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Index
Cover
About the Author
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
Introduction
The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry
POEMS
Angola
Augustinho Neto
Farewell at the Moment of Parting
African Poem
Kinaxixi
The Grieved Lands
Antonio Jacinto
Monangamba
Poem of Alienation
Letter from a Contract Worker
Amélia Veiga
Angola
Costa Andrade
Fourth Poem of a Canto of Accusation
Ngudia Wendel
We Shall Return, Luanda
Jofre Rocha
Poem of Return
Ruy Duarte de Carvalho
I Come from a South
Makuzayi Massaki
Regressado, yes I am
Indelible Traces
Mawete Makisosila
They Told Me
Benin
Emile Ologoudou
Vespers
Liberty
Botswana
Barolong Seboni
Love that
memory
Cameroon
Simon Mpondo
The Season of the Rains
Mbella Sonne Dipoko
Our Life
Pain
Exile
A Poem of Villeneuve St Georges
From My Parisian Diary
Patrice Kayo
Song of the Initiate
War
Cape Verde Islands
Onésimo Silveira
A Different Poem
Congo Republic (Congo-Brazzaville)
Tchicaya U Tam’si
Three poems from Feu de brousse
Brush Fire
Dance to the Amulets
A Mat to Weave
Four poems from Épitomé
I was naked for the first kiss of my mother
What do I want with a thousand stars in broad daylight
You must be from my country
The Scorner
Two poems from Le Ventre
1 I myself will be the stage for my salvation!
2 I tear at my belly
Two poems from L'Arc musical
Epitaph
Legacy
Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
Four poems from Poèmes de la mer
News of My Mother
The Voices
Submarine Tombs
Pilgrimage to Loango Strand
Two poems from Les Racines congolaises
Noonday in Immaturity
Death and Rebirth
From La Tradition du songe
Secret Destiny
Two poems from Le Serpent austral
End of Flight
Letter to Edouard Maunick
Emmanuel Dongala
Fantasy under the Moon 68
Côte d’Ivoire
Joseph Miezan Bognini
From Ce dur appel de l’espoir
My Days Overgrown
Earth and Sky
Two poems from Herbe féconde
We are men of the new world
Suddenly an old man
Charles Nokan
My Head is Immense
Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo-Kinshasa)
Antoine Roger Bolamba
Portrait
A Fistful of News
Mukula Kadima-Nzuji
Incantations of the Sea: Moando Coast
Love in the Plural
Gambia
Lenrie Peters
Homecoming
Song
We Have Come Home
One Long Jump
Parachute Men
Isatou Died
Tijan Sallah
The Coming Turning
Sahelian Earth
Ghana
Ellis Ayitey Komey
The Change
Oblivion
Kwesi Brew
A Plea for Mercy
The Search
Kofi Awoonor
Songs of Sorrow
Song of War
The Sea Eats the Land at Home
Three poems from Rediscovery
Lovers’ Song
The Weaver Bird
Easter Dawn
From Night of My Blood
At the Gates
From Ride Me, Memory
Afro-American Beats III: An American Memory of Africa
From The House by the Sea
The First Circle
From Collected Poems
Had Death Not Had Me in Tears
Ayi Kwei Armah
Seed Time
News
Ama Ata Aidoo
Totems
Atukwei Okai
999 Smiles
Kojo Laing
Black Girl, White Girl
Godhorse
I am the Freshly Dead Husband 127
Kofi Anyidoho
Hero and Thief
Soul in Birthwaters: vi. Ghosts
A Dirge for our Birth
Sound and Silence
Guinea
Ahmed Tidjani-Cissé
Home News
Of Colours and Shadows
Kenya
Khadambi Asalache
Death of a Chief
Jonathan Kariara
A Leopard Lives in a Muu Tree
Jared Angira
If
The Country of the Dead
Manna
A Look in the Past
Request
Micere Githae Mugo
I Want You to Know
Wife of the Husband
Marina Gashe
The Village
Maina wa Kinyatti
The Bride
Madagascar
Jean-Joseph Rabéarivelo
Four poems from Traduits de la nuit:
What invisible rat
The hide of the black cow
She whose eyes are prisms of sleep
The black glassmaker
From Presque-songes
Cactus
Flavien Ranaivo
Song of a Young Girl
Song of a Common Lover 164
Malawi
David Rubadiri
An African Thunderstorm
Felix Mnthali
My Father
The Stranglehold of English Lit.
The Celebration
Jack Mapanje
Before Chilembwe Tree
On Being Asked to Write a Poem for 1979
An Elegy for Mangochi Fishermen
At the Metro: Old Irrelevant Images
The Cheerful Girls at Smiller’s Bar, 1971
The Famished Stubborn Ravens of Mikuyu
Your Tears Still Burn at My Handcuffs
Smiller’s Bar Revisited, 1983
Steve Chimombo
Napolo: The Message
Developments from the Grave
Frank Chipasula
In a Free Country
A Love Poem for My Country
Blantyre
The Rain Storm
The Witch Doctor’s Song
Nightfall
Nightmare
A Hanging
Stella Chipasula
I’m My Own Mother, Now
Albert Kalimbakatha
Snail’s Lament
Mali
Ouologuem Yambo
When Negro Teeth Speak
Mauritania
Oumar Ba
Justice is Done
Familiar Oxen
The Ox-Soldier
Nobility
Mauritius
Edouard Maunick
Two poems from Les Manéges de la mer
Further off is the measured force the word of the sea
I love to encounter you in strange cities
Mozambique
José Craveirinha
The Seed is in Me
Three Dimensions
Noémia de Sousa
Appeal
If You Want to Know Me
Valente Ngwenya Malangatana
To the Anxious Mother
Woman
Jorge Rebelo
Poem
Poem for a Militant
Namibia
Mvula ya Nangolo
Robben Island
Guerrilla Promise
Nigeria
Gabriel Okara
The Snowflakes Sail Gently Down
Adhiambo
Spirit of the Wind
One Night at Victoria Beach
Moon in the Bucket
Christopher Okigbo
Six poems from Heavensgate
Overture
Eyes Watch the Stars
Water Maid
Sacrifice
Lustra
Bridge
Four poems from Limits
Suddenly becoming talkative
For he was a shrub among the poplars
Banks of reed
An image insists
From Lament of the Drums
Lion-hearted cedar forest, gonads for our thunder
Two poems from Distances
From flesh into phantom
Death lay in ambush
Two poems from Path of Thunder
Come Thunder
Elegy for Alto
Wole Soyinka
Seven poems from Idanre & Other Poems
Death in the Dawn
Massacre, October‘66
Civilian and Soldier
Prisoner
Season
Night
Abiku
Four poems from A Shuttle in the Crypt
Ujamaa
Bearings III: Amber Wall
Hanging Day: Procession
I Anoint My Flesh
John Pepper Clark
Eight poems from A Reed in the Tide
Ibadan
Olokun
Night Rain
For Granny (from Hospital)
Cry of Birth
Abiku
A Child Asleep
The Leader
From Casualties
Season of Omens
Frank Aig-Imoukhuede
One Wife for One Man
Okogbule Wonodi
Planting
Salute to Icheke
Michael Echeruo
Melting Pot
Man and God Distinguished
Femi Fatoba
In America
Those Lucky Few
Hooker
The Woman Who Wants to be My Wife
Pol N Ndu
udude
Evacuation
Onwuchekwa Jemie
Iroko
Towards a Poetics: 1 and 2
Molara Ogundipe-Leslie
Song at the African Middle Class
Aig Higo
Ritual Murder
Hidesong
Niyi Osundare
The Sand Seer
I Sing of Change
The Word
Like the Bee
A Nib in the Pond
Not Standing Still
Funso Aiyejina
Let Us Remember
May Ours Not Be
And What If They Broke Wind in Public?
A View of a View
Odia Ofeimun
Let Them Choose Paths
A Naming Day
A Gong
Break Me Out
Ifi Amadiume
Bitter
Iva Valley
Ben Okri
The Incandescence of the Wind
An African Elegy
On Edge of Time Future
And If You Should Leave Me
SãoTomé
Alda do Espirito Santo
Where are the Men Seized in This Wind of Madness?
Grandma Mariana
Senegal
Léopold Sédar Senghor
In Memoriam
Night of Sine
Luxembourg 1939
Blues
Prayer to Masks
Visit
What Dark Tempestuous Night
New York
You Held the Black Face
I Will Pronounce Your Name
Be Not Amazed
Birago Diop
Diptych
Vanity
Ball
Viaticum
David Diop
Listen Comrades
Your Presence
The Renegade
Africa
The Vultures
Annette M'Baye d'Erneville
Kassaks
Thierno Seydou Sall
Sugar Daddy
Amadou Elimane Kane
Violence
The Continent That Exists No More
Testament
Sierra Leone
Syl Cheney-Coker
Six poems from The Graveyard Also Has Teeth
On Being a Poet in Sierra Leone
Poem for a Guerrilla Leader
The Hunger of the Suffering Man
Poem for a Lost Lover
Letter to a Tormented Playwright
The Road to Exile Thinking of Vallejo
Three poems from The Blood in the Desert's Eyes
The Philosopher
The Tin Gods
The Brotherhood of Man
Lemuel Johnson
Magic
Hagar, or, the Insufficiency of Metaphor
The Defiance of Figures in Wood
South Africa
Dennis Brutus
At a Funeral
Nightsong: City
This Sun on This Rubble
Poems About Prison: 1
Mazisi Kunene
The Echoes
Elegy
Thought on June 26
Sipho Sepamla
On Judgement Day
Civilization Aha
Talk to the Peach Tree
Don Mattera
Departure
The Poet Must Die…
Sobukwe…
I Have Been Here Before
Keorapetse Kgositsile
The Air I Hear
Song for Ilva Mackay and Mongane
The Present is a Dangerous Place to Live: I and IV
When the Deal Goes Down
Montage: Bouctou Lives
Oswald Mtshali
Inside My Zulu Hut
Ride upon the Death Chariot
The Birth of Shaka
Arthur Nortje
Up Late
At Rest from the Grim Place
Mongane Wally Serote
The Growing
Hell, Well, Heaven
Ofay-Watcher Looks Back
From Come and Hope with Me
In that day and in that life
Gcina Mhlophe
Sometimes When It Rains
Uganda
Okot p'Bitek
From The Song of Lawino
Listen, my clansmen
From Song of Prisoner
Is today not my father’s funeral anniversary?
Richard Ntiru
If It is True
The Miniskirt
Zambia
Gwendoline Konie
In the Fist of Your Hatred
Zimbabwe
Hopewell Seyaseya
The Hereafter
Nightsong
Albert Chimedza
I screw my brother’s wife
Now that my mind flies
Dambudzo Marechera
Answer to a Complaint
Punkpoem
The Bar-stool Edible Worm
Dido in Despair
Musaemura Bonas Zimunya
Tarantula
See Through
Her
Jikinya
Kristina Rungano
After the Rain
Notes on the Authors
Sources of the Poems
Acknowledgements
Index of Poets
Index of First Lines
Footnotes
Introduction
Page xxii
Angola
Page 4
Page 8
Page 21
Page 22
Ghana
Page 103
Malawi
Page 180
Page 183
Page 184
Nigeria
Page 232
Page 251
Page 256
Page 264
Page 266
Page 271
South Africa
Page 382
Page 383
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