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.