Monday, March 15, 2010

Tenreiro and the Poetry of São Tomé and Príncipe

BLUES FRAGMENT
For Langston Hughes

Francisco José Tenreiro
(Trans. by Don Burness)

All the melancholy of nights in Georgia
comes to me
this stormy night in Europe
through the solitary voice of the trumpet:
Oh! mammy! oh! mammy
rock yo lil’ chil’
Oh! mammy, oh! mammy
look at de world stealin’ yo chil’.

Black woman – your sweet voice
reaches me in the sadness of my heart
which breaks at the sad sound of a piano
playing in Harlem:
- Oh! King Joe
King Joe!
Joe Louis beat Buddy Bear
and Harlem laughed its white toothed negro laugh.

In these stormy nights in Europe
Count Basie plays for me
and black rhythms from America
inundate my heart;
- ah! black rhythms from America
inundate my heart.

And if I still am sad
Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen
Come to me
singing the poem of a new day
- ai! The black man is not dead
nor will he ever die!

…By and by with them I want to sing
by and by with them I want to struggle
ai, the black man is not dead
nor will he ever die!

Tenreiro and The Poetry of São Tomé and Príncipe
The poetry of São Tomé and Príncipe comes from a unique perspective, one filled with their racial, social, cultural, and political background that has been influenced by both history, the landscape, and outside forces. The works by both Donald Burness and Noel Ortega point out the Negritude that is evident in the poetry coming from São Tomé, especially after the 1940’s. Burness explains in the introduction to his collection of African Lusophone poetry and its English translation, A Horse of White Clouds, that the poetry from São Tomé and Príncipe is specifically important because they “were centers of exploitation, centers of racial cruelty” and that “voices from these twin islands have been less than meek” in voicing their opinions about their situation (Burness xviii). While many of the other African nations once colonized by Portugal share similar stories, those of São Tomé and Príncipe hold an important place in African Lusophone literature, one that Burness recognizes in his collection.

The pain and violence found on these islands is palpable in the lines of the poetry written by natives of São Tomé and Príncipe. Poets like Caetano da Costa Alegre, and Francisco Jose Tenreiro all share their opinions, emotions, and political beliefs. Tenreiro, for example, is able to identify with writers of the Harlem Renaissance in their empowering movement for African American writers and artists and so he references them in his poetry, even dedicating “Fragment de Blues” to Langston Hughes. His concluding stanza echoes something Hughes surely felt when he says:
“…By and by with them I want to sing
by and by with them I want to struggle
ai, the black man is not dead
nor will he ever die!...”.

Poetry and art become a way for poets to express their opinions, and while Tenreiro was not facing the oppression African Americans were in the United States, he and others from São Tomé and Príncipe were facing a government run by a dictatorship from Portugal, the scars of the slave trade, labor conflicts, and the effects of colonialism in the every day lives. Tenreiro alludes to the common ancestors that he and Hughes share, their roots from Africa, making this poem a multi-national poem about a shared culture. They do not share a language, or a common source of pain, but Tenreiro writes to Hughes and demonstrates the connection between them as poets and as black men. He is not meek about the racial struggles black men have faced in São Tomé when he says that no matter what “he will never die,” meaning he will never give in, go away, or be ignored.

In his essay “The Motherland in the Modern Poetry of S. Tomé and Príncipe” on modern poetry in São Tomé and Príncipe, Noel Ortega explores how the poetry of the islands has changed over the centuries. He shows how the concept of Negritude has become more pronounced in its literature and how poets like Antonio Luz and Tenreiro are critical of governmental policies, social convention and begin to express their feelings about their racial past and both the pride and disdain they feel with their country. Like many other nations, the literature of São Tomé and Príncipe undergoes changes as time progresses. Whether, like São Tomé and Príncipe, a colonizer leaves, a dictatorship crumbles, an independent nation is formed, or other traumatic and pivotal events occur, the voice of the poet is able to stand as a single perspective of a citizen of their country. The modern poetry of São Tomé and Príncipe has evolved to embody their complex and unique past and present in order to set it apart from other African Lusophone nations and their literature. Tenreiro and his poem “Fragmento de Blues” is only one example of this poetic perspective and its connection to the world.

Burness, Don, trans. A Horse of White Clouds: Poems from Lusophone Africa. Athens, OH: Center for International Studies, Ohio Univ., 1989.
Ortega, Noel. “The Motherland in the Modern Poetry of São Tomé e Príncipe” World Literature Today, Vol. 53, No. 1, The Three Worlds of Lusophone Literature (Winter, 1979), pp. 53-56 University of Oklahoma. <>.
Tenreiro, Francisco José. “Fragmento de Blues.” Burness, Don, trans. A Horse of White Clouds: Poems from Lusophone Africa. Athens, OH: Center for International Studies, Ohio Univ., 1989.

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