right as you walk
down the aisle of people back in
motherland

The responses of women
with wrappers wrapped high above
their breasts
busy, bustling with wares to be assembled for an early sale
in the glowing warmth of the morning sun
They never forget to respond~
with the chewing sticks stuck in their mouths
They never forget to call
out your name
even before a salute leaps out of your lips

I still
remember the sequential interference
of greetings that stops you in your
track
to enquire the fate of your house-hold
and livestock if you
possess any
At times irritating, but all in good faith
by well meaning
hearts and acts of brotherliness

I remember the rebukes your
unintentional mind attracts
from those who surpass your age when morals
evade you
The slogan says ‘it is not love’
yet we engaged in it without
ceasing
it gave and earned us respect

So whenever I see familiar
faces here
who avert their eyes,
I wonder what they think salutation
depicts.

Well, at the end I took the opportunity to thank Chinwe for her beautifully crafted poems and to briefly say how much the underlying themes of both her poetry (e.g. the loss of her father, celibacy, or the sense of solitude and isolation in the diaspora with that permanent longing for echoes of the motherland in each of our smiles lost in those on the streets or at bus stops we momentarily think might be one of our own but really don't want to know us - yet, I've also experienced this is my own homecountry!) and her campaign (the ritual - both symbolic and physical - humiliation, moral degradation, prosecution and stigmatisation of widows in Nigeria) were so close, directly or indirectly, to some of my own life experiences.

I also shared with her and the rest of the audience the trials of widows in Southern Africa (particularly those in countries most affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the region) which are very similar to those she described as happening in Nigeria, albeit for seemingly different reasons and in differing cultural settings, and how, for example, the passing of the 2005 Family Law in Mozambique (see details here and here) was a significant landmark in addressing some of these issues and their root causes.

But throughout, perhaps the only thing I really wanted to tell her but didn't muster to was something along the lines "do you know that there are women who are deprived even of the right to widowhood?"

- While looking up on the net for some more information about Chinwe, who also forms part of Exiled Writers Ink, a collective of artists and writers, I found out that she was featured earlier this year at my good friend and fellow blogger Sokari's Black Looks;

- I also visited the website of one of the organisations to which her campaign is linked, which also works with partners and associations of widows in countries where widowhood is a problem in terms of human rights abuses, discrimination, marginalisation, poverty and violence, such as Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Angola, The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, Widows For Peace Through Democracy - where I came across an organisation which might be worth exploring just for its name: The Organisation of Strong Women who Live Alone .

October has just passed and with it Black History Month in Britain. Numerous events took place in London and other places where Black and African history and heritage throughout the world are celebrated during the month. I have attended three of such events at one of my local libraries:

- A talk by Daniel Kaluuya, a British born Ugandan who is an up and coming actor and writer best known for playing Posh Kenneth in the E4 teen-drama Skins. Daniel also had huge success earlier this year as Leon in Roy Williams’ Sucker Punch at the Royal Court Theatre.

I regret arriving late to Daniel's talk and having to leave early but got the impression that he is a promising talent whose career is worth following.



- A lecture by Sly Quarcoopome, a Ghanaian, poet and lecturer in Criminal Law/Psychology and Criminology, who read his poetry on the trials and tribulations of African consciousness.

Sly dedicated a special reflection on the experience of his home country, Ghana, Africa's first independent nation and the fate of its first leader, the Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, the author of Consciencism, with his democratic election and then overthrow by a CIA-sponsored coup d'etat. An experience replicated elsewhere on the continent throughout the 60's, which Sly, who presented himself as "an aspiring poet", put into these verses:

African Holocaust

From centuries of Slavery to Colonialism
From Stealing of
Gold to Diamonds
From Massacres to Genocides
From Imperialism to Modern Day Slavery
From Single Party to Multi-party Systems
From Divide & Rule to CIA & MI5 Coup-de-tats
From Dictatorships to Tribalism
From Corruption to Nepotism
From Religious Strives to North & South Divide
From Democracy to Dem-All-Crazy!!!

He also talked extensively about Africa's plight - from the continent's 'discovery' to what he termed 'modern day slavery' of Africans, both at home and in the diaspora, as well as the downtrodden of all nations and origins, with an emphasis on the differential impacts of the current economic crisis in society, especially in Britain. All this he conveyed in this poem inspired on Bob Marley's song of the same title, which was in turn inspired on a speech by Haile Selassie:

WAR!!!

Until the philosophy
This labels some
First World
And others, Third World
There's gonna be WAR!

Until the political tendencies
To name some nations
Under-developing
And others
Developed
There's gonna be WAR!

Until the shenanigans
That some are civilised
Due to richness
And others
Uncivilised n Barbaric
Due to poverty
There's gonna be WAR!

Until all legitimate
Freedom Fighters
Dis-labelled as Terrirists
There's gonna be WAR!

War in the North
War down South
War left side - East
War right side - West
War all over the bleeding place!

War down Wall Street
War up Capitol Hill
War down Parliament Square
War around the White House
War even in the shooters alley
War all over the bloody place.

Sly also had a word on women's discrimination throughout Africa. One particular statement he made that comes to mind was that "if a man is a wife abuser and keeps a lodger, sooner or later that lodger will also start abusing that woman and when a woman is abused in all likelihood she will also become an abuser, particularly towards her children, spawning a vicious cycle of crime and violence in society."

That is something one can observe in societies like the Angolan where, even recently, at least eight women were reported as victims of rape every day in the capital city, Luanda, while child abuse, including sexual, is rampant throughout the country and specially in provinces like Huila. And this sort of violence against women and children is then aped by foreigners in the country – something that my own recent experience in the lusosphere and with some Angolan media circles, even if not direct or physical, can serve as an example…

At the end of his well structured and presented lecture, I intervened just to add some cases to those Sly had mentioned, namely the equally CIA-sponsored overthrow of Lumumba in the Congo Zaire (now DRC) and the recent death (killing!) of Jimmy Mubenga. I also called attention to the need, especially in this year of celebration of the 'African Jubilee', to widen the scope of our reflections and discussions from what others have inflicted upon Africa and Africans throughout History to what we Africans have been inflicting upon ourselves and on the land of our ancestors. In this regard, I gave the specific exemple of the May 27th 1977 'holocaust' in Angola which left thousands of people dead, disappeared, emprisoned, mentally handicapped or psychologically disturbed...
Another example that can be given in that vein is the pogrom known as the Sexta Feira Sangrenta against the Bakongo in Luanda, on January 22nd 1993.

- A presentation by Chinwe Azubuike, a female contemporary voice from Africa, born in Lagos, Nigeria, who describes herself as a spokeswoman for Nigeria’s deprived class.

This last one was that which touched me the most, not least because it was protagonised by a woman. Throughout the presentation of her campaign denouncing violence against women, specifically against widows in Nigeria, and the performance of some of her poems, I was moved almost to tears at times.

There I was sitting in front of this short, slim, yet strong young lady who, with her short-cut hair - which reminded me of exactly how I used to wear mine (... for that I would either go to a barber's shop or cut it myself, and sometimes my late partner, who also liked it very much that way, would cut it for me...) when I was about her age and had also just published my humble first, and so far only, book of poems - holding all my attention and emotions, between the gravity and tension of the subjects she is dealing with and the distension and pleasure of a frank smile conveying to her audience the idea that suffering and healing are facts of life: the first being inflicted upon us by others (and sometimes by ourselves), the second being brought about by our conscious decision to stop both the causes and the consequences of that suffering.

Fears Of A Celibate Woman


The selfish lust of man
Has
earned him my doubt and distrust.

With this vast body of desires,
I
feel forsaken

Who is fit to uncross my twisted legs
And throw them
wide apart?
For my core is burning

Oh! You knight in shining Armour,
Come and prove me wrong.

She followed the paused, pulsating, reflexive (and reflective) reading of each poem (just as I would read my own) by a short explanation - something that I never did with mine, either verbally or in writing (except of late with some I've published on this blog), because it is my belief that poetry either succeeds at being self-explanatory or is ineffective. She also somehow concurred to this assertion by saying after the first reading that it "probably wasn't fair to do that as the author should just leave it to the audience to make sense of the poem." However, in doing so, she was also implicitly acknowledging something that I have experienced myself: the risk of our poems' intended message being lost in "the senses" (translation ... transliteration... prejudgements... prejudices... meaning... projection ... association... appropriation...) the audience, or the reader (not to mention the, often reckless, critics...), may discretionarily attach to them - but then, that's the gamble inherent to poetry writing, especially that of the symbolic kind, isn't it?

To The Memories Of Homage


I still remember the duty your
lips pay
left and right as you walk
down the aisle of people back in
motherland

The responses of women
with wrappers wrapped high above
their breasts
busy, bustling with wares to be assembled for an early sale
in the glowing warmth of the morning sun
They never forget to respond~
with the chewing sticks stuck in their mouths
They never forget to call
out your name
even before a salute leaps out of your lips

I still
remember the sequential interference
of greetings that stops you in your
track
to enquire the fate of your house-hold
and livestock if you
possess any
At times irritating, but all in good faith
by well meaning
hearts and acts of brotherliness

I remember the rebukes your
unintentional mind attracts
from those who surpass your age when morals
evade you
The slogan says ‘it is not love’
yet we engaged in it without
ceasing
it gave and earned us respect

So whenever I see familiar
faces here
who avert their eyes,
I wonder what they think salutation
depicts.

Well, at the end I took the opportunity to thank Chinwe for her beautifully crafted poems and to briefly say how much the underlying themes of both her poetry (e.g. the loss of her father, celibacy, or the sense of solitude and isolation in the diaspora with that permanent longing for echoes of the motherland in each of our smiles lost in those on the streets or at bus stops we momentarily think might be one of our own but really don't want to know us - yet, I've also experienced this is my own homecountry!) and her campaign (the ritual - both symbolic and physical - humiliation, moral degradation, prosecution and stigmatisation of widows in Nigeria) were so close, directly or indirectly, to some of my own life experiences.

I also shared with her and the rest of the audience the trials of widows in Southern Africa (particularly those in countries most affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the region) which are very similar to those she described as happening in Nigeria, albeit for seemingly different reasons and in differing cultural settings, and how, for example, the passing of the 2005 Family Law in Mozambique (see details here and here) was a significant landmark in addressing some of these issues and their root causes.

But throughout, perhaps the only thing I really wanted to tell her but didn't muster to was something along the lines "do you know that there are women who are deprived even of the right to widowhood?"

- While looking up on the net for some more information about Chinwe, who also forms part of Exiled Writers Ink, a collective of artists and writers, I found out that she was featured earlier this year at my good friend and fellow blogger Sokari's Black Looks;

- I also visited the website of one of the organisations to which her campaign is linked, which also works with partners and associations of widows in countries where widowhood is a problem in terms of human rights abuses, discrimination, marginalisation, poverty and violence, such as Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Angola, The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, Widows For Peace Through Democracy - where I came across an organisation which might be worth exploring just for its name: The Organisation of Strong Women who Live Alone .

Nao se pode tapar o sol com a peneira…

1960 - 2010

"The Year Of Africa"

50 Years On

Pores (e nasceres) do sol em Africa.

Sim, eles existem. Nas mais diversas configuracoes e declinacoes.
E sao infinitamente belos. E saborosamente degustaveis – que nem fruta de vontade.

Africa nao e’ a unica latitude do universo em que eles ocorrem. Mas e’, seguramente, aquela em que adquirem uma beleza e profundidade que outras latitudes dificilmente serao capazes de lhe conferir…

Porque e’ o unico momento que podemos fruir de costas para a “ugly Africa”… de costas para tudo e todos (de costas, para dar mais prazer) … sem termos que pagar gazoza, nem fazer kilapies.
E’ o unico momento que quem entende nao apenas da motricidade dos corpos sem alma e dos negocios privados de companhias monopolistas de danca dita contemporanea, mas tambem, e sobretudo, de poesia e da estetica da alma - e que aprendeu desde muito cedo, sem premios nem patrocinios, mais do que a ler ou escrever livros lentamente, a decifrar as suas mensagens, interpreta-las e questiona-las - e’ capaz de viver e valorizar na sua plenitude.

E’ tambem o momento que nos ensina o significado indizivel de paz, tranquilidade e liberdade e que melhor nos propicia o encontrar do valor e significado das incognitas das varias equacoes da luta contra a pobreza e o subdesenvolvimento em Africa… algo com que ninfas ociosas que chafurdam e se deleitam sadisticamente nas/com as imagens da “ugly Africa” just for the sex and the racism of it, jamais terao que se confrontar: e’ que a “ugly Africa” nao vive nos saloes de ballet classico europeu desde os oito anos de idade… e’ que os saloes de ballet classico europeu nao ensinam a analisar e a explicar, muito menos resolver, a “ugly Africa”… e’ que resolver a “ugly Africa” nao se resume a bacocas receitas de perfumes e emagrecimentos para conformar racistamente o seu corpo de gorda tosca, mas nao a de Puccini, a supremacia da evolucao anorexica e bulimica do das venus(es) brancas europeias…

E’ que a “ugly Africa” e’ negra!
[... e' uma pobre e insignificante criatura rejeitada... tem cicatrizes nos pes de andar a trabalhar patrioticamente a terra enquanto as ballerinas prima donnas andavam ociosamente nos cavalos... come funge kom todos com muito gosto... ocasionalmente ouve e danca kuduro kom xidi... e' mae solteira... tem bebe' em cima da arvore... frequentemente apenas tem x-10 para sobreviver sem dignidade... e' kitandeira e zungueira e, possivelmente, diva da zunga internacional... vai a Muxima confidenciar com a Sant'Ana, toma banho de chuva e de rio e por vezes, segundo alguns, pode "cheirar mal", cria blogs que ressuscitam do dia para a noite companhias de danca privadas de ninfas-ballerinas classicas europeias e alimentam colunas de jornais durante anos a fio, ajudando a encher bolsos de uma horda de parasitas cavilosos sem quaisquer escrupulos, imaginacao, ou outra ocupacao, e ... de tanto apanhar se habitua!]

E… nao se pode tapar o sol com a peneira!
[... suja da "ugly Africa"... mesmo se ostentada por "finas, perfumadas e elegantes" maos de ninfas brancas neo-nazis, monstruosas e put(r)ificadas ao teclado de um computador bem longe da "ugly Africa"...]

E’… os pores (e nasceres) do sol, tal como o cheiro da terra molhada depois da chuva em Africa, sao para se ver, sentir e viver… e quem nunca o fez… tem serios problemas do espirito ... por isso depende tao completamente de vulturar a "ugly Africa" e a "sua" mascara da (negra) Pwo!



*****


Mas...

Se quizerem mesmo ver a "ugly Afrika", eu tambem ja' dei!
Entre outros lugares, por exemplo, aki e, sobretudo, aki!...

E, ja' agora, se quizerem mesmo saber qual o "lugar do kuduro" neste blog, espreitem aki, aki, aki, aki, aki, aki...

E... a quem, apesar disto, disto, disto, disto e disto, continua a desconseguir de perceber a diferenca entre jornalismo e bloguismo, sugiro a leitura desta materia (nao precisa sequer de ler o artigo, basta olhar para o titulo - caso entenda Ingles)!


P.S.:

Odile & Odette

A CONFISSAO!...

J'Accuse!

1960 - 2010

"The Year Of Africa"

50 Years On

Pores (e nasceres) do sol em Africa.

Sim, eles existem. Nas mais diversas configuracoes e declinacoes.
E sao infinitamente belos. E saborosamente degustaveis – que nem fruta de vontade.

Africa nao e’ a unica latitude do universo em que eles ocorrem. Mas e’, seguramente, aquela em que adquirem uma beleza e profundidade que outras latitudes dificilmente serao capazes de lhe conferir…

Porque e’ o unico momento que podemos fruir de costas para a “ugly Africa”… de costas para tudo e todos (de costas, para dar mais prazer) … sem termos que pagar gazoza, nem fazer kilapies.
E’ o unico momento que quem entende nao apenas da motricidade dos corpos sem alma e dos negocios privados de companhias monopolistas de danca dita contemporanea, mas tambem, e sobretudo, de poesia e da estetica da alma - e que aprendeu desde muito cedo, sem premios nem patrocinios, mais do que a ler ou escrever livros lentamente, a decifrar as suas mensagens, interpreta-las e questiona-las - e’ capaz de viver e valorizar na sua plenitude.

E’ tambem o momento que nos ensina o significado indizivel de paz, tranquilidade e liberdade e que melhor nos propicia o encontrar do valor e significado das incognitas das varias equacoes da luta contra a pobreza e o subdesenvolvimento em Africa… algo com que ninfas ociosas que chafurdam e se deleitam sadisticamente nas/com as imagens da “ugly Africa” just for the sex and the racism of it, jamais terao que se confrontar: e’ que a “ugly Africa” nao vive nos saloes de ballet classico europeu desde os oito anos de idade… e’ que os saloes de ballet classico europeu nao ensinam a analisar e a explicar, muito menos resolver, a “ugly Africa”… e’ que resolver a “ugly Africa” nao se resume a bacocas receitas de perfumes e emagrecimentos para conformar racistamente o seu corpo de gorda tosca, mas nao a de Puccini, a supremacia da evolucao anorexica e bulimica do das venus(es) brancas europeias…

E’ que a “ugly Africa” e’ negra!
[... e' uma pobre e insignificante criatura rejeitada... tem cicatrizes nos pes de andar a trabalhar patrioticamente a terra enquanto as ballerinas prima donnas andavam ociosamente nos cavalos... come funge kom todos com muito gosto... ocasionalmente ouve e danca kuduro kom xidi... e' mae solteira... tem bebe' em cima da arvore... frequentemente apenas tem x-10 para sobreviver sem dignidade... e' kitandeira e zungueira e, possivelmente, diva da zunga internacional... vai a Muxima confidenciar com a Sant'Ana, toma banho de chuva e de rio e por vezes, segundo alguns, pode "cheirar mal", cria blogs que ressuscitam do dia para a noite companhias de danca privadas de ninfas-ballerinas classicas europeias e alimentam colunas de jornais durante anos a fio, ajudando a encher bolsos de uma horda de parasitas cavilosos sem quaisquer escrupulos, imaginacao, ou outra ocupacao, e ... de tanto apanhar se habitua!]

E… nao se pode tapar o sol com a peneira!
[... suja da "ugly Africa"... mesmo se ostentada por "finas, perfumadas e elegantes" maos de ninfas brancas neo-nazis, monstruosas e put(r)ificadas ao teclado de um computador bem longe da "ugly Africa"...]

E’… os pores (e nasceres) do sol, tal como o cheiro da terra molhada depois da chuva em Africa, sao para se ver, sentir e viver… e quem nunca o fez… tem serios problemas do espirito ... por isso depende tao completamente de vulturar a "ugly Africa" e a "sua" mascara da (negra) Pwo!



*****


Mas...

Se quizerem mesmo ver a "ugly Afrika", eu tambem ja' dei!
Entre outros lugares, por exemplo, aki e, sobretudo, aki!...

E, ja' agora, se quizerem mesmo saber qual o "lugar do kuduro" neste blog, espreitem aki, aki, aki, aki, aki, aki...

E... a quem, apesar disto, disto, disto, disto e disto, continua a desconseguir de perceber a diferenca entre jornalismo e bloguismo, sugiro a leitura desta materia (nao precisa sequer de ler o artigo, basta olhar para o titulo - caso entenda Ingles)!


P.S.:

Odile & Odette

A CONFISSAO!...

J'Accuse!

Poets For Haiti

Lament

(by Gillian Clarke)

For the earth that shivered its skin like an old horse
For the shout of the sun, of the earth as it broke its heart
For the white palace that fell into itself like snow
For the hospital, for its rows of white graves
For the cathedral that folded on emptiness
calling God's name as it went
For its psalms of sorrow, the prayers of the living and dead
For each house crushed with its cots and cushions and cups
cooking pots pressed between pages of stone
For the small lung of air that kept someone alive
For the rescuer's hand reaching into the void
For the slip of a life from its grip
For the smile of daylight on a woman's face
For her daughter dead in the dark
For the baby born in the rubble
For tomorrow's whistling workmen
with their hods of bricks
For scaffolding and walls rising from the grave
over rosaries of bones


When Carol Ann Duffy heard about the cataclysmic earthquake in Haiti, the Poet Laureate felt it was not enough to pull out her credit card and donate some money to those left suffering in its wake.
Instead, she contacted 23 of Britain's most eminent poets to mobilise them for one of the biggest charity poetry jamborees for decades. Two hours after she requested their help, she had received a deluge of enthusiastic replies. Some pledged to write new poems relating to the disaster, while others said they would read verses filled with love, humour, sadness and death, some to music, to mark the moment.
Poetry Life for Haiti, which takes place today at Westminster Central Hall, has been billed as Band Aid for poets. Roger McGough, the former poet laureate Andrew Motion, Brian Patten, the national poet of Wales Gillian Clarke, Elaine Feinstein, and the Costa-prize winning Christopher Reid will all be taking part, as well as Duffy herself.

[Keep reading here]

N.B.: You can read about Haiti's History in this text which I annexed some time ago to this post. You can also read about the challenges facing Small Islands Development States (SIDS), which include Haiti, here.

Related post:

Haiti Tragedy

Lament

(by Gillian Clarke)

For the earth that shivered its skin like an old horse
For the shout of the sun, of the earth as it broke its heart
For the white palace that fell into itself like snow
For the hospital, for its rows of white graves
For the cathedral that folded on emptiness
calling God's name as it went
For its psalms of sorrow, the prayers of the living and dead
For each house crushed with its cots and cushions and cups
cooking pots pressed between pages of stone
For the small lung of air that kept someone alive
For the rescuer's hand reaching into the void
For the slip of a life from its grip
For the smile of daylight on a woman's face
For her daughter dead in the dark
For the baby born in the rubble
For tomorrow's whistling workmen
with their hods of bricks
For scaffolding and walls rising from the grave
over rosaries of bones


When Carol Ann Duffy heard about the cataclysmic earthquake in Haiti, the Poet Laureate felt it was not enough to pull out her credit card and donate some money to those left suffering in its wake.
Instead, she contacted 23 of Britain's most eminent poets to mobilise them for one of the biggest charity poetry jamborees for decades. Two hours after she requested their help, she had received a deluge of enthusiastic replies. Some pledged to write new poems relating to the disaster, while others said they would read verses filled with love, humour, sadness and death, some to music, to mark the moment.
Poetry Life for Haiti, which takes place today at Westminster Central Hall, has been billed as Band Aid for poets. Roger McGough, the former poet laureate Andrew Motion, Brian Patten, the national poet of Wales Gillian Clarke, Elaine Feinstein, and the Costa-prize winning Christopher Reid will all be taking part, as well as Duffy herself.

[Keep reading here]

N.B.: You can read about Haiti's History in this text which I annexed some time ago to this post. You can also read about the challenges facing Small Islands Development States (SIDS), which include Haiti, here.

Related post:

Haiti Tragedy

CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS REVISITADO

O Marxismo parecia-me evoluir no mesmo sentido da geologia e da psicanalise… Todos os tres mostravam que o entendimento consiste na reducao de um tipo de realidade a um outro; que a verdadeira realidade nunca e’ a mais obvia das realidades… em todos os casos, o problema e’ o mesmo: a relacao… entre a razao e a percepcao sensorial…

[Claude Levi-Strauss, 1908 – 2009]

Na pratica, a importancia da ideologia marxista para uma compreensao de Levi-Strauss e' dificil de determinar. O uso da dialetica por parte de Levi-Strauss, com a sequencia formal de tese-antitese-sintese, e' mais hegeliano do que marxista e a sua atitude para com a historia parece ser inteiramente contraria ao dogma marxista. Mas o quadro fica bastante confuso em virtude da interaccao dialetica entre o Existencialismo de Sartre e o Estruturalismo de Levi-Strauss.


Levi-Strauss encontrou-se pela primeira vez com Sartre em pessoa em Nova Iorque, corria o ano de 1946, mas ambos tinham relacoes comuns anteriores. Assim, Simone de Beauvoir e Merleau Ponty foram ambos estudantes normalistas com Levi-Strauss no Lycee Janson de Sailly (P.C.). Artigos de Levi-Strauss foram publicados amiude na revista de Sartre Les Temps Modernes mas, ao que parece, as relacoes pessoais entre os dois homens, por volta de 1955, estavam nitidamente tensas. Em Tristes Tropiques, Levi-Strauss comenta sobre o Existencialismo que:

Promover as preocupacoes particulares a categoria de problemas filosoficos e' perigoso e pode redundar numa especie de filosofia de vendeuse (W.W.: 62).

E todo o Capitulo 9 de La Pensee Sauvage e' dedicado a um ataque polemico contra a Critique de La Raison Dialectique, de Sartre. Levi-Strauss manifesta um especial desdem pela opiniao (aparente) de Sartre de que os membros de sociedades exoticas devem, necessariamente, ser incapazes de analise intelectual e dos poderes de demonstracao racional.

(...)

…a segunda fase do nosso empreendimento e’ que, embora nao nos apeguemos a elementos de qualquer sociedade, em particular, fazemos uso de todos eles para distinguir os principios da vida social que podem ser aplicados com o objectivo de reformar os nossos proprios costumes daqueles principios que regem os costumes que nos sao inteiramente estranhos… A nossa propria sociedade e’ a unica que podemos transformar e, apesar disso, nao destruir, dado que as mudancas introduzidas proviriam de dentro (W.W.: 391-2)

Como esta passagem nos mostra, Levi-Strauss e’ um visionario e o problema com os que teem visoes e’ que acham muito dificil reconhecer o mundo prosaico e trivial que o resto dos mortais ve a sua volta. Levi-Strauss empenha-se na sua antropologia porque concebe os povos primitivos como “modelos reduzidos” do que e’ essencial em toda a humanidade; mas os nobres selvagens resultantes, a maneira de Rousseau, habitam um mundo muito distante da imundicie e da miseria que e’ o terreno normalmente pisado pelo antropologo de campo.

Isto e’ importante. Um estudo cuidadoso de Tristes Tropiques revela que, em todo o curso de suas viagens brasileiras, Levi-Strauss nunca pode permanecer num lugar por mais de algumas semanas de cada vez e jamais esteve em condicoes de conversar facilmente com qualquer dos seus informantes nativos, na linguagem nativa deles. (…) Levi-Strauss nunca teve a oportunidade de sofrer essa experiencia desmoralizante nem se viu a bracos com as questoes envolvidas.

Existem muitas especies de investigacao antropologica mas o trabalho intensivo de campo, no estilo de Malinowski, empregando o vernaculo (...) e' um procedimento inteiramente diferente da cuidadosa mas menos abrangente descricao de maneiras e costumes, baseada no uso de informantes e interpretes especiais, que foi a fonte original para a maioria das observacoes etnograficas em que Levi-Strauss, como os seus predecessores frazerianos, preferiu confiar.

Em todos os seus escritos, Levi-Strauss pressupoe que o “modelo” simples, do primeiro estagio, gerado pelas impressoes originais do observador, corresponde fielmente a uma autentica (e muito importante) realidade etnografica – o “modelo consciente” que esta’ presente no espirito dos informantes do antropologo. Em contraste, aos antropologos que tiveram uma gama muito mais ampla e variada de experiencias de campo parece por demais obvio que esse modelo inicial pouco mais e’ do que uma amalgama de pressuposicoes tendenciosas do proprio observador.

A este respeito, muitos argumentaram que Levi-Strauss, como Frazer, e’ insuficientemente critico no tocante ao seu material basico de informacao. Ele parece ser capaz de descobrir justamente aquilo que estava procurando. Qualquer prova, por muito duvidosa que seja, e’ aceitavel – desde que se ajuste as expectativas logicamente calculadas; mas, sempre que os dados contrariam a teoria, Levi-Strauss contornara’ as provas ou mobilizara’ todos os recursos de sua poderosa invectiva para que a heresia seja expulsa, sem apelacao! Por isso e’ conveniente recordar que a formacao primordial de Levi-Strauss foi em Filosofia e Direito; ele comporta-se, sistematicamente, mais como um advogado defendendo uma causa do que como um cientista em busca da verdade ultima.

Mas o filosofo-advogado e’ tambem um poeta. The Seven Types of Ambiguity (1931), de William Empson, pertence a uma classe de critica literaria que e' inteiramente hostil aos estruturalistas contemporaneos; nao obstante, serve como excelente leitura introdutoria para quem quer que se candidate a estudar Levi-Strauss. Realmente, Levi-Strauss nao publicou poesia mas toda a sua atitude em relacao aos sons e significados, as combinacoes e permutas, dos elementos da linguagem denuncia a sua natureza. (...) Isso e' o terreno do poeta e os que se impacientam com a tortuosa ginastica da argumentacao de Levi-Strauss - como acontece com a maioria dos que o leem - precisam lembrar-se de que ele compartilha com Freud de uma capacidade sumamente extraordinaria: a de nos conduzir, sem que tenhamos consciencia disso, ate' aos mais profundos recessos das nossas emocoes secretas.

(…) Diga-se de passagem que todo o corpus dos escritos de Levi-Strauss esta’ repleto de referencias obliquas e jogos de palavras, que recordam a formula simbolista de Verlaine, pas de couleur, rien que la nuance. Davy (1965: 54) observou que os poetas simbolistas “insistiam em que a funcao da linguagem poetica e, particularmente das imagens, nao era ilustrar ideias mas consubstanciar uma experiencia indefinivel de qualquer outro modo”. "


[Copyright © Edmund Leach, 1970]


Posts Relacionados:

Suggested Readings for the Social Researcher (Or Just the Interested Lay Reader)


Dance?

O Marxismo parecia-me evoluir no mesmo sentido da geologia e da psicanalise… Todos os tres mostravam que o entendimento consiste na reducao de um tipo de realidade a um outro; que a verdadeira realidade nunca e’ a mais obvia das realidades… em todos os casos, o problema e’ o mesmo: a relacao… entre a razao e a percepcao sensorial…

[Claude Levi-Strauss, 1908 – 2009]

Na pratica, a importancia da ideologia marxista para uma compreensao de Levi-Strauss e' dificil de determinar. O uso da dialetica por parte de Levi-Strauss, com a sequencia formal de tese-antitese-sintese, e' mais hegeliano do que marxista e a sua atitude para com a historia parece ser inteiramente contraria ao dogma marxista. Mas o quadro fica bastante confuso em virtude da interaccao dialetica entre o Existencialismo de Sartre e o Estruturalismo de Levi-Strauss.


Levi-Strauss encontrou-se pela primeira vez com Sartre em pessoa em Nova Iorque, corria o ano de 1946, mas ambos tinham relacoes comuns anteriores. Assim, Simone de Beauvoir e Merleau Ponty foram ambos estudantes normalistas com Levi-Strauss no Lycee Janson de Sailly (P.C.). Artigos de Levi-Strauss foram publicados amiude na revista de Sartre Les Temps Modernes mas, ao que parece, as relacoes pessoais entre os dois homens, por volta de 1955, estavam nitidamente tensas. Em Tristes Tropiques, Levi-Strauss comenta sobre o Existencialismo que:

Promover as preocupacoes particulares a categoria de problemas filosoficos e' perigoso e pode redundar numa especie de filosofia de vendeuse (W.W.: 62).

E todo o Capitulo 9 de La Pensee Sauvage e' dedicado a um ataque polemico contra a Critique de La Raison Dialectique, de Sartre. Levi-Strauss manifesta um especial desdem pela opiniao (aparente) de Sartre de que os membros de sociedades exoticas devem, necessariamente, ser incapazes de analise intelectual e dos poderes de demonstracao racional.

(...)

…a segunda fase do nosso empreendimento e’ que, embora nao nos apeguemos a elementos de qualquer sociedade, em particular, fazemos uso de todos eles para distinguir os principios da vida social que podem ser aplicados com o objectivo de reformar os nossos proprios costumes daqueles principios que regem os costumes que nos sao inteiramente estranhos… A nossa propria sociedade e’ a unica que podemos transformar e, apesar disso, nao destruir, dado que as mudancas introduzidas proviriam de dentro (W.W.: 391-2)

Como esta passagem nos mostra, Levi-Strauss e’ um visionario e o problema com os que teem visoes e’ que acham muito dificil reconhecer o mundo prosaico e trivial que o resto dos mortais ve a sua volta. Levi-Strauss empenha-se na sua antropologia porque concebe os povos primitivos como “modelos reduzidos” do que e’ essencial em toda a humanidade; mas os nobres selvagens resultantes, a maneira de Rousseau, habitam um mundo muito distante da imundicie e da miseria que e’ o terreno normalmente pisado pelo antropologo de campo.

Isto e’ importante. Um estudo cuidadoso de Tristes Tropiques revela que, em todo o curso de suas viagens brasileiras, Levi-Strauss nunca pode permanecer num lugar por mais de algumas semanas de cada vez e jamais esteve em condicoes de conversar facilmente com qualquer dos seus informantes nativos, na linguagem nativa deles. (…) Levi-Strauss nunca teve a oportunidade de sofrer essa experiencia desmoralizante nem se viu a bracos com as questoes envolvidas.

Existem muitas especies de investigacao antropologica mas o trabalho intensivo de campo, no estilo de Malinowski, empregando o vernaculo (...) e' um procedimento inteiramente diferente da cuidadosa mas menos abrangente descricao de maneiras e costumes, baseada no uso de informantes e interpretes especiais, que foi a fonte original para a maioria das observacoes etnograficas em que Levi-Strauss, como os seus predecessores frazerianos, preferiu confiar.

Em todos os seus escritos, Levi-Strauss pressupoe que o “modelo” simples, do primeiro estagio, gerado pelas impressoes originais do observador, corresponde fielmente a uma autentica (e muito importante) realidade etnografica – o “modelo consciente” que esta’ presente no espirito dos informantes do antropologo. Em contraste, aos antropologos que tiveram uma gama muito mais ampla e variada de experiencias de campo parece por demais obvio que esse modelo inicial pouco mais e’ do que uma amalgama de pressuposicoes tendenciosas do proprio observador.

A este respeito, muitos argumentaram que Levi-Strauss, como Frazer, e’ insuficientemente critico no tocante ao seu material basico de informacao. Ele parece ser capaz de descobrir justamente aquilo que estava procurando. Qualquer prova, por muito duvidosa que seja, e’ aceitavel – desde que se ajuste as expectativas logicamente calculadas; mas, sempre que os dados contrariam a teoria, Levi-Strauss contornara’ as provas ou mobilizara’ todos os recursos de sua poderosa invectiva para que a heresia seja expulsa, sem apelacao! Por isso e’ conveniente recordar que a formacao primordial de Levi-Strauss foi em Filosofia e Direito; ele comporta-se, sistematicamente, mais como um advogado defendendo uma causa do que como um cientista em busca da verdade ultima.

Mas o filosofo-advogado e’ tambem um poeta. The Seven Types of Ambiguity (1931), de William Empson, pertence a uma classe de critica literaria que e' inteiramente hostil aos estruturalistas contemporaneos; nao obstante, serve como excelente leitura introdutoria para quem quer que se candidate a estudar Levi-Strauss. Realmente, Levi-Strauss nao publicou poesia mas toda a sua atitude em relacao aos sons e significados, as combinacoes e permutas, dos elementos da linguagem denuncia a sua natureza. (...) Isso e' o terreno do poeta e os que se impacientam com a tortuosa ginastica da argumentacao de Levi-Strauss - como acontece com a maioria dos que o leem - precisam lembrar-se de que ele compartilha com Freud de uma capacidade sumamente extraordinaria: a de nos conduzir, sem que tenhamos consciencia disso, ate' aos mais profundos recessos das nossas emocoes secretas.

(…) Diga-se de passagem que todo o corpus dos escritos de Levi-Strauss esta’ repleto de referencias obliquas e jogos de palavras, que recordam a formula simbolista de Verlaine, pas de couleur, rien que la nuance. Davy (1965: 54) observou que os poetas simbolistas “insistiam em que a funcao da linguagem poetica e, particularmente das imagens, nao era ilustrar ideias mas consubstanciar uma experiencia indefinivel de qualquer outro modo”. "


[Copyright © Edmund Leach, 1970]


Posts Relacionados:

Suggested Readings for the Social Researcher (Or Just the Interested Lay Reader)


Dance?

MIRIAM MAKEBA (R.I.P.)

[Remembering Mama Afrika]

Where Are You Going?
in Reflections (Last album by Miriam Makeba)
Composed by Hugh Masekela

The mud of my feet, mother,
Is from the long journey
I made, deluded that at the end
I should find wisdom and peace.
I trudged the hot red roads
And the hills that strive to touch the stars,
And came upon a clear river
In the folds of a valley.

Kwesi Brew

[OBITUARY]

[Remembering Mama Afrika]

Where Are You Going?
in Reflections (Last album by Miriam Makeba)
Composed by Hugh Masekela

The mud of my feet, mother,
Is from the long journey
I made, deluded that at the end
I should find wisdom and peace.
I trudged the hot red roads
And the hills that strive to touch the stars,
And came upon a clear river
In the folds of a valley.

Kwesi Brew

[OBITUARY]

BE MY GUEST! (I - VERONICA BENESI)

Nós, brasileiros, temos muito de África no nosso dia-a-dia. África está muito presente nos quatro cantos deste país, seja na dança, na música, nas artes-plásticas, na culinária e, muito fortemente, ligados pela História e pela Língua. Eu até poderia, facilmente, parar por aqui e dizer que tudo isso me levou a escrever o “África”. Mas não seria uma verdade completa.
Todos sabem que a base do povo brasileiro é composta por africano, português e índio. Se fosse somente pelo aspecto histórico-cultural eu poderia ter escrito um poema dedicado a “Portugal” ou mesmo aos “Índios”...
A verdade é que desde bem pequena eu já gostava de tudo que se relacionava à África: as músicas que se tocava nos terreiros de Umbanda e Candomblé, embora eu tenha nascido no seio de uma família católica; a Capoeira é fascinante! A religião, os Orixás, as artes, o jeito exótico com que as mulheres se vestem. O Samba!!! (ritmo bom demais), que é também de origem africana e tem seu significado ligado às danças típicas tribais daquele continente.
Ainda não pude pisar, infelizmente, o solo africano. Nunca estive em nenhum país da África. Mas já está nos meus planos uma visita aos “manos”. Gente admirável! tão forte, tão resistente às agruras sofridas no passado... E também no presente, com suas mazelas, que, guardadas as devidas proporções, são bem parecidas com as do Brasil.
Brasil e África estão “entrelaçados” por muitos pontos. E, embora geograficamente tão distantes, “entre” esses “laços” eu me posiciono: uma parte, sangue brasileiro; outra parte, africano.
Por todas essas razões (ou melhor, emoções) a motivação maior para escrever o poema “África” veio mesmo do coração.

Kandandos carinhosos da “mana” brasileira,

Veronica

Belo Horizonte, 10 de julho de 2008.

*****

ÁFRICA

(Aos manos Africanos)

África
O que fizeram de ti...
.
África Negra
De tantas riquezas
Quanto mal a ti
Fizeram
À tua gente
À tua beleza
.
África Incolor
- porque a alma
não tem cor -
O que fizeram a ti
Ao longo
Desse monstruoso
Holocausto
- que perdura! -
De opressão e de dor

África Mãe
O que fizeram a ti...
.
Alheios
Ao teu consentimento
Teus filhos
Foram arrancados
Do teu seio
E acorrentados
Passaram a viver
Suas Histórias de porão
Por mares
Nunca d’antes navegados
O mar da escuridão...

O mesmo mar
Que tuas lágrimas
Ajudaram a salgar
.
África Retinta
Teu tão extenso
Continente
Diz a toda a gente
Tu és Preta
Tu és Black
Tu és Negra
Tu és Branca
És Negra Assa[1]
Tu és Fula[2]
És Mama-África
.
Estás em todos
Os lares
Em todos os Cantos
E recantos
Desses Mares
.
Mas não apenas
Os de Lusitanos ares
.
Também, aqui,
Na América do Sul
Há uma gente
Que de irmã te chama
Que é parte de ti
E do teu drama
.
Uma gente
Que se orgulha
De ter teu sangue
Nas veias
Corrente
Teus descendentes
.
Somos nós
Da Terra das Palmeiras
Onde canta o sabiá
Teus manos
De cá
Das terras Brasileiras
.
Hoje um oceano nos separa
Mas aqui deixaste
Uma herança de base
A tua fala
Estás cotidianamente
Presente
No “pirão”, na “quitanda”,
No “samba”, no “fubá”...
- “Oxalá”!
.
África Diáspora
Agora mais do que nunca
Levanta-te
Toca teu tambor
Mostra ao mundo
A Cor
Desse teu imenso
Valor
.
(Veronica Benesi)

Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil, 02 de junho de 2008.

[1] Assa (A) — o negro albino
[2] Fula (A) — de cor parda e brilhante (filha de pessoa mulata e negra)

*****

Veronica blogs @ COM TODAS AS LETRAS

Veronica - Virginia Rodrigues

[Read about the song Veronica, here]

Nós, brasileiros, temos muito de África no nosso dia-a-dia. África está muito presente nos quatro cantos deste país, seja na dança, na música, nas artes-plásticas, na culinária e, muito fortemente, ligados pela História e pela Língua. Eu até poderia, facilmente, parar por aqui e dizer que tudo isso me levou a escrever o “África”. Mas não seria uma verdade completa.
Todos sabem que a base do povo brasileiro é composta por africano, português e índio. Se fosse somente pelo aspecto histórico-cultural eu poderia ter escrito um poema dedicado a “Portugal” ou mesmo aos “Índios”...
A verdade é que desde bem pequena eu já gostava de tudo que se relacionava à África: as músicas que se tocava nos terreiros de Umbanda e Candomblé, embora eu tenha nascido no seio de uma família católica; a Capoeira é fascinante! A religião, os Orixás, as artes, o jeito exótico com que as mulheres se vestem. O Samba!!! (ritmo bom demais), que é também de origem africana e tem seu significado ligado às danças típicas tribais daquele continente.
Ainda não pude pisar, infelizmente, o solo africano. Nunca estive em nenhum país da África. Mas já está nos meus planos uma visita aos “manos”. Gente admirável! tão forte, tão resistente às agruras sofridas no passado... E também no presente, com suas mazelas, que, guardadas as devidas proporções, são bem parecidas com as do Brasil.
Brasil e África estão “entrelaçados” por muitos pontos. E, embora geograficamente tão distantes, “entre” esses “laços” eu me posiciono: uma parte, sangue brasileiro; outra parte, africano.
Por todas essas razões (ou melhor, emoções) a motivação maior para escrever o poema “África” veio mesmo do coração.

Kandandos carinhosos da “mana” brasileira,

Veronica

Belo Horizonte, 10 de julho de 2008.

*****

ÁFRICA

(Aos manos Africanos)

África
O que fizeram de ti...
.
África Negra
De tantas riquezas
Quanto mal a ti
Fizeram
À tua gente
À tua beleza
.
África Incolor
- porque a alma
não tem cor -
O que fizeram a ti
Ao longo
Desse monstruoso
Holocausto
- que perdura! -
De opressão e de dor

África Mãe
O que fizeram a ti...
.
Alheios
Ao teu consentimento
Teus filhos
Foram arrancados
Do teu seio
E acorrentados
Passaram a viver
Suas Histórias de porão
Por mares
Nunca d’antes navegados
O mar da escuridão...

O mesmo mar
Que tuas lágrimas
Ajudaram a salgar
.
África Retinta
Teu tão extenso
Continente
Diz a toda a gente
Tu és Preta
Tu és Black
Tu és Negra
Tu és Branca
És Negra Assa[1]
Tu és Fula[2]
És Mama-África
.
Estás em todos
Os lares
Em todos os Cantos
E recantos
Desses Mares
.
Mas não apenas
Os de Lusitanos ares
.
Também, aqui,
Na América do Sul
Há uma gente
Que de irmã te chama
Que é parte de ti
E do teu drama
.
Uma gente
Que se orgulha
De ter teu sangue
Nas veias
Corrente
Teus descendentes
.
Somos nós
Da Terra das Palmeiras
Onde canta o sabiá
Teus manos
De cá
Das terras Brasileiras
.
Hoje um oceano nos separa
Mas aqui deixaste
Uma herança de base
A tua fala
Estás cotidianamente
Presente
No “pirão”, na “quitanda”,
No “samba”, no “fubá”...
- “Oxalá”!
.
África Diáspora
Agora mais do que nunca
Levanta-te
Toca teu tambor
Mostra ao mundo
A Cor
Desse teu imenso
Valor
.
(Veronica Benesi)

Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil, 02 de junho de 2008.

[1] Assa (A) — o negro albino
[2] Fula (A) — de cor parda e brilhante (filha de pessoa mulata e negra)

*****

Veronica blogs @ COM TODAS AS LETRAS

Veronica - Virginia Rodrigues

[Read about the song Veronica, here]

JUST POETRY (II)

We deal in too many externals, brother

always afros, handshakes and dashikis

never can a man build a working structure for black capitalism

always does the man read Mao or Fanon

I think I know you would-be black revolutionaries too well

standing on a box on the corner, talking about blowing the white man away

that's not where it's at yet, brother

calling this man an Uncle Tom and telling this woman to get an afro

but you won't speak to her if she looks like hell, now will you brother

some of us been checking your act out kinda close

and by now its looking kinda shaky

the way you been rushin' people with your super black bag

jumping down on some black men with both feet cause they're after their BA

But you're never around when your BA is in danger...I mean your black ass

I think it was a little too easy for you to forget that you were a negro before Malcolm

You drove your white girl through the village every Friday night

while the grassroots stared in envy and drank wine, do you remember?

You need to get your memory banks organized brother.

Show that man you call an Uncle Tom just where he's wrong

Show that woman that you're a sincere black man

All we need to do is see you shut up and be black

Help that woman

Help that man

That's what brothers are for brother.

We deal in too many externals, brother

always afros, handshakes and dashikis

never can a man build a working structure for black capitalism

always does the man read Mao or Fanon

I think I know you would-be black revolutionaries too well

standing on a box on the corner, talking about blowing the white man away

that's not where it's at yet, brother

calling this man an Uncle Tom and telling this woman to get an afro

but you won't speak to her if she looks like hell, now will you brother

some of us been checking your act out kinda close

and by now its looking kinda shaky

the way you been rushin' people with your super black bag

jumping down on some black men with both feet cause they're after their BA

But you're never around when your BA is in danger...I mean your black ass

I think it was a little too easy for you to forget that you were a negro before Malcolm

You drove your white girl through the village every Friday night

while the grassroots stared in envy and drank wine, do you remember?

You need to get your memory banks organized brother.

Show that man you call an Uncle Tom just where he's wrong

Show that woman that you're a sincere black man

All we need to do is see you shut up and be black

Help that woman

Help that man

That's what brothers are for brother.

JUST POETRY (I)

Telephone Conversation

The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. ‘Madam,’ I warned,
‘I hate a wasted journey – I am African.’
Silence. Silenced transmission of
Pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick-coated, long gold-rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully.
‘HOW DARK?’… I had not misheard… ‘ARE YOU LIGHT
OR VERY DARK?’ Button B. Button A. Stench
Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered
Omnibus squelching tar. It was real! Shamed
By ill-mannered silence, surrender
Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification.
Considerate she was, varying the emphasis –
‘ARE YOU DARK OR VERY LIGHT?’ Revelation came.
‘You mean – like plain or milk chocolate?’
Her assent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. Rapidly, wave-length adjusted,
I chose. ‘West African sepia’ – and as afterthought,
‘Down in my passport.’ Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness clanged her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece. ‘WHAT’S THAT?’ conceding
‘DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.’ ‘Like brunette.’
‘THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?’ ‘Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but madam, you should see
The rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet
Are a peroxide blond. Friction, caused –
Foolishly, madam – by sitting down, has turned
My bottom raven black – One moment, madam!’ – sensing
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
About my ears – ‘Madam,’ I pleaded, ‘wouldn’t you rather
See for yourself?’

- Wole Soyinka

Telephone Conversation

The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. ‘Madam,’ I warned,
‘I hate a wasted journey – I am African.’
Silence. Silenced transmission of
Pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick-coated, long gold-rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully.
‘HOW DARK?’… I had not misheard… ‘ARE YOU LIGHT
OR VERY DARK?’ Button B. Button A. Stench
Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered
Omnibus squelching tar. It was real! Shamed
By ill-mannered silence, surrender
Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification.
Considerate she was, varying the emphasis –
‘ARE YOU DARK OR VERY LIGHT?’ Revelation came.
‘You mean – like plain or milk chocolate?’
Her assent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. Rapidly, wave-length adjusted,
I chose. ‘West African sepia’ – and as afterthought,
‘Down in my passport.’ Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness clanged her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece. ‘WHAT’S THAT?’ conceding
‘DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.’ ‘Like brunette.’
‘THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?’ ‘Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but madam, you should see
The rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet
Are a peroxide blond. Friction, caused –
Foolishly, madam – by sitting down, has turned
My bottom raven black – One moment, madam!’ – sensing
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
About my ears – ‘Madam,’ I pleaded, ‘wouldn’t you rather
See for yourself?’

- Wole Soyinka

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (X)

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{Poem: A Martian Sends a Postcard Home, by Craig Raine. Raine is founder and editor of the literary magazine Arete'. His poetry collections include The Onion, Memory (1978), A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979), and History: The Home Movie (1994). His latest book is T.S. Eliot: Image, Text and Context (2007) - in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

BOAS ENTRADAS!

KANDANDOS!

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{Poem: A Martian Sends a Postcard Home, by Craig Raine. Raine is founder and editor of the literary magazine Arete'. His poetry collections include The Onion, Memory (1978), A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979), and History: The Home Movie (1994). His latest book is T.S. Eliot: Image, Text and Context (2007) - in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

BOAS ENTRADAS!

KANDANDOS!

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (IX)

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{Poem: Jesus Isn't Just For Christmas , by John Hegley. John Hegley's collections include Glad to Wear Glasses (1990), Can I Come Down Now Dad (1991), and Dog (2000). His latest collection is The Sound of Paint Drying (2003). He has also released his own CD of songs and poetry Saint and Blurry. Musician Keith Moore accompanies John Hegley on his track here - in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

MERRY XMAS EVERYONE!

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{Poem: Jesus Isn't Just For Christmas , by John Hegley. John Hegley's collections include Glad to Wear Glasses (1990), Can I Come Down Now Dad (1991), and Dog (2000). His latest collection is The Sound of Paint Drying (2003). He has also released his own CD of songs and poetry Saint and Blurry. Musician Keith Moore accompanies John Hegley on his track here - in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

MERRY XMAS EVERYONE!

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (VII)

"In positing any solution we have to be aware of some historical background. Africa was colonized at a time when the nation state was a primary determinant of the historical process. The consequence was that the continent is today divided into more than forty-six-states – more than three times the number of Asia, whose land mass is fifty percent larger. This was done largely to further the interests of European power and commerce."

(...)

"Given that Africa was wrongly assumed to have had no history of its own before the arrival of Europeans, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that Europe created the image of Africa that the colonial period bequeathed to the world. Europe drew boundaries and undertook to establish a civilizing government in each with hierarchical administration and military support – according to the prevalent model of the nation state.”
(...)
“The question cannot be, do Africans have human rights, but what do Africans understand and desire their human rights to be? Otherwise we are yet again remaking Africa, and Africa’s struggle, in the image of our own modernity, or more truthfully, our own recent past.”

GET MORE CONTENT HERE

{Poem: Europe, by Sarah Maguire. Sarah is the founder and director of the Poetry Translation Centre. She has published four poetry collections. Her latest, The Pomegranates of Kandahar (Chatto & Windus) is The Poetry Book Society's Summer Choice, 2007. in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

"In positing any solution we have to be aware of some historical background. Africa was colonized at a time when the nation state was a primary determinant of the historical process. The consequence was that the continent is today divided into more than forty-six-states – more than three times the number of Asia, whose land mass is fifty percent larger. This was done largely to further the interests of European power and commerce."

(...)

"Given that Africa was wrongly assumed to have had no history of its own before the arrival of Europeans, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that Europe created the image of Africa that the colonial period bequeathed to the world. Europe drew boundaries and undertook to establish a civilizing government in each with hierarchical administration and military support – according to the prevalent model of the nation state.”
(...)
“The question cannot be, do Africans have human rights, but what do Africans understand and desire their human rights to be? Otherwise we are yet again remaking Africa, and Africa’s struggle, in the image of our own modernity, or more truthfully, our own recent past.”

GET MORE CONTENT HERE

{Poem: Europe, by Sarah Maguire. Sarah is the founder and director of the Poetry Translation Centre. She has published four poetry collections. Her latest, The Pomegranates of Kandahar (Chatto & Windus) is The Poetry Book Society's Summer Choice, 2007. in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (VI)

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{Poem: Double Wedding, 1615..., by Jane Yeh. Jane is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Kingston University. Her debut collection, Marabou (Carcanet, 2005), was shortlisted for The Whitbread Poetry Prize and The Forward Poetry Prize For Best First Collection. in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

[GET ROYAL SERVICE HERE]

{Poem: Double Wedding, 1615..., by Jane Yeh. Jane is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Kingston University. Her debut collection, Marabou (Carcanet, 2005), was shortlisted for The Whitbread Poetry Prize and The Forward Poetry Prize For Best First Collection. in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (IV)

(…)
Talking about gender issues she laments: “Young men should learn to be more gentile with women. They must not be like their older brothers, some of whom kiss and tell.” This reference is clearly directed at Hugh Masekela’s revelations about their marriage in New York City in the early 1960’s. She then recalls the words of her late ex-husband, Black Panther leader, Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Toure), whose speeches included: “We have to respect every woman, even a woman who is one day old. Why? Because some day she will grow up to be somebody’s mother.” And she adds words of disappointment: “One thing I’m not proud of was to marry Hugh Masekela.”
(…)
And Makeba also urges young South Africans to be more curious about their continent that has done so much for our liberation: “We have to stop it (xenophobia) and know that Africa belongs to us and we belong to Africa. And together we should walk and walk tall.”

¡GET MORE CONTENT HERE!

{Poem: What Is Exotic?, by Sujata Bhatt. Sujata is an India-born poet and translator. She received her MFA from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and now lives in Germany. She has published seven collections of poems with Carcanet Press. in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

(…)
Talking about gender issues she laments: “Young men should learn to be more gentile with women. They must not be like their older brothers, some of whom kiss and tell.” This reference is clearly directed at Hugh Masekela’s revelations about their marriage in New York City in the early 1960’s. She then recalls the words of her late ex-husband, Black Panther leader, Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Toure), whose speeches included: “We have to respect every woman, even a woman who is one day old. Why? Because some day she will grow up to be somebody’s mother.” And she adds words of disappointment: “One thing I’m not proud of was to marry Hugh Masekela.”
(…)
And Makeba also urges young South Africans to be more curious about their continent that has done so much for our liberation: “We have to stop it (xenophobia) and know that Africa belongs to us and we belong to Africa. And together we should walk and walk tall.”

¡GET MORE CONTENT HERE!

{Poem: What Is Exotic?, by Sujata Bhatt. Sujata is an India-born poet and translator. She received her MFA from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and now lives in Germany. She has published seven collections of poems with Carcanet Press. in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}