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April Anne P. Moncada
Lit 4005 Study of Poetry, Fiction, and Drama
July 2, 2011
Africa by David Diop
A Call for Liberty
David Diop’s poem “Africa” is a free verse about negritude that downplays the
aesthetic dimension of the poem to emphasize its intellectual and emotional
dimensions.
A poem is a voice; it is a form of expression—aesthetic expression. However,
there are times when the message is more important than its form. The message is so
powerful that following a rigid style of writing would constrict it, and because of its
power, it seems to blow the poem off its seams.
Such is “Africa.” The poem shouts—cries—for liberty, for freedom. It brings the reader
from the ancestral savannahs to bondage to an African future full of hope of liberty, and in its
wake, it leaves a lasting sense of pride and love for being Black.
The poem is not as melodic as Edgar Allan Poe’s works or as perfect in measure as
Shakespeare’s sonnets. It is a free verse. There is no rhyming scheme, and it has an irregular
meter. It is however written in a voice that the reader can easily relate to. The use of the first
person point of view does this effectively, conveying an intimate voice that draws the reader into
the world of Africans and make them feel the latter’s plight.
This poem is clearly a rebellion against the conventions of a poem. The form is dictated
by the content. The natural rhythm of the language with the help of literary devices makes it a
free verse, not the poetic structure.
One of the dominant literary devices used in the poem is repetition of words or lines. The
first line itself is a repetition: “Africa my Africa.” Moreover, the first three lines start with the same
word, Africa. Lines 13 and 14 also exhibit repetition.
This back that never breaks under the weight of humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
A specific type of repetition is anadiplosis, a rhetorical term for the repetition of the last
word of one line or clause to begin the next. This is shown clearly in the following lines
(emphasis added). There is also a pattern in the structure of the lines: noun phrase + prep
phrase, and all three lines start with the article the.
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery
Alliteration where the same sound starts a series of words or syllables were also
employed by Diop as exemplified in the following line (emphasis added):
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
Although it cannot be ascertained at the moment of writing, “Africa” can also be taken as
a rebellion with regard to its theme, which will be discussed more in the succeeding paragraphs.
Yet what the poem downplayed in aesthetics it more than made up for in its powerful,
compelling imagery. It makes the reader see, hear, taste, and feel the Black experience. With
this, it unlocks in the reader’s the sentiments it seeks.
Readers cannot help but feel compassion for the Africans and hatred toward the
colonizers. For Filipinos, this is not so hard to do. Even on a more personal level, we can also
say that bullies are just like these oppressors.
Despite their grave circumstances, there is hope as symbolized by the tree, growing
“splendidly alone amidst white faded flowers.” David Diop wrote this sometime in the 1950s, and
he could not be more right. Indeed there’s hope. The Blacks around the world eventually got the
R-E-S-P-E-C-T (to copy Aretha Franklin) that they deserve. With Obama in the White House, it
is indubitably so.
Alongside its imagery is the spare use of punctuation marks. In fact, the only terminal
punctuation is the period at the last line of the poem. With only a few punctuations, the reader is
left to her own devices in interpreting the cadence, tone, and expression of the poem. The form
of the poem, its aesthetic dimension, serves as the springboard upon which the message of the
poem is catapulted straight to the reader’s heart.
Beyond its structure, this poem is one of advocacy. In this sense, it is intellectual and
emotional at the same time. Intellectual because the persona is presenting an idea—negritude,
the sense of Negro pride. At the time when Blacks were considered third-class citizens and
treated as slaves, he reminded them of their glorious past being “proud warriors in ancestral
savannahs.” Notice that he used the word “ancestral,” indicating ownership and heritage and
pride as Africans.
Negritude is an affirmation of Black identity, but the idea was foreign to the foreign
colonizers. At the time, it was difficult for them to understand that people who are not white are
still humans with dignity. But eventually their inhuman treatments stopped because more people
became aware of negritude. The idea spread around the world, encouraging support and
fostering acceptance and recognition of the Black race. Through this, the Africans are in turn
motivated to show their history and culture as something to be proud of.
Some people write dramas, novels, and short stories to promote a cause. Jose Rizal did
so in his novels just like Harriet Beecher Stowe in her Uncle Tom’s Cabin. But writers can
sometimes say what they want in lesser words and be just as effective. Moreover, by limiting the
use of poetic form and style and thus downplaying the aesthetic dimension of the poem, Diop
was able to highlight the more important dimensions to serve his purpose. This is what makes
“Africa” his masterpiece.
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