Studies in 20th Century Literature

Volume 15
Issue 1 Special Issue on Africa: Literature and Article 11
Politics

1-1-1991

Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric

Janis L. Pallister
Bowling Green State University

Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl

Part of the Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, and the Spanish and Portuguese
Language and Literature Commons

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative

Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation
Pallister, Janis L. (1991) "Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric," Studies in
20th Century Literature: Vol. 15: Iss. 1, Article 11. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1270

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in
Studies in 20th Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information,
please contact [email protected].
Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric

Abstract
Neto's importance in relationship to the modern genre we will call militant or guerilla poetry and his
considerable poetic gifts as well call for a mainstreaming of his literary contributions. "Protest poetry"
might more aptly describe his oeuvre; the term is certainly a somewhat better representation of his
content than "guerilla poetry" or "poetry of combat." But whatever word is used to sum up that content, in
the article on Neto one sees contextually how this talented poet fuses his ideologies with his structures,
and intertextually how he avoids the diatribes, the invective and the stereotypically strident rhetoric of
most guerilla poetry in a way scarcely imitated by his poetic "counterparts." Selected details of his
biography are also highlighted as they bear upon his poetry; e.g. his physician's regard which is at stake in
certain passages of "Kinaxixi" and "Um aniversário."

Keywords
Agostinho Neto, modern genre, militant poetry, guerilla poetry, Protest poetry, oeuvre, poetry of combat,
ideologies, structures, intertextually, diatribe, counterparts, Kinaxixi, Um aniversário

This article is available in Studies in 20th Century Literature: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11

 Pallister: Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric

Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and

Mobilization Rhetoric

Janis L. Pal lister

Bowling Green State University

A space where the dark is tempered by the light, despair by hope,

the past by the future, the individual's ambitions by the collectivity's
determinations: this is the essential provision of Agostinho Neto's
poetry. Combat poetry? This would be a reductive, even condescend-
ing characterization, and would tend to minimize the stature of one of
the twentieth century's most important African poets. It is a perilous
term for a perilous genre-a term, among others, we might apply, but
one that seems in any case ineluctably associated with Neto's name-
as evidenced by Kesteloot (421-22) and Bumess (89-103) -and one
that therefore provokes us to see in him a nucleus around which critics
have gathered other poets of this modern genre we call militant or
guerilla poetry. Neto's importance in relationship to this genre, and
his poetic gifts apart from it, therefore call for a mainstreaming of his
literary contributions. "Protest poetry" might, however, more aptly
describe his oeuvre; the term is certainly a somewhat better repre-
sentation of his content than "guerilla poetry" or "poetry of combat"
would allow. But whatever the word used to sum up that content, it is
best to see contextually how this talented poet fuses his ideologies
with his structures, and intertextually, how he avoids the diatribes, the
invectives, and the stereotypically strident rhetoric of most guerilla
poetry in a way scarcely imitated by his poetic "counterparts."'
In his earliest poems, which Kestleloot likens to African
melopoeia, Neto establishes the juxtapositions of dark versus light, of
despair versus hope, of individual versus collectivity; and these
oppositions, especially that of the self versus the group, will be the leit-
motiv of his life's work, collected under the general title of Sagrada
Esperanca, or Sacred Hope. And however Marxist his readers find
the theme of confraternity inherent in such poems as "Farewell at the

137

Published by New Prairie Press 1

 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 15, Iss. 1 [1991], Art. 11

138 STCL, VoL 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1991)

hour of parting" to be, the oversoul, the spareness, the structural as

well as the grammatical and syntactic fusions, all subvert any tenden-
cies toward the doctrinaire that are potentially inherent in a bare
ideological approach; and these traits consequently guarantee the
poem's esthetic success.
To his literal mother, to his spiritual mother Angola, and even
Africa, Neto explains how he has become the leader, the symbol of
hope:

I do not hope any longer

I am the one through whom hope is sifted . ." (SE 35)

The lean stark lines announcing their message of communal hope

become more and more stripped, until the poet structurally achieves a
fusion of the one with the many, with the country and with the great
matrix:

I am my Mother
hope we are
your sons
who've gone forth toward a life-feeding faith. (SE 85-86)

And ultimately, the "sou eu" ("I am") is completely incor-

porated into the "somos nos" ("we are"), as departure becomes a
collective action for the remedy of the present ills of the people:

We go forth in search of light

your sons Mother . . .
go in search of life. (SE 36)2

Thus, ideologically as well as structurally Neto realizes an identifica-

tion with all who suffer through hunger, thirst, the ravages of drink,
and political fear and humiliation. The first person singular, which, of
course, always bore the concept of collectivity within it, is swallowed
up by the first person plural. The goals of departure implicit in the
lines just quoted are those of the many, lacking in self-interest or gain.
Again, the idea of the common departure, with its vocabulary of
resolution and its hope in the future, is reinforced by the abundant use
of first person plural future verbs:

https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11
DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1270 2
 Pallister: Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric

Pallister 139

Amanha
entoaremos hinos a liberdade
quando comemorarmos
a data da abolicao desta escravatura. (SE 36)3

Like an ancient soothsayer, Neto predicts here-and with total

accuracy-the birth of a nation, proclaiming that nationhood to be
virtually inherent in the hope and the resolution of his compatriots,
into whom he, poet, leader and even "soldier," has melted and
disappeared. Yet, the diction, though marking determination, is
unmarred by tones of war.
When we turn to the poem "Reconquest" ("A reconquista," SE
84-85), we fmd the same determination, the same linguistic expres-
sion of a spiritual solidarity, the same tension between the past (in
both its negative and its positive ramifications) and a happier
tomorrow-these tensions being again framed in future and cumula-
tive imperative verb forms that structurally declare the imminence of
revolution, announced in the smile of the Africans. (That smile, how-
ever, is implicitly misread as simple-minded acceptance by the
haughty Portuguese.) "Come, Africa," the poet exhorts repeatedly,
"Come and plunge into our African past, the past of the batuque, the
tom-toms; come and observe with clear eyes the façades of
Christianity and democracy behind which our misery lurks,
obfuscated; come, for

Ninguem nos fard calar

Ninguem nos podera impedir
0 sorriso dos nossos labios nao é agradecimento pela
morte
com que nos matam.

Vamos corn toda a Humanidade

conquistar o nosso mundo e a nossa Paz." (SE 85-86)4

In a memorable poem devoted to his friend Mussunda, Neto

recovers these same themes of past suffering and ancient traditions
brought into perspective by a not too distant future. Again he sees his
role as that of a leader, but this time one whose poetic gifts and educa-
tion would not alienate him. Rather, they would bring him, like a griot,

Published by New Prairie Press 3

 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 15, Iss. 1 [1991], Art. 11
140 STCL, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1991)

closer to the people. Thus, also present in this poem is the theme of
confraternity, here represented by the "quality of friendship which is
symbolic of the bond uniting all oppressed Angolans" (Bumess
94).
The structures of this poem again reinforce the spiritual unity of
the whole black people, bent upon fruitful revolution: "We are one,"
says the poet to his friend ("Nos somos"). And the African past,
brought into the ripe present, is effectively evoked by Neto's use here
of a phrase ofKi-mbundu, the traditional language of many Angolans,
and indeed the language of the poet's childhood (but one he later
regretted not having mastered). Still the use of this language should
not be viewed as a mere embellishment, for buried in the phrase we
find the nucleus of the poem, housed in the word "Kalunga,"-a word
which in some contexts means "death," but which in this poem
suggests (as in "Departure") that Neto is the one in whom the hope
and "destiny" of the people are enshrined (Hamilton 85).5
In addition to the tightness of Neto's style and the fusions of his
ideology to his syntax we must note his exceptional sense of imagery
and symbol, which plays its part in the extraordinary success of his
verse. Though many protest poets have an unfortunate tendency to
fall into allegory and abstraction (as is the case with Morisseau-
Leroy, to whom Kesteloot 1421] somewhat casually compares Neto),
the latter rescues his poems from these pitfalls by a skillful use of
concrete diction and imagery, viewed by Senghor in his essay
"Comme les lamantins vont boire a la source" to be as indispensable
to the true African mentality as is rhythm. Indeed, for Senghor
(Poemes 158), image is but a manifestation of rhythm: "Mais le
pouvoir de l'image analogique ne se libere que sous l'effet du rythme.
Seul le rythme provoque le court-circuit poetique et transmue le
cuivre en or, la parole en verbe" ("But the power of the analogical
image is set free only under the influence of the rhythm. The rhythm
alone produces the poetic short-circuit and transforms the copper into
gold, mere speech into the 'Word.' "). That Neto like Senghor under-
stands the importance of rhythm, as well as of image, is clear in the
following lines from his poem "Fogo e Ritmo":

Campfires
dances
tomtoms
rhythm

https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11
DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1270 4
 Pallister: Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric

Pallister 141

Rhythm in light
rhythm in color
rhythm in sound
rhythm in movement
rhythm in bleeding cracks of unshod feet
rhythm in nails ripped from the flesh
but rhythm
rhythm . . .6

Whether Neto adopts the lyric or the narrative mode, the image
is ever present, together with this rhythm, galvanizing the public and
the private, and joining them into a single organism. The bush path is
equated with cruelty; similarly, the "African train" stands as a
Western monstrosity, in juxtaposition to the recurring symbol of the
pirogue, legitimate vehicle for the life journey of the Negritude poets.
(Neto is not, however, a Negritude Orpheus ofthe stamp described by
Jean-Paul Sartre in his preface to Senghor's Anthologie.) Neto's
vocabulary, concrete and evocative, calls forth clear pictures-
Angolan realities sensorily experienced-in the mind of the reader:
houses made of pounded rusty tin, imbondeiro trees, cassava flour,
forks and knives, marimbas, the elegant curve of the agile gazelle's
neck, the rattle of prison keys, the messenger drums of desire, the
sound of chains, the songs of birds, odors, aromas, movement. (Upon
occasion a fundamentally African animism lies beneath these
images.) And while the rhythm and the persona change from poem to
poem-from the market woman who laments her lot to the voice of the
poet himself-the symbols of African life, of poverty, of deprivation,
and of determination translate the tensions between inertia
(symbolized by the bench in "Kinaxixi") and action (shown by the
replacement of the old locks on the doors, in answer to the repressive
measures of the Portuguese regime against the Angolan's "awakening
consciousness"). In portraying these conditions Neto gives us far
more realism than do most of his compatriots, and especially more
than we fmd in the poetry of Mario AntOnio Fernandes de Oliveira
(Andrade 61,63). (The latter's association with Lisbon intellectuals
has removed him somewhat from his native country, according to a
note by Todrani /Joucla-Ruau in the French translation of Andrade's
anthology [101].)
There is a denseness in Neto's lean verse. As previously stated,
light and dark are constantly played off against one another. For

Published by New Prairie Press 5

 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 15, Iss. 1 [1991], Art. 11

142 STCL, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1991)

example, the poem "Noite" (SE 56) reflects the dark side of the poet's
mind, as well as the dark night of all Africans, plunged into spiritual
and physical suffering. Nonetheless, this African night is already
pushed back by comfortable bonfires and hurricane lamps, and,
moreover, is about to be flooded with the electric charge, or the light of
revolution, "the dawn-glow in men's eyes" ("Poema" SE 97). The
tragic diaspora, issuing from centuries of slave trade, cannot, of
course, be overcome, but through fraternity the plight of the African,
indeed of Blacks the world over, can be altered:

. . . tenho saudade . . .

De ti
homem disperso que sonhas
de mim!
De ti meu irmao
de mim
em busca de todas as Africas do mundo.
("Desfile de Sombras," SE 62-63)7

This expression of solidarity should be analyzed. Often given the

unjustified label of Marxist, Neto's call for revolution is not simply a
mobilization for struggle against bourgeois capitalism, though it is
certainly that in part. Typical of the tensions inherent in his work, the
call is one for return, also, to African collectivity, to African values.
Moreover, Neto, though of course Marxist, is-in his poetry-unlike
such a poet as Jacques Roumain, whose verse falls into prose-like
cadences as it enumerates the beleaguered of the entire world (see,
e.g., Senghor: Anthologie 117-18). While the identification of the
black victim with victims of other kinds and other races is common to
poetry of the African continuum, it seems to me that the concept of
joining forces in sympathy with white peasants and laborers is
virtually absent from Neto's poetry. The crushing horrors and
criminal atrocities that Neto observed during Salazar's dictatorship
and the suppressive treatment he himself received at home in Angola,
in his house arrests in Cape Verde, as well as in Portugal where he was
repeatedly held prisoner, would elicit a call for specific action against
his own "house," which was in drastic need of "troubling," as the
Bible puts it.8 Neto is, then, primarily concerned in his poetry with the
local scene, and with the wretched condition of all his colonized

https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11
DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1270 6
 Pallister: Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric

Pallister 143

fellow-Africans; and the concern is so all-consuming as to obviate

easy analogies with the far less oppressive conditions of the white
factory workers of America.
That, of course, is not to deny Neto's strong anti-colonialist
public stands: his first arrest in Portugal-in 1951-resulted from his
attempts to collect signatures in support of the International World
Peace Conference in Sweden; his second arrest came when he was a
student in Portugal, at which time he joined the Portuguese progres-
sives (which included the Portuguese Communist Party), to protest
the exploitation of peasants in the Alentejo. Neto clearly had a sense
of international class struggle, though he does not noticeably address
this issue in his poems. And, poetically, concern for the white laborer
or the destitute Appalachian could only attenuate and distract from
the central issue of his poems, which is primarily the poverty and
humiliation of the Angolan black people, whom Neto-like his com-
patriot, the Angolan poet Antonio Jacinto (in his "Monangamba"
[Andrade 47 ff.])- portrays as burying their desperation in alcohol
and inertia, an inertia that he finds must be overcome by aggressive
fraternal action. Still, Neto's poetry is not regional: it is informed with
cosmic vision and with universal charge.
The theme of consanguinity is not, however, limited in Neto to
the African continent. Together with the other poets of the African
continuum (such as Damas, Senghor, Cesaire, Briere, Tenreiro),
Neto celebrates the accomplishments of Blacks the world over. And
like these other poets, he does not spare the United States for its role in
the oppression of the black race (see Cook/Henderson 36-44;
Pallister [ "Outside . ."]; Larrier; Cohen on pictures of the United
States through foreign black writers.). This is especially noticeable in
the two poems entitled "Apsiraqao" or "Aspiration" (SE 698) and
"Confianca" or "Confidence" (SE 67). In "Confidence" the African
persona speaks of the ocean that separated him from himself over the
centuries, so that he had forgotten the hands that built the wondrous
world, where, however, "John" was lynched, his brother whipped, his
wife gagged, and his son kept in ignorance (SE 67). In the poem
"Aspiration" Neto assumes the voice of the "world negro," (as
Teneiro, the lusophone poet of Sao Tome puts it), the voice of one
whose sorrowful song, accompanied by the doleful sound of the
popular instruments he often plays, drifts over the regions where the
crushed black populations are clustered:

Published by New Prairie Press 7

 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 15, Iss. 1 [1991], Art. 11

144 STCL, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1991)

Ever my mournful song

and my sorrow
in Congo in Georgia in Amazonas . . .

Ever my spirit
ever the quissange
the marimba
the guitar
the saxophone
ever my rhythms of orgiastic ritual. (SE 68)

The theme of the "world negro" is executed by Neto with his cus-
tomary spareness and tight allusiveness, reminiscent only of such
masters as Damas, who practices this same economy in his most
successful poems, such as "Bientot," in which he binds together
themes of oppression, compassionate identification and brotherhood
with near-miraculous condensation and a verbal energy, which, with
its staccato rhythms, evokes the beat of a drum,- a trick well-known
to Neto, too.
Very often we will note that in Neto's poems the themes of
fraternity and worldwide oppression or of aspiration are expressed
without that militancy we observe in a Damas. In such a poem as
"African Poetry," for example, there is only the slightest trace of
social criticism lurking almost imperceptibly in the background. We
can say that the real motive of this poem is to delineate poetically the
source of a truly "African" poetry, which, in fact, is conceived as a
blood-tie coming through suffering, through a transcendental aspira-
tion and through certain cultural bonds that African Blacks have in
common. While Neto seeks here to identify the fraternal spring from
which his poetry originates, the poem is not a call to revolution per se,
nor is Neto expressing here a limited esthetic that requires the
"African poet" to write "African poems' on "African themes." Neto
is talking here of sources, but this is not restrictive: To identify the
spring from which a poetry wells is not, after all, to say that that spring
will not ultimately flow into the ocean, that is to say into the body of
world poetry. Roots and audience can be widely separated. Neruda,
for example, far from the modernist climate-and despite his effusive
style-approaches Neto in his quest for "pure poetry," i.e., a poetry
that draws its inspiration precisely from the "confused impurity of the

https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11
DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1270 8
 Pallister: Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric
Pal lister 145

human condition," a poetry as "impure as the clothing we wear, or our

bodies, soup-stained . . . " (Neruda 39). Indeed, a re-reading of
Neto's "Poema" in relation to Neruda's ars poetica reveals a striking
parallel between these two poets, as regards their poetic objectives.
Neto evokes Neruda, because their Herderian poetic goals are very
similar, and because both are poets of the third world; both are poets
of the people. Neto's poetry, like Neruda's, is "a poet's dispensation
to the world," a voiced concern for the down-trodden and the
forgotten. One thinks of Whitman; one also thinks of the Mexican
poet Octavio Paz who viewed poetry in his Arco y la lira as multi-
facted and as "the voice of the people."
Too complex and too universal in application to be branded as
merely "militant," or "regional," as might be the case with Jorge
Rebelo, for example, Neto's early poetry will be combed in vain for
such words as "combat," "war," "arms," or "guerilla." Rather, one
will normally encounter broadly humanistic themes. Nonetheless, the
burden of these poems must be viewed as containing a mobilization of
sorts. In them we discern a frequent call to his compatriots that they
bestir themselves, but never that they take arms. Is this cautious lan-
guage the result of the hesitancies of a physician, who protects life,
rather than taking it? the sign of a Christian upbringing, as Gerald
Moser has suggested to me? the understandably guarded rhetoric of
one who knows his writings are being scrutinized by the colonial
powers? all three? Obviously, the revolutionary ring is clearly present
in such poems as "The Reconquest," (A reconquista," SE 84) or
"Symphony (" Sinfonia"), in which Neto speaks of the "glorious
struggle of the people" (SE 64), as in "Greeting" ("Saudacao," SE
72-73), in which he conveys the "message" of his identification with
the fear and hunger of his African brothers, and tells them it is time to
march, to shed their inertia and to move against the oppressor and his
forced assimilation, including even his linguistic impositions.9 And,
then, too, in the last poems of Neto, the lexicon does include such
words as "luta," suggesting that he has finally given up his earlier cau-
tion, so that the Christian upbringing, if it had at first led him to
express sentiments such as compassion, love, brotherhood, hope, and
peace, seems to have lost ground. Nonetheless, in the "message" of
hope that Neto intends to convey to his brothers (as is clear in the
volume's title), we hear the voice of the political activist, the existen-
tial (committed) intellectual, and the socially oriented physician who,

Published by New Prairie Press 9

 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 15, Iss. 1 [1991], Art. 11
146 STCL, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1991)

over and over again, condemns, though with understanding, the use of
alcohol as an opiate against seemingly insoluble conditions (see, for
example, the poem "Kinaxixi," SE 74).
Neto's poetry is not violent. Neither is it a poetry that preaches
passive acceptance of the status quo. It calls for a new order in which
the beauties of the African tradition may be preserved. The new order
must be one wherein Africa in all its positive forms must be reclaimed,
and the miseries of colonial Africa ended once and for all. Neto is
opposed to inaction and passivity; this is made clear in many poems.
And he shares the view of Ezekiel Mphahlele, who construes an
image of an Africa that glorifies ancestors and celebrates "purity" and
"innocence" as the image of a continent lying in state. In Neto's
poetics, non-violent diction might serve to expose and to decry
oppression. But we must not forget, either, that the poems written
before the outbreak of open warfare in Angola, if they make only
veiled appeals to revolution, were, as I have said, under the scrutiny of
Portuguese censorship. Neto manifestly believed that revolution per
se couldn't be accomplished without violence. ("Havemos de voltar,"
for example, is a poem that implicitly if not explicitly calls his com-
patriots to arms.) And Neto's prison poems, written between 1955
and 1960, contain statements of militancy and resistance. These
poems are revolutionary poems, not reformist, as were the earlier
ones, and reflect poetically Neto's political conviction that armed
struggle was the only means of bringing about Angola's indepen-
dence. Neto's leadership role in the MPLA (People's Movement for
the Liberation of Angola) is important for an understanding of the
man and his later poetry: this movement was predicated on the belief
that armed struggle was the only means of bringing about political
independence. Thus his early cultural discourse is to be viewed as a
component of Angolan nationalism, and it, together with his
esthetic/ideological perspective examined early on in this paper (a
perspective that sees the intimist "I" and the collective "we" as
related, as one; a perspective that embraces the concepts of macroeth-
nicity I have just been discussing), are, as it were, preludes to the more
combative expression that is to follow.
It is, then, incumbent upon Neto's critics to heuristically rivet the
poet, the man of conscience, to the public figure, the revolutionary and
the president of Angola. Was he a radical? As we have seen con-
textually, he would bring along into the present certain African tradi-
tions. But unlike certain of the Negritude poets, he would not embrace

https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11
DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1270 10
 Pallister: Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric
Pallister 147

a return to these traditions pure and simple. Nor is he, like his
oppressors, eager for the extermination of a race. If we examine the
underlying morality of Neto's language, we must conclude that this
poet, forever reiterating the word "peace," tends for the most part to
hold up to his Portuguese oppressors the word and not the sword. A
certain modesty prevails, as well. Though he sees himself as a leader,
he does not, even so, view himself as a "general." He sees himself as
the "unknown soldier of mankind." A poetic or rhetorical stance? In
reality he was a commander of the MPLA forces, and after 1975 was
shown in an often reproduced photo with a machine gun in his hand. In
this picture he appears as the archetypical poet-president-guerilla
fighter. Poetically, however, he claims that if he is crowned with palm
branches, this will not be for his skill as a military strategist, but rather
for his tenacity as a foot-soldier and for the wounds he will receive as a
common pawn. Glory, however, and victory, too, are viewed as the
necessary outcome of this "luta continua," entered into as a sacred
commitment and a sacred hope. In short, though Neto is certainly not
the poet of conciliation we may perceive in Senghor (e.g., in "Kaya
Magan") or in Bernard Dadie (e.g., in "Frere blanc"), he frequently
reiterates that his mission is a quest for peace, within the context of a
new-found dignity and freedom for the Black. This reading is espe-
cially inescapable in the poems "Bleeding and Germination"
("Sangrantes e germinantes," SE 86) and "Reconquest" ("A Recon-
quista," SE 84). That armed warfare may nonetheless be required to
achieve this peace is only one of the many ironies that surround this
body of poetry!
And yet another irony resides in the fact that while violence may
be necessary to the acquisition of independence, it is the white man
who gives the example in violence; violence is his forte, as is evi-
denced in the following lines from "A Birthday":

In the world
Korea bloodied at the hands of men
shootings in Greece and strikes in Italy
apartheid in Africa
and in atomic factories the bustle to kill
wholesale to kill more ever more humans

They cudgeling us
and preaching terror. (Um aniversiirio," SE 76-77)

Published by New Prairie Press 11

 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 15, Iss. 1 [1991], Art. 11

148 STCL, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1991)

In the voice of Angola, the poet-physician offers as an antidote to

these destructive patterns a black African son, "formado em
Medicina," who will turn back disease, alcoholism, prostitution and
pious passivity, all inappropriate "responses" to white oppression. In
any event, Neto does not envision an emulation of the European white
man who absurdedly manufactures for the sake of destroying or
"fabrica para destruir" (SE 94). The violent hands of the Whites beat
on the skin of Africa-the-Drum, on the skin over the poet's "stretched
brain," thus unleashing the rhythmical passion, but also the long pent-
up humiliation and the ultimate determination of Africa to move
"onward" (see "On the skin of the drum" or, "Na pele do tambor,"
SE 88). It is also the magalas or Portuguese soldiers whose boots
tread on the flesh of the Blacks; they, for their part, are "united in
love" (Reconquest," SE 84).
In sum, while on a political level Neto recognized with Frantz
Fanon ( Toward the African Revolution) that in order to wrest power
from the colonials an armed struggle-and therefore violence- was
an inevitability, this imperative is not so clearly outlined in Neto's
poetry. Here he stresses other aspects of the revolution identified by
F anon as the necessary-if not sufficient-conditions of the revolu-
tion: these include the unity and the effective solidarity we have pre-
viously identified. One should perhaps reiterate here that the lack of
emphasis on violence observable in the published poems written
between 1945 and 1955 was in part for safety's sake, and that in the
poems written between 1955 and 1960, the discourse, and with it the
tone, tend to change.
Prior to this change in stance, Neto displays other thematic
materials that reach beyond the narrow confines of "militant combat
poetry," and which I hinted at earlier. These include, in particular, his
trained physician's concern over the Angolans' physical illnesses and
over their ignorance vis-à-vis these illnesses. Even more than William
Carlos Williams, Neto "followed the poor defeated body into the
gulfs and grottos" of irremediable suffering. Neto has no program of
collaboration between the medicine-man and the Western scientist.
Rather, he is filled with compassion at the anxiety that pushes his
compatriots to alcoholic desperation and to ineffective remedies for
their illnesses. He is concerned for children sexually abused by the
Whites, who then pay off the fathers.
As Neto shows in the lines quoted below from "SEibado nos
musseques," or "Saturday in the musseques" (SE 38-45), these poor
https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11
DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1270 12
 Pallister: Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric
Pal lister 149

unfortunates consult the ki-mbanda, or traditional doctor (medicine-

man)-even "quack" doctor, as it has been explained by Holness
(although some may claim that Neto, despite his ambivalence and
sometimes even outright rejection of some African institutions and
practices would not have viewed the ki-mbanda as a "quack"); they
seek the medicine-man's help, for their jobs are endangered by their
illness. The wives seek drugs from the fetishist to save their hus-
bands. The mothers fear the death of their children, wasting away
from pneumonia in their huts made of broken tins (the leftovers of the
Portuguese colonials' superior life style?), and so they consult the
fortune-teller to settle the grave question that plagues their minds:

Ansiedade . . .
no homem
que consults o kimbanda
para conservar o emprego

na mulher
que pede drogas ao feiticeiro
pars conservar o marido

na mite
que pergunta ao adivinho
se a filhinha se salvara
da pneumonia
na cubata
de velhas latas esburacadas. . . . (SE 42-43)"
Though other African poets are Western-trained physicians, one
wonders if there is among them any other who expresses so tragically
the far-reaching implications of his/her countrymen's quasi-
superstitious but inevitable measures for combating disease and its
terror? One is struck by such passages as the above, for inasmuch as
they reflect the special regard du medecin, so beautifully studied by
Michel Foucault in his Naissance de la clinique, we have in them
something quite unusual, quite in addition to and different from the
concems inherent in a Marxist call to arms. The physician speaks
more than once in these poems. Thus we should not overlook, either,
Neto's ironic allusions to "medicines that kill," in his "Milos escul-
turais," or "Sculptured Hands" (SE 94).

Published by New Prairie Press 13

 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 15, Iss. 1 [1991], Art. 11
150 STCL, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1991)

Leaving aside these highly developed thematic phenomena,

organized around the subjects of brotherhood, world enslavement,
diaspora, illness-and their dialectic antipodes hope and peace-, in
the magistral poem "0 verde das palmeiras de minha mocidade," or
"The Green of the Palms of My Youth" (SE 102 ff.) Neto treats fully
the themes of religion and guilt. Partly a poem like those of Senghor
that seek to recover the poet's "royaume d'enfance," partly a poem
like Cesaire's Cahier, "The Green of the Palms . . ." traces the
metaphysical evolution of the poet, his departure from his roots, and
his ultimate return to the physical and spiritual site of his origins.
While not renouncing the sub-stratum of permanent African belief
systems, including the animist traditions embodied in the
"metaphysical breath of sacred forests," or in the "deified inspiration
of the xinguilamentos and the fetishes," the poet speaks of having
been exposed to a Christianity imposed upon him with a missionary
spirit so zealous that it has taught him the "Our Father" in his native
tongue. Ironically, he has learned to utter a prayer in Ki-mbundu that
does not petition forgiveness for his own sins, but, rather, simply
entreats sins to flee:

Lengenu
0 ituxi! 0 ituxi! (SE 103)

The sins of the Africans have their "paradox," after all. For what is
their occasion? Who is the true perpetrator, hiding behind his/her
"façades of Christianity, democracy and equality," as in "A Recon-
quista," or "Reconquest" (SE 84)? (And as has often been said, what
is the meaning of original sin to black Africans, who, in their view,
were not involved in this primordial transgression?)
In the major movement of this poem ("The Green . ."),
following this passage in Ki-mbundu, Neto admits not to "sins" but to
having been a traitor to his culture. His Western scientific training has
caused him to turn against traditional values. In characteristically
concrete language, the poet, reflecting on his experiences in Caxias
prison, launches on a self-examination that leads him to recognize his
error. He senses shame for his flight from youth and fertility, from ver-
dure, from the certainty and the security of traditional tribal beliefs, as
also from the "marimba, the quissange, and the drum," which he
had temporarily exchanged for the insecurity of Beethoven's
symphonies-the very epitome of Western culture-, and for "poems

https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11
DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1270 14
 Pallister: Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric
Pal lister 151

that Mussunda cannot understand."" But like Cesaire's departure,

Neto's "betrayal" is redeemed by his realization that he has left the
"full granaries to the indecent hunger of (savage) animals," i.e., the
Portuguese. He, like Cesaire, is overwhelmed by the desire for return,
for recovery, and expiation through the assumption of the role of
leader, of "kalunga," or "savior."
An aspect of this return includes, of course, the recovery of the
history of the black Angolans, reflected in the poet's history. The
material surroundings and the material production of these Angolans,
including their own language, Ki-mbundu, are viewed by Neto in
many poems-but especially in "The Green of the Palms " -as the
fundamental basis of their history, as the cultural load of which Marx
spoke. In "The Green of the Palms of my Youth" the history of the
black Angolans as well as the poet's own archaeology of feeling (to
use Bachelard's words) are therefore brought into the present, not
only in terms befitting the poet's particular Marxism as tailored to his
needs, but simultaneously with a lyricism so exquisite as to justify
placing Neto in the mainstream of modern poetry:

Everything lives again

this dramatic youth refound
everything lives again in the breast
made broad by eagerness,
the breast bent with the force of truth
and grounded in the imperishable

The greenness of the palms

is beautiful. (SE 107)

And under the resignation, under the return described in the poem, the
work of the chastened poet will no longer be incomprehensible to the
people. Instead it will become, in the words of Kimoni (135), the
"ethical support of the people," as befits the political and social condi-
tions that are the setting of the third world writer.'2

Conclusion

As earlier stated, Lilyan Kesteloot, in her Anthologie (421), has

linked the work of Agostinho Neto to Morisseau-Leroy's

Published by New Prairie Press 15

 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 15, Iss. 1 [1991], Art. 11
152 STCL, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1991)

Kasamansa, labeling them both as "combat poetry." But this is

misleading. For although we might use the term "combat poetry" as a
common metric to group together with Neto not only Morisseau-
Leroy but also militant Marxists from Haiti, such as Jacques
Roumain, Rodolphe MoIse, and Rene Depestre, all of whom have like
Neto known the horrors of dictatorship, and all of whom have varying
degrees of hatred for the capitalist system which so ravaged their
country, we have seen in the foregoing discussion the difficulty the
term offers when applied to Neto's diction and thrust. Thus, the
analogies between their work and Neto's are ideological more than
tonal or stylistic. Their geographical and socio-political frame of
reference is, it goes without saying, different from that of Neto. It is, in
fact, difficult to assert who might be the true "poetic heirs" of Neto, a
poet who is unconcerned with his inner nature or individuality (Jahn
135, 143), and therefore with poetic glory. In fact, there is, in Neto, a
convergence of the inner self and the outer reality. Though he did not
attempt to write exclusively "African" poetry, his poetic achieve-
ment is, ironically, characterized by consummate Angolitude and
Africanitude. On yet a different level, Neto's poetry exhibits the ills of
the third world, and of all humanity. It is the "musee vivant" of which
Cheikh Anta Diop has spoken. The pain Neto details, once localized,
is diffused and metastasized, the anguish shot over the nerve system of
the entire universe. Regional, continental, universal. Morisseau-
Leroy's revolutionary logos, which strangles his poetic articulations,
lies far from that of Neto, who eschews hyperbolic nihilism, prosaic
assertions, and name-calling of the sort found in Morisseau-Leroy.
The Angolan poet sees these as strategies that are not really com-
patible with revolution, in the purest sense of the word. Neto's choices
of discourse are light years away from those of Morisseau-Leroy, for
the latter's accusatory diatribes would be impossible in the world of
Neto's spare lyricism. And besides, Morisseau-Leroy's poetry shows
nothing of Neto's subtlety of style, his elegant tempos, his bold
original imagery, and his "pure" diction. (See Neto's "Caminho do
mato," SE 46, for an example of this.) Neto's algebra places
harrowing reality squarely within the space of "pure" language. His is
not the world of Morisseau-Leroy; his is not the revolutionary rhetoric
found in the invectives of Rodolphe MoIse, whose poetry falls into an
abstract, propagandistic, tract-like style; his is not the strident,
unmetaphorical tone of Mozambique's Jorge Rebelo, of the Frelimo
movement ("Mother, I have a gun . . ."). Such poets fail beyond the

https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11
DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1270 16
 Pallister: Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric

Pallister 153

small revolutionary group they intend to muster. Neto's poetry is not

of this ilk. Even so, its meanings hinge upon those Angolan realities of
which we have been speaking here, and so there is no denying that for
the proper understanding of the kind of African poetry Neto's is,
moving as it does between the two mountains of rich allusion and bald
statement, a modicum of the Levy-Straussian or Barthesian
sociocritical approach is definitely in order. In the best of all worlds,
this approach, combined with a linguistic and stylistic analysis,
should heighten, not lessen our appreciation of this gifted poet ( and I
hope here to have accomplished at least a preliminary analysis geared
to those concerns).
In Neto we see not so much a "master of combat poetry," as
Kesteloot would have it, but, rather, a "master poet." A "master
poet" indeed, and one who does not aim to write "combat poems,"
but, in his own words, "solution poems." For he would rearrange the
question mark made by Africa and Madagascar into "the straight line
of affirmation" ("Poema," SE 97). In confirmation of this point,
Russell Hamilton has said (101, 106, 112) that Neto never exhibits
"black rage," and that he never forgets, even in the most doctrinal of
his poems, that he is a poet. With Neto it is a question ofLukacs' "inti-
mate connection," the one between the artistic vision and his
allegiance to an ideology that embraces a belief in the social develop-
ment (Lukacs 57). With this correct fusion of art and ideology, the
author's ethic does not become an esthetic problem.
In view of his style, his concerns, and his ideology, Neto's work
should, then, not be placed in the reductive category of "combat
poetry." Like other important poet proponents of revolution, we must
guard against classifying him as nothing but that. Nkosi correctly
warns (163-64) against viewing lusophone African poetry as
" agitrop' or verse written for the occasion." Neto's criticism of white
colonial oppression and of the dreadful physical and spiritual condi-
tions of the black Angolans which he seeks to correct politically (as a
soldier, as a leader, as a president), professionally (as a physician),
and ideologically (as a poet) gives us the core meaning of his life's mis-
sion. Neto expresses this criticism in all three capacities with a
resonant and rebellious outspokenness, but his socio-critical and
political missions cannot be said to diminish the stature of his literary
contribution, cast as it is in the purest of diction and fused inseparably
to the ideologies it encompasses. Additionally, his criticism cannot be
viewed by its mere presence as a less than desirable component of his

Published by New Prairie Press 17

 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 15, Iss. 1 [1991], Art. 11
154 STCL, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1991)

poetry. For all great poets criticize systems. Among the more militant
poets of Africa and the Caribbean, Neto keeps company with the very
greatest, those who are not only "masters of combat poetry" but
major craftsmen, sensible of the need to fuse structure to ideology, to
float the poem in a water of image and rhythm,-just as Senghor,
among others, has driven home. In the words of Margaret Holness
(Sacred Hope xlii), "Profoundly Angolan, profoundly African, Neto
is profoundly internationalist. This is one of his most striking charac-
teristics among African poets, making him a poet of international sta-
ture who speaks for oppressed peoples everywhere." Neto's poetic
universe is that of Aime Cesaire, of Rene Depestre, of the
undeservedly neglected Virgilio de Lemos and of Ibrahima Sall. For
all of these are revolutionaries and poets, as well as poetic revolu-
tionaries, fashioning a new voice to fit their morally obligatory call to
action; a voice with which to announce the "good news" of a new
social order in which the notion of white supremacy with its accom-
panying abuses will be crushed; a voice with which to declare a dialec-
tic fraught with rebuke and tension, yet still open to dialogue. And like
all these poets, Neto envisages an Angola, an Africa, in which the best
of African traditions and values will be preserved. When white rule is
brought down, the batuque will survive, but certainly not the musse-
que. This is the very substance of Neto's poetic discourse, of his
sacred hope.

Notes
1. Extant translations of Neto's work have largely violated these structures and have
therefore imperiled Neto's reputation among non-Portuguese readers. While I have
cited the English and French translations in my bibliography, note that Neto's poems
have as well been translated into Italian, Serbo-Croat, Russian, Chinese, Spanish,
German, Dutch, Romanian, and Vietnamese. My essay takes its quotations directly
from the Sagrada Esperanca of Neto, indicated by the abbreviation SE from which-
unless otherwise noted in the text-I myself translate.
Neto was born on 17 September 1922 in Cachicane village in the region of Icolo e
Bengo, about 60 km from Luanda, the son of a Protestant pastor. Both of his parents
were teachers. He entered medical school at Coimbra in Portugal in 1947, became
involved in political activities, and in 1951 was held in the Caxias Prison near Lisbon
for the first time. Imprisoned many times after that, he published his first book of verse
in 1955, became a physician in 1958, and in that same year married and became one of

https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11
DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1270 18
 Pallister: Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric
Pallister 155

the founders of the Anti-Colonial Movement (MAC). Returning to Angola in 1959, he

became a leader of the MPLA inside Angola, where he practiced medicine among his
people. In 1962 he was elected president of the MPLA, and, after Independence,
became the president of Angola. (A mini history of Angola and full details ofNeto's life
can be found in Holness' introduction to her translation, Sacred Hope.)
2. As would be clear to any Africanist, Neto's themes of collective action and of
collectivity as a greater force than individualism are as much African as they are
Marxist. (See Senghor, Lib. 1 27-33)
The metaphor of the Mother and of Mother Africa (or of Woman as representing
Africa) is extremely widespread in poetry of the African continuum. But note espe-
cially in the lusophone corpus Azevedo and Rebelo, e.g., in Andrade (14) and in
Bumess (51-52). We may assume that Neto was speaking of "Mother Africa" and not
just "Mother" or "Mother Angola," not only because of the prevalence of this topos in
the body of black African and Caribbean literature, but also because of his hope in Pan-
Africanism, articulated in the poem "Bamako," written in 1954, just after he had
attended a Pan-African conference in Bamako. Other poems in which it is a question of
all Africa are 'A reconquista" (SE 84-85); "Sangrantes e germinantes" (SE 86-87);
"Na pele do tambor" ( SE 88-89). Viriato da Cruz, another Angolan poet, develops the
idea of a cosmic black mother, in a poem entitled "Mama. Negra," or "Black Mama"
(Andrade 57-59).
3. Tomorrow
we will intone anthems to freedom
we will commemorate
the date of slavery's abolition.
4. No man will silence us
no man will be able to prevent us
The smile on our lips is not out of gratitude for the death
with which they kill us.

With all Humanity let us

lay claim to our world and to our Peace.

The Pan-African revolution affirmed in this poem strengthens the proposal the
poet makes to his countrymen. Obviously a certain Marxism underlies the resolve he
invites his countrymen to adopt. It is interesting to note that Burness (96) reads the last
two lines as an instance of immediate future, for he translates: "We are going to .. ."
However, Margaret Holness view the lines as containing a command, which I think
would be proper, given the many direct imperatives used throughout the poem.
5. Neto's use of the Ki-mbundu language in various poems is scarcely "to create an

Published by New Prairie Press 19

 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 15, Iss. 1 [1991], Art. 11
156 STCL, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1991)

African ambiance" (Burness 101). Rather, these words appeal directly to the people,
and therefore are functional in the poet's call to action. More profoundly still, lines in
Ki-mbundu may reflect the poet's deepest linguistic substratum, and would therefore
be the wellspring of his lyricism. This is true despite the fact that he did not master the
Ki- mbundu language. (On the evocative use of African languages, see Senghor,
"Ethiopiques," in Poemes 156, 158.) Neto's passionate lyricism, supported by his
clear language and his signs, is readily apparent; but it is also attested to by at least two
competent critics (Hamilton 101; Burness 102).
6. It is of interest that Andrade's Antologia (39-40) contains this poem, entitled
"Fogo e ritmo," though it is not found in SE. The French translation of Andrade's
anthology includes this poem (110-11), as does Hotness' translation of SE into
English (24-25). Yet the poem is of prime importance, because on the one hand it
expresses what Lukics called the demonic search for authentic values, while on the
other hand it quite emphatically avoids the Marxist view of the African as having
undergone a reification process, i.e., a separation from the natural rhythms and shapes
of creation. Compare Neto's "Criar" (SE 122).
7. . . . I yearn . . .

For you
the scattered who dream
of me!

For you my brother

for myself
in search of all the Africas of the world.
8. The issues of Presence Africaine (38, 42/43) cited in the bibliography fully
portray the Portuguese oppression of African peoples. Several issues of Africa Today
have been devoted to the political climate during the liberation movements of
Mozambique and Angola, while Boxer, too, provides important background on the
question. For similar treatment of Mozambique intellectuals at the hands of the
Portuguese see Hamilton (222).
9. Neto uses Ki-mbundu words simply because there is no Portuguese word to
designate a given object or concept; but there is also beneath and beyond this the
suggestion that the Portuguese language-the language of the oppressor-has created a
gulf between the poet and his friend Mussunda, who cannot understand his poems, not
just because of their content, but also because they are in Portuguese. These linguistic
alienations are compounded by the black Angolans' lack of education which leaves
them, ironically, in the dilemma of not even speaking Ki-mbundu well, as Neto suggests
in the poem "Kinaxixi" (SE 74). (He himself suffered from this shortcoming.)
In speaking of his own earlier betrayal of his fellow Angolans, Neto links expatria-
tion to linguistic alienation ("0 verde das palmeiras," or"The Green of the Palms," SE

https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11
DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1270 20
 Pallister: Agostinho Neto: Pure Poetic Discourse and Mobilization Rhetoric
Pallister 157

102). His frequent use of Ki-mbundu words in his poems is intended to underscore the
inadequacies of the Portuguese language when it comes to conveying the totality of the
black Angolan life style.
10. Anxiety ...
in the man who consults the kimbanda
to keep his job

in the woman
who begs drugs of the fetishist
to keep her husband

in the mother
who asks the fortune-teller
if her little girl will recover
from pneumonia
in the but
made of broken tin cans. (Holness 7-8)
11. Compare Kalungano's "Onde estou," in which the poet adjures his audience not to
seek the same artistic experience in African music and poetry as one would in "the
Gloria of Beethoven" (Andrade, Antologia 76).
12. Further on, Kimoni stresses that African art objects " are cultural objects which fill
a social and religious role and carry with them a philosophical intention" (author's
translation). This view of creativity and community is fundamentally African,so that a
Marxist esthetic converges with and reinforces a similar one already in place.

Works Cited

Andrade, Mario de. Antologia da poesia negra de espressao portuguesa. Paris:

Oswald, 1958. Trans. into French by Jean Todrani and AndrC Joucla-Ruau, and
published as La Poesie africaine d'expression portugaise. Paris: Oswald, 1958;
1969
Boxer, C. R. Four Centuries of Portuguese Expansion, 1415-1825. Berkeley: U of
California P, 1972.
Cohen, Henry. "The Image of the United States in the Poetry of Rene Depestre and
Ernesto Cardenal." Revista/Review Interamericana, xi: 2 (1981): 220-30.
Cook, Mercer and Stephen E. Henderson. The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the
United States. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1969.
Foucault, Michel. Naissance de la clinique. Paris: PU France, 1963.

Published by New Prairie Press 21

 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 15, Iss. 1 [1991], Art. 11
158 STCL, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1991)

Galva°, Duarte (real name: Lemos). Nouvelle Somme de la poesie africaine. Paris:
Presence Africaine, 1966. 484-89. (Also figures in the Antologia de poesia de
Mocambique. Lisboa: Casa dos Estudantes do Imperio, s. d.)
Jahn, Janheitz. Muntu. New York: Grove P, 1961.
Kesteloot, Lilyan. Anthologie negro-africaine. La Litterature de 1918-1981.
Verviers, Belgium: Marabout, 1981.
Kimoni, Iyay. Destin de la litterature negro-africaine, ou problematique d'une cul-
ture. Kinshasa, Zaire: PU du Zaire, 1975.
Larder, Renee. "Racism in the United States: An Issue in Caribbean Poetry." Journal
of Caribbean Studies 2:1 (Spring 1981): 51-71.
Lukacs, Georg. Realism in Our Times. New York: Harper and Row, 1971.
Moise, Rodolphe. Aux armes Guerilleros. Paris: Oswald, 1975.
Morisseau-Leroy, Felix. Kasamansa. Dakar-Abidjan: Nouvelles Editions Africaines,
1977.
Mphahlele, Ezekiel. "Remarks on Negritude," African Wfiting Today. Middlesex:
Penguin Books, 1967. 249-52.
Neruda, Pablo. Selected Poems. New York: Grove P, 1961.
Neto, Agostinho. Sagrada Esperanca. Ed. Marga Holness. Lisbon: Libraria Si Da
Costa Editoria, 1974. Designated in the text as SE (my translations.)
Published Translations in English and French by or in: Donald Bumess.
Translations in his essay, "Agostinho Neto and the Poetry of Combat," Critical
Perspectives on Lusophone African Literature. Ed. Donald Bumess. Washington,
D.C.: Three Continents P, 1981. 89-103; Margaret Dickinson's When Bullets
Begin to Flower. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1972; Russell G.
Hamilton. Voices from an Empire. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1975. (Running
prose translations on 84-85, 91-94, 96-101, 106-08, 112-14.); Margaret Holness
Sacred Hope. Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1974.
Nkosi, Lewis. Tasks and Masks. Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1981.
Pallister, Janis L. "Outside the Monastery Walls: American Culture in Black African
and Caribbean Poetry." Journal of Popular Culture 17:1 (1983): 74-82.
Presence Africaine 38 (1961) and 42/43 (1962). English ed. vol. 10 and vol. 14/15.
Senghor, Leopold Sklar. Anthologie de la nouvelle poesie negre. Ed. Senghor. 1948;
rpt. Paris: PU France, 1972.
_ . Liberte I: Negritude et humanisme. Paris: Seuil, 1964.
Fames. Paris: Seuil, 1973.

https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol15/iss1/11
DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1270 22