Culled from twenty-seven different countries, this comprehensive, updated survey of the poetry of modern-day Africa features the work of ninety-nine poets, including L. S. Senghor, Augustinho Neto, Christopher Okigbo, and many others. Original. 10,000 first printing. A comprehensive anthology of African poetry with wide-ranging contents: war songs and political protests jostle with poems about human love, African nature and the surprises that life offers. INTRODUCTION xxi POEMS 1 Angola Augustinho Neto (1922-79) Farewell at the Moment of Parting 3 African Poem 4 Kinaxixi 5 The Grieved Lands 6 Antonio Jacinto (b. 1924) Monangamba 8 Poem of Alienation 9 Letter from a Contract Worker 12 Am a Veiga (b. 1931) Angola 15 Costa Andrade (b. 1936) Fourth Poem of a Canto of Accusation 16 Ngudia Wendel (b. 1940) We Shall Return, Luanda 17 Jofre Rocha (b. 1941) Poem of Return 19 Ruy Duarte de Carvalho (b. 1941) I Come from a South 20 Makuzzayi Massaki (b. 1950) Regressado, yes I am 21 Indelible Traces 22 Maivete Makisosila (b. 1955) They Told Me 23 Benin Emile Ologoudou (b. 1935) Vespers 27 Liberty 27 Botswana Barolong Seboni (b. 196?) Love that 31 memory 31 Cameroon Simon Mpondo (b. 1935) The Season of the Rains 35 Mbella Sonne Dipoko (b. 1936) Our Life 37 Pain 37 Exile 38 A Poem of Villeneuve St Georges 38 From My Parisian Diary 40 Patrice Kayo (b. 1942) Song of the Initiate 41 War 42 Cape Verde Islands On mo Silveira (b. 1936) A Different Poem 47 Congo Republic (Congo-Brazzaville) Tchicaya U Tam'si (1931 88) Three poems from Feu de brousse (1957): Brush Fire 51 Dance to the Amulets 51 A Mat to Weave 52 Four poems from itom 1962): I was naked for the first kiss of my mother 55 What do I want with a thousand stars in broad daylight 55 You must be from my country 56 The Scorner 57 Two poems from Le Ventre: 1 I myself will be the stage for my salvation! 58 2 I tear at my belly 58 Two poems from L'Arc musical (1970): Epitaph 59 Legacy 59 Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard (b. 1939) Four poems from Po s de la mer (1968): News of My Mother 61