WHERE GOD IS BLACK

MOST black Africans only learned to write down their songs and tales in the past hundred years, but they are heirs to centuries of oral literature. In their search for an African identity, the continent's contemporary poets--many of them leading politicians--today have forsaken their mission-school Golden Treasury to rediscover the pagan rhymes and rhythms that enlivened tribal life long before the white man came. Says Leopold Sedar Senghor, who is black Africa's most distinguished poet as well as President of Senegal: "Poetry must find its way back to its origins."

The attempt to explore and revive these origins is illustrated in a new anthology, Poems from Black Africa (Indiana University Press; $4.95), edited by U.S. Negro Poet Langston Hughes. Some of the poets are self-consciously primitive, and a few of the English-speaking ones write with echoes of T. S. Eliot or Gerard Manley Hopkins. But they are also busy transcribing and translating traditional folk poetry and evolving what Anthologist Hughes hopefully describes as a literature that "walks with grace and already is beginning to achieve an individuality quite its own."

Most of the black New Wave poets are concerned with negritude, a French word for the essence of blackness and, by extension, for a world in which despair is white, while God and innocence are black. Many writers celebrate nature and memories of a pristine Africa. Most are preoccupied by the West's failure to understand them. But in their poetry--if not in their U.N. speeches--Africans waste surprisingly little time inveighing against imperialism, notwithstanding a tirade by a part-time poet named Patrice Lumumba, the late, rabblerousing Congolese leader ("For a thousand years, you, African, suffered like a beast . . .").

A sampler of voices from the new Africa:

TO ADHIAMBO

I hear many voices like it's said a madman hears; I hear trees talking like it's said a medicine man hears.

Maybe I'm a madman, I'm a medicine man.

Maybe I'm mad; for the voices are luring me, urging me from the midnight moon and the silence of my desk to walk on wave crests across a sea.

Maybe I'm a medicine man hearing talking saps, seeing behind trees; but who's lost his powers of invocation.

But the voices and the trees are one name spelling and one figure silence-etched across the moonface is walking, stepping over continents and seas.

And I raised my hand -- my trembling hand, gripping my heart as handkerchief and waved and waved -- and waved -- but she turned her eyes away. -Gabriel Okara (Nigeria)

BLUE BLACK

God! glad I'm black; pitch-forking devil black: black, black, black; black absolute of life complete, greedfully grabbing life's living . .

BLACK BLUES

the blues is the black o' the face, I said: black is the blues' face; it's black in the mornin' beige in the sun, and blue black all night long.

Oh, the blues is a black devil face, I said: devil black is the blues' face; it's black in the mornin' beige in the sun, and blue black all night long.

my baby, said to me, daddy; sit down and listen, candy: the blues is in your blood, black down deep in your skin and the devil rides on your back. The mean black blues got my daddy, those black mean blues got you, daddy; you're black in the mornin' beige in the sun, candy black all night long.

--Bloke Modisane (South Africa)

WHO KNOWS?

Who knows? This Africa so richly blest With golden lands and fronded palms in air, The envy of great nations far and near, May yet the world lead back to peace and rest, Goodwill to all. Who knows? Who knows?

And when the fullness of God's time has come And men of divers colors, tribes and castes Have owned Him King; when hate and sin are passed, The Prince of Peace may found His home In Africa at last. Who knows? Who knows?

-- A. L. Milner-Brown (Ghana)

BLACKMAN'S GOD

Our God is great Who dare deny it Our God is great Powerful and dark Peering through ages Healing, killing, guiding.

Our God is black And like a goddamned god Guiding when loving Killing when angered.

Our God is powerful All-powerful and black And like all deities Our Godhead likes blood Whether it be blood of Isaac or ram Our God likes blood . . .

-- Francis Kobina Parkes (Ghana)

TO NEW YORK

for jazz orchestra; trumpet solo

New York! At first I was confused by your beauty, by those great golden long-legged girls. So shy at first before your metallic eyes, your frosted smile So shy. And the anguish in the depths of skyscraper streets Lifting eyes hawkhooded to the sun's eclipse. Sulphurous your light and livid the towers with heads that thunderbolt the sky The skyscrapers which defy the storms with muscles of steel and stone-glazed hide. But two weeks on the bare sidewalks of Manhattan At the end of the third week the fever seizes you with the pounce of a leopard...

New York! I say to you: New York! let black blood flow into your blood That it may rub the rust from your steel joints, like an oil of life That it may give to your bridges the bend of buttocks and the suppleness of creepers. Now return the most ancient times, the unity recovered, the reconciliation of the Lion, the Bull and the Tree Thoughts linked to act, ear to heart, sign to sense. There are your rivers murmuring with scented crocodiles and mirage-eyed manatees. And no need to invent the Sirens. But it is enough to open eyes to the rainbow of April And the ears, above all the ears, to God who out of the laugh of a saxophone created the heaven and the earth in six days. And the seventh day he slept the great sleep of the Negro. -- Leopold Sedar Senghor (Senegal)

MOTHER DARK

Mother Land Long lain asleep Her people loved They lived And killed to live By Nature's law.

Souls to save The strangers sought, Riches, some knowledge, They named her "Dark" Yes, dark was she In every sense was dark.

They brought "The Light" And with the light She saw her children Led in chains Their wearied steps Quickened by The lash of Cain . .

Mother Dark She was dark, very dark Cried out And her voice shook all the world, Free my people Set my sons and daughters Free!

The bearers of light Made bold retreat Silent dignified farewell Pomp and splendour, saving grace The spoilt child Amidst a thousand shells Withdrew.

Mother Dark Her rulers chose All branded with her mark. Alas! They learned too well the "light" Then brought home the yoke.

Mother Dark Her wounded heart Wailed loud in pain, Is there no hope? My children perish! But her voice is not heard For her children now Oppress her children.

-- Francesca Yetunde Pereira (Nigeria)

WHERE THE RAINBOW ENDS

Where the rainbow ends There's going to be a place, brother, Where the world can sing all sorts of songs, And we're going to sing together, brother. You and I, though you're white and I'm not. It's going to be a sad song, brother, Because we don't know the tune, And it's a difficult tune to learn. But we can learn, brother, you and I. There's no such tune as a black tune. There's no such tune as a white tune. There's only music, brother. And it's music we're going to sing Where the rainbow ends. -- Richard Rive (South Africa)

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