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Emmanuel Dongala
Fantasy under the Moon (Blues for a muted trumpet) by Emmanuel Dongala
I climbed towards you on a ray of moonlight that filtered through a hole in my straw-thatched house When I had reached …
Congo Republic (Congo-Brazzaville) Poetry
Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
Letter to Edouard Maunick by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
I knew it from the moment I heard of your coming The Congo couldn’t leave you intact He who bears the bites of a craz…
Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
End of Flight by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
I At last man has seen the death of the free bird Over the sands mingled with sea-wrack The nude-necked predator show…
Poem from La Tradition du songe (1985)
Secret Destiny by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
The sun unveils beneath the sky’s circle A land of rivers and forests A woman of savage virtue Dishevelled by brackish …
Poem from Les Racines congolaises (1968)
Death and Rebirth by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
May the hide of the earth split beneath my feet, May the valve of the sky open and show me The high niche of the sun or…
Poem from Les Racines congolaises (1968)
Noonday in Immaturity by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
With a dozen blows the clock betrays the pulse of time, And the day-forged sun Now begins its retreat amid a blaze of s…
Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
Pilgrimage to Loango Strand by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
I have followed to this strand the scent of their blood Of my blood Forgetting other scars burnt by the hard wind In da…
Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
Submarine Tombs by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
With my sevenfold inquisitorial eye, More obscene than the urban wind, I have raised up through its ripping folds A dre…
Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
The Voices by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
Far across the waves, the wing of a gull Ventilates a sea full of impurities – The insult and darkness of refusal – I r…
Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
News of My Mother by Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard
I am now very high upon the tree of the seasons; Far below I see the firm earth of the past. When the fields opened the…
Tchicaya U Tam’si
Legacy by Tchicaya U Tam’si
The singing violin has not burnt the wind when a procession of raw bones snows wildly upon us A hesitant love pours not…
Tchicaya U Tam’si
Epitaph by Tchicaya U Tam’si
We are this union of water salt and earth of sunshine and flesh bespattering the sun no more among the sea marks but be…
Tchicaya U Tam’si
Poems from Le Ventre (1964) by Tchicaya U Tam’si
1 ‘The Congo is myself’ (Lumumba) I myself will be the stage for my salvation! Already velvet breaks the silences with …
Tchicaya U Tam’si
Four poems from Épitomé (1962) by Tchicaya U Tam’si
A bouquet of faded flowers in my letterbox… I I was naked for the first kiss of my mother I was naked before Sammy and …
Tchicaya U Tam’si
A Mat to Weave by Tchicaya U Tam’si
he came to deliver the secret of the sun and wanted to write the poem of his life why crystals in his blood why globule…
Tchicaya U Tam’si
Dance to the Amulets by Tchicaya U Tam’si
Come over here our grass is rich come you fawns gestures and stabs of sickly hands curving then unripping of conception…
Tchicaya U Tam’si
Brush Fire by Tchicaya U Tam’si
The fire the river that’s to say the sea to drink following the sand the feet the hands within the heart to love this r…