New Daughters of Africa

by Margaret Busby

Santigi gave up his little house in Wilberforce and started moving from one rented room to another. He had retired by then and Mum could no longer contact him at the bank. She lost track of where he lived, but not entirely; if too many months went by she always sent for news, and somebody somewhere could always tell her Santigi’s whereabouts. He came to visit less often.

  It’s strange how some people’s stories always end the same way. A possible clue comes from my cousin Morlai, who began to drink at the same time as Santigi: after my father’s execution. “It felt like we were going back into the darkness,” he told me. My brother told me that years ago he helped Santigi clear out his little house in Wilberforce, and among his possessions were dozens of pictures of my father, from snapshots to photos torn from newspapers.

  A near-death experience while drunk shocked Morlai into sobriety. He married and had children. He grew back into himself, stronger this time. Today he’s a successful businessman and although those things that happened to our family meant Morlai was never able to finish college, all his own children have done so.

  For whatever reason, even though we loved him, for Santigi redemption never came.

  On my last visit home to Freetown I arrived to discover Santigi had had a stroke two weeks earlier. In the weeks that followed, Mum and I tried to get him moved to a care home, but he died before that could happen. So we bought him a coffin and all his neighbours chipped in to buy him a suit from the secondhand-clothes stalls at Government Wharf. I had never seen Santigi in a suit. I asked Mum what he looked like. She laughed softly, and told me he looked good. I was back in England on the day of his funeral. I couldn’t go so I sat at my desk and I did what writers do. I wrote this instead.

  Danielle Legros Georges

  Born in Haiti, she is a writer and translator, the author of two books of poetry, Maroon (2001) and The Dear Remote Nearness of You (2016), which won the New England Poetry Club’s Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize, and the chapbook Letters from Congo (2017). She is also the editor of City of Notions: An Anthology of Contemporary Boston Poems (2017). She is a Professor at Lesley University and is Boston’s second Poet Laureate.

  Poem for the Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere

  O poorest country, this is not your name.

  You should be called beacon. You should

  be called flame. Almond and bougainvillea,

  garden and green mountain, villa and hut,

  girl with red ribbons in her hair,

  books under arm, charmed by the light

  of morning, charcoal seller in black skirt,

  encircled by dead trees. You, country,

  are merchant woman and eager clerk,

  grandfather at the gate, at the crossroads

  with the flashlight, with all in sight.

  Lingua Franca with Flora

  In spite of all who would renounce petals

  the petals come: chèlbè1 some, shy some,

  no dirt will hold them back. Planted

  in dirt, and drawing from dirt, they explode

  hot-pink, burst red, blown clean in the trade

  winds that sweep down like a Moorish lover;

  washed clean, darkened by Caribbean Sea rain:

  these creeping bougainvillea.

  And hibiscus flower, still delicate, still fleshy,

  returning constantly to the Haitian day

  he was stripped like a god of his name:

  Rose de Chine. To the day he was brought low

  to blacken shoes, made show his black blood

  in the shine on the boots of American Marines,

  1915.2 He, now named choublak, spilling

  dark tears for tea.

  But who can deny the sly chevalier de nuit?

  Night’s knight, who blooms only at night,

  unbolting his tiny white flower, perfumed,

  redolant. Intoxicant known to those

  who travel the night, and the night into day

  down the worn trails to town, down the hills

  for something, for life; known to those who

  cut deals with ominous lords, with the devil

  himself. All pinned by his lance.

  It is he this girl picks to sweeten her dress

  as she will emerge a goddess; in a rinsed

  azure shift, after birdbath in alley

  with enamel tin cup and tan bucket.

  She will go boldly to her love who will

  whisper to her in a schoolboy French

  learned before he quit school; before life

  swallowed him—and to seal their accord

  (for there is a deal being made), in the gravity

  of Creole, wi cheri, wi—tout sa’m genyen se pou ou,

  yes darling, yes—all I have is yours.

  A Stateless Poem1

  If you are born, and you are stateless,

  if you are born, and you are homeless,

  if your state and home are not

  yours—and yet everything you know—

  what are you? Who are you? And who

  am I without the dark fields I walk upon,

  the streets I know, the blue corners

  I call mine, the ones you call yours . . .

  Who am I to call myself citizen, and

  human and free? And who are you

  to call yourself landed and grounded,

  and free. And who is judge enough?

  Who native? Who other?

  And who are we who move so freely

  without accents of identification,

  without skin of identification, with

  all manner of identification. With

  gold seals of approval. With stamps

  of good fortune. With the accident

  of blameless birth. Who are we to be

  so lucky?

  palimpsest dress

  rests on

  a hanger—silver

  shape

  meaning

  to be

  shoulders—

  whose neck

  stems, bends

  about a bar

  that hold the armoire up

  palimpsest dress

  bias-cut

  diasporic

  (travels well)

  hand-sewn,

  hems, darts

  (suitably)

  to the stole’s

  left, the bustier’s

  right

  palimpsest dress

  which type of woman

  slips you on

  ink-spot

  and all?

  Songs for Women

  I will there be no women here

  who would circle red-

  dressed, ruby-hearted,

  glass-cut. If there be flowers,

  then the bloom of cyclamen

  awned in green’s glowing

  night-vase, night-shade,

  wild in wind. Sin be the will

  to descend, humming-bird still,

  steal the fire’s sound, take note

  and return it. Let song be

  the skin of a glimmering,

  unsettled, razing, belly-deep

  in the strike of match and band.

  Be the belly, the pepper-pot.

  Come close just to drop it.

  Slide ’til the notes are a scaffold,

  ash-flicked, unphoenixed.

  musing

  the muse licks her own tongue

  pens rhymes for her own pleasure

  dips her quill

  mind stick

  in dark ink

  of her skin

  and sits at a large bureau

  thinking

  Wangui wa Goro

  She is a translator, writer, poet, academic, cultural curator and editor, best known for her scholarship as a theorist, critic, practitioner and promoter of translation, including its practical applications. She considers herself a cultural ambassador and advocate. She has spent over 40 years promoting and nurturing literature as an academic, throug
h translation, criticism and curation in different parts of the world. Her friends consider her to be the quintessential transnational global Pan-African, feminist Afropolitan, which, though she finds hilarious, she relishes.

  Looking down from Mount Kenya

  Where do you hope to join my life

  Flowing

  Not like a river

  But as torrents and currents of the tide

  Buffeted by multitudinous waters of change

  Going back and forth?

  Lapping up the high and low banks

  Dazzling the plains with luminous floodings

  Awash against the orange-red sky of our history?

  Where?

  Do you and I

  Merge as minor or major (con)tributaries

  To the great sea—

  Vast ocean of change?

  Or where do we become engulfed by other tides of the past

  Of victory and of shame.

  And what futures unforetold, then and now?

  What do we become?

  Droplets of vapour

  Carried under the translucent sky

  To descend on unsuspecting blossom of spring-tide freedom

  As a dewdrop—inseparably defiant;

  Or swallowed by the parched earth of our desert(er)s

  Or a hailstone in the tropical storm?

  Here we stand poised to (e)merge

  Like Gikuyu and Mumbi

  In a world of numerous possibilities

  Drawing from history

  And awed by the great expanses of the earth, the sea and the sky

  That are our future

  And which hold promises of infinite, infinite

  Possibilities . . .

  London, 1997

  Kitamu

  (A sweet thing, in Kiswahili)

  Sweetness here

  Is untranslatable.

  Delicious?

  Sugary?

  Saccharine?

  Bitter even?

  Where it is never clear

  Whether it is black, strong

  Decaf or white

  The heart melts

  The mind moulds

  The coffee burns

  The tongue lies

  The missed hiss

  In the complicated kiss

  As cup meets lip

  And it is neither hot nor cold

  And the blend does not tell

  From where it comes

  Along the fissures

  Of the region

  Valleys

  Mountains

  And crevasses

  In Kilimanjaro

  Kenya

  or along the Niles

  Blue or White

  Is always

  A question

  Of the gaze

  And the mind

  And the heart

  And the winds

  Which buffet souls

  To cross those troubled waters

  Home

  The smell of home

  Brewed

  In a hotel

  sweet pot

  Kitamu, 2013

  Nouvelle Danse on a Rainbow’s Edge

  The party is over, I know you naked now unmasked

  The glitter and swagger in blood-lusted drunkardness

  Falls with each step.

  Sometimes you twirl and whirl

  your powered lies around my innocence,

  Making me believe that you love me,

  That what you do is for my good

  Yet, from time to time, your mask slips

  And I catch sight of the gnarled glimpse directed at me

  As you plunge and plunder

  Plunder and plunge

  So we dance,

  Hips gyrating, heat sweltering

  Round and round and round

  Young and old together

  Until the crack begins to show

  In the falter of your step

  Staccato, two three

  I twirl

  You stop

  And I dance, dance, dance a new dance

  Round and round and round and away from you

  As the glitter beneath my feet flies, in Kenya:

  57, 63, 68, 86, 2007 . . ., one to one

  I could hold you and guide you

  In a modern dance

  But why should I?

  Or find you a new partner

  Who will stretch your step, I

  But why should I?

  For now

  Just for now

  This has to be my dance

  Alone

  Refining each new-found step

  Rediscovering the mystery of my own beat

  Of wonder-dance

  Of women-together dance

  That lifts us to higher ground

  I dance, dance, dance

  On

  And on

  And on

  Dance on you may

  Or watch me

  In this moment

  Of my dance

  Alone

  1989

  Zita Holbourne

  A British trade union, community and human rights campaigner and award-winning activist, she is also an author, visual artist, curator, poet, vocalist and writer. She has performed on television and radio and at a wide range of events including the National Diversity Awards, Glastonbury Festival, the Houses of Parliament and the TUC, and had the honour of writing and performing a tribute poem for the official UK Memorial Service for Nelson Mandela. She has been published in a range of anthologies, is the author of Striving for Equality, Freedom and Justice, and regularly writes for a range of national and specialist journals on social justice, human rights and equality issues. She won the Positive Role Model for Race Award at the National Diversity Awards in 2012, was listed as one of the top ten African and Caribbean Women of the Year in 2013 and was a finalist and one of five people’s choice poets in the Manorlogz Xtreme Spoken Word Contest in 2013. Her work has been recognised by the United Nations and she is part of the UNESCO coalition of Artists for the General History of Africa.

  I Died a Million Times for my Freedom

  My Freedom was not gained in a day, a month or a year

  To achieve it I had to overcome both sorrow and fear

  I walked across continents and centuries

  Many times stumbling, falling down on my knees

  I died a million times for my Freedom

  Not a day passed when I wasn’t grieving

  But I never gave up, never stopped believing

  That I would reach the destination called Freedom

  Sometimes I cried for my Freedom

  Other times I died for my Freedom

  My body and soul became my own Queendom

  The ground beneath my feet never there long enough to call home

  Constantly I ventured to uninviting pastures unknown

  I died a million times for my Freedom

  Be it one century or one year

  I could sense Freedom always near

  The scent of sweet liberty permeated my nostrils

  I etched songs of Freedom in my mind that became my gospels

  Strong and defiant, never forgetting proud roots

  Passed through DNA to my womb’s precious fruits

  I died a million times for my Freedom

  Sometimes I was taken, sometimes I was used

  Other times I was tortured and abused

  My tears of sorrow deepened the sea

  Broadening the divide between Freedom and me

  Rebellion gave me hope and determination

  My resistance knew no boundary or limitation

  I bore the scars of my captivity

  Like tribal marks of identity

  I died a million times for my Freedom

  When I was held back physically

  I charted the route to Freedom mentally

  In order to keep journeying towards my goal

  The map of Freedom was imprinted on my soul

 
Between the stench of bodies decayed

  And so many promised loyalties betrayed

  I caught fast breaths of sweet fresh air

  I could taste Freedom drawing near

  I died a million times for my Freedom

  When I couldn’t run I walked

  When I couldn’t walk I talked

  Promoting the very concept of Freedom to all who would hear

  Convinced that Freedom could be reality if only they would dare

  To claim it as their right

  They could bring it into sight

  When I could no longer walk, I rested

  Learning that if I invested

  In my own physical and mental well being

  I would never stop believing

  That Freedom could be mine

  And when I finally arrived the sensation was divine

  I died a million times for my Freedom

  Even though I was wearied by centuries of oppression

  Aged beyond my years by sadness and depression

  Weathered from exposure to extreme elements

  Frail from multiple abuses and resentments

  I embraced my Freedom like an old lost friend

  And refused to release my grasp for fear it would end

  I died a million times for my Freedom

  I died a million times for my Freedom

  I died a million times for my Freedom

  The Injustice of Justice; Extradition

  She was born in the land of the ancestors, raised in the city of Angels, lived her early adult life on an island made of dreams, pursued by a government intent on dominating the world, imprisoned in a jail situated on stolen land, tried in a court room built on the backs of enslaved peoples torn from the land of the ancestors that was her birth.

  She was deemed guilty until proven innocent, labelled before they knew her name, persecuted with no crime to charge her for, taken despite refusing to surrender her freedom, demonised because of her religion, misunderstood because of her multicultural upbringing, rejected because of her ancestry, disregarded as a human being and seen to be entitled to no rights upon this earth.

  She refused to break when they tortured her, denied them the pleasure of seeing her weep when her heart was breaking, refused to let them see her turning crazy when she felt herself losing her mind, between the beatings, as she lay in solitary confinement for days that were the same as nights, she comforted herself with the recollection of words spoken by great philosophers and poets and memorised verses created out of the depths of her soul about the injustice of justice, remained resilient, determined and brave, held on to her belief that the truth would one day set her free because she’d been raised to value her worth.