The pioneering phase
We
have called the first phase that of the pioneers. But since the phrase “pioneer
poets” has often been used of writers of English expression like Osadebay,
Casely-Hayford and Dei-Anag, we should point out that our “pioneer phase” also
includes Negritude poets of French expression. The poetry of this phase is that
of writers in “exile” keenly aware of being colonials, whose identity was under
siege. It is a poetry of protest against exploitation and racial
discrimination, of agitation for political independence, of nostalgic evocation
of Africa’s past and visions of her future.
However,
although these were themes common to poets of both English and French
expression, the obvious differences between the Francophone poets and the
Anglophone writers of the 1930s and 1940s have been generally noted. Because of
the intensity with which they felt their physical exile from Africa, coupled
with their exposure to the experimental contemporary modes of writing in
France, the style of the Francophone writers was more vigorous. Furthermore,
because they felt the need to be authentic in their writing they had to go back
to their indigenous tradition of poetry-making. The result in Senghor’s case,
as shown by “Nuit de Sine” for example, is a poetry that through its imagery
and structured rhythms reveals a finer poetic sensibility.
The
'Anglophone pioneer poets on the other hand did not feel the same compulsion to
explore their own artistic background and seemed satisfied with poorly
imitating the English Victorian poets and the tradition of hymn writing.
Hidebound by the essentially Edwardian and Georgian conventional forms of
regular metre, standard rhymes and hymnal rhythms, writers like Osadebay,
Casely-Hayford, Dei-Anag and, occasionally, Armattoe now sound patently archaic.
There is no mistaking their pride in Africa, their desire to use the medium of
poetry to express the virtues of Africanness, and their historical relevance.
But they were so hampered by the forms of poetry they chose for expression that
we do not believe their poetry worth close study. A representative poem of
Casely-Hayford illustrates these points:
Rejoice
and shout with laughter,
Throw
all your burdens down,
If
God has been so gracious
As
to make you black or brown.
For
you are a great nation,
A
people of great birth.
For
where would spring the flowers
If
God took away the earth?
Rejoice
and shout with laughter,
Throw
all your burdens down,
Yours
is a glorious heritage, '
If
you are black or brown.
This
is a typical poetry of statement, prosaic and only redeemed by being presented
in verse form. Although there is some attempt at the use of rhyme and there is
a regular rhythm, there is no controlling imagery and the general impact is
unsatisfactory. This type of poetry certainly does not possess the richness of
Senghor’s poetry.
On
the other hand, the poetry written by ex-Portuguese colonials, (Lusophone
poetry), although written much later, bears some relationship with the poetry
of this pioneering phase. Firstly, it is a poetry of protest, made more radical
by the direct involvement of the poets in the guerilla warfare through which
political independence was achieved. And as has often been remarked, there is
some surface resemblance between the careers of Senghor and Neto as
poet-politicians. But the circumstances of Senghor’s activities leading to
Senegal’s independence are different from Neto’s relationship with the
political struggle, as the texture of their poems bears testimony to. Neto’s
poetry, with its simple direct language and its firm grasp of die realities of
colonial exploitation and anguish, reads quite differently from the exuberant
dreams of Senghor when he evokes the values of Negritude. Above all, the vivid
images of the urban ghetto life, which Portuguese colonialism imposed on its victims,
became the hallmark of Lusophone poetry. Nothing of this nature is present in
Francophone poetry, except perhaps in that of David Diop.
Secondly,
there was the strong desire among the Lusophone poets to repossess their land,
not only literally and politically, but also culturally. There was a comparable
kind of experimentation with poetry in Portuguese, strongly influenced by the
rhythms of popular songs in the vernaculars of Angola and Mozambique. For all
these reasons, in spite of the actual dates of the composition of the poems of
Neto, Jacinto and de Sousa, it makes sense to see them as pioneers.
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