David Diop was born in Bordeaux, France, of a Senegalese father and a Cameroonian mother. He had his primary education in Senegal. He started writing poems while he was still in school, and his poems started appearing in Présence Africaine since he was just 15. Several of his poems were published in Léopold Senghor’s famous anthology, which became a landmark of modern black writing in French. He died in a plane crash, at the age of 33, in 1960. His one small collection of poetry, Coups de pilon, came out from Présence Africaine in 1956; it was posthumously published in English as Hammer Blows, translated and edited by Simon Mpondo and Frank Jones (African Writers Series, 1975).



Africa


Africa my Africa
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs
Africa of whom my grandmother sings
On the banks of the distant river
I have never known you
But your blood flows in my veins
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery
Africa, tell me Africa
Is this your back that is unbent
This back that never breaks under the weight of humilation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying no to the whip under the midday sun
But a grave voice answers me
Impetuous child that tree, young and strong
That tree over there
Splendidly alone amidst white and faded flowers
That is your Africa springing up anew
springing up patiently, obstinately
Whose fruit bit by bit acquires
The bitter taste of liberty.

Commentary

By the powers of imagination,Diop here calls forth three stages in Africa’s
history: the pre-colonial days of proud warrior tribes,the colonial experience of
subjugation and humiliation,and post colonial freedom and soverignty. The first
seven lines present an idealised image of Africa.then follows a realistic picture of
Africa’s experience of bitterness,despair and mockery under colonial rule. The last
8 lines present a future of hope built on some of the realistic elements of colonial
experience: Africa as a young tree patiently springing up and gradually acquiring
the bitter taste of liberty.

http://popafrica.com/sunday-african-poetry-special-africa-david-diop/

Lovely....