Poetry Mozambique
He is declaiming voice actor in Mozambique. And the country spoke of them in poetry. Rained down words and dreams, complaints and longings, while cinched night. And he spoke of the reach of the day, undeath miracle on earth. And love, only poetry originally invented to cure the ills of having broken the soul and will remain so as long as life is not ordered and bored. And of the street children, in a wonderful poem that was recited in the Macua language and whose title, Molwene, that means that no explanations are needed: street child. And it's funny how in this case it was not necessary to understand anything, in the eyes and intonations everything was understood.
And he also spoke of Africa, of the continent, that space that very intellectual Europeans like to differentiate into pieces and borders, with the idea of safeguarding identities and honors, and that Africans chew themselves in the singular and first person. In these times when the world does not stop shielding itself, it does not seem a favor to insist on so much rupture, even if it is to show that you know or know each other. Africa are 54 countries, true, as true as that I never knew a common feeling of love for a land like the one that Africans have for their continent. It is not by chance, it is because of encounters and similarities.
And spent the night, without any greater claim than to deliver awards to young poets who dared to tell how their guts are going when they sit down to write and explain them. That act of the Italian Embassy and the Dante Alighieri Association was just that, words, from them, of Mozambican poets without a title to be recognized because the poet is the one who dares to tell, with some shape, his things, those inside.
These are the award-winning poems:
Mentioned Other – Izidine Jaime
(Maputo, Mozambique)
VAHOCHA!
Vahocha!
Wa elápo akha
Kanivenhia nississu
Hiyano! Ninvenha nississu.
Vahocha!
Méto Élimáthi úcha
Élimáthi insuwa osuela nipuruwaya
Élimáthi in a body that is nipissu nississu
Anahia ecóvé wa quitanda ni oróa olima.
Vahocha!
Ntácuró lópurrurriá wa etchaia
Ninothuna ovéla wa murima iá-u-éhum
Ethu sa khalai
Oweha elapo ownina
Ovara starvation, otipa wa ematha
ni oriha epsiá éció.
Vahocha!
Ninothuna ohia opuni sa ohiyu
Olóhá ni oya wa n’thátho
N’nari u ípa nsipo personally
The only ones who live are those who live in niá-u-éhum.
Vahocha!
Uina Essire sa ancumí
Wa équina wetha wa m’mumulélo
Uakhéla ethu sa oquiva
Opuni mtéco
Ni uira orávo o thururôa
Wa ióténe mcuthélo oquiva.
TOMORROW!
Dawn!
In the lands of my origin
Don't wake up in the mornings
We! We wake up in the mornings.
Dawn!
Eyes before dawn
Before the sun knows its post
Before the rooster writes the dawn song
Keep sleep to bed and will serve the earth.
Dawn!
Leaves creeping through the yard
We must sweep into our hearts
Dirt from yesterday
Contemplate the land of the beyond
Raising the hoe, plow the land
and launch new seeds.
Dawn!
We must leave the illusions of the night
Dreaming of the bread on the mat
Do not sing other hymns
Carry the homeland and be ourselves.
Dawn!
Rehearsing the greeting of the living
On the other step of breathing
Thank the gift of life
Inventing jobs
and make the honey germinate in your hands
Of all the ironwork of life.
Honorary Mention – Aura Kawanzaruwa
(Harare, Zimre Park – Zimbabwe)
MAMA’S BLUES
Her mama was unique, not like any other girl
She was slow to speak, caught up in her own world
This home girl, was troubled like a broken car
She lacked the looks or the moves of a porn star
I guess her insecurities were universal
She couldn’t really find a place for her old soul
And some problems were like trying to read morse code
Either it was really hard or she was just really slow
…And in the middle of the night
…She’d wake up suffocating on life
Would she be a good mom, can she be a better wife
Can she write all her wrongs, will her business come to life
She didn’t want this kinda life for her daughter
It was critical she put her life in order
For of the woman comes the birth of a mother
And to play that role there could be no other
Mentioned Other – That is Freedom – Paulo Paulo
(Maputo-Mozambique)
poetry on video
AFRICA HOPE
I don't want any more tears in the heart of Africa
So much ingrained sadness
Sore voids
Colorful dream utopias
I no longer want to harbor the black cry in the heart of Africa
In the dark days without color without sound
Only squeaky taste of pain
Speckled in the dead heart of Africa
Africa Africa Africa
So early from me you stole the love planted
Today! The wind is no longer gunpowder or smoke
The silence of doom no longer screams
In these voices of hope
That par excellence is the color of my destiny
Africa Africa Africa
Time where I contemplate life and death left to chance
In the treat of my feeling
Temple where I contemplate the tortuous time
Decomposing facets undone by pain
In the suburb of my soul
Africa Africa Africa
Walk me your scents of hope
So that hunger never prostitutes itself in the corridors of a nation
Africa Africa Africa
Where the smile is the breath of hope
Where PEACE is the supreme voice of change
Hope africa
Mention – Esther Karin Mngodo
(Tanzania)
TO MY FATHER, BABA MADIBA
To my father, Nelson Mandela
Children know your name before they even know you face,
They feel the warmth of your soul
Before the know how cold it got before you radiated the sun from your eyes
You have taught the children what they will never learn inside a classroom
What you learnt in a cellroom,
Which makes me wonder – who is more freer than the other?
For you were never bound by hatred, only shackles of love
You were never moved to hurt
But only bless every soul that forgot that red is the color of life-
Blood flowing through our veins.
You chose to be color blinded although your eyes could see each and everything
My dear father, baba Madiba
Tell us how you did it
When you spread your arms to forgive and embrace the same arms that shed red blood
Of innocent children who didn’t share the same skin as that which covered their within
Teach us baba
How were your lips brave enough to utter words of love and compassion –
An extension of your own soul?
Tell us how you chose not to use your position to repay bad for bad and worse for worse.
Only kindness for every evil
Tell us father
For we have not learnt that blood is thicker than color
Love is deeper than skin
To major on the art of peace more than how our hands are skilled in war.
Killing eachother over bread and precious stones,
Oil and mobile phones,
Reducing each other’s worth to the things our souls long for
Teach us baba we pray
For we do not know the way
Mention – Hirondina Juliana Francisco Joshua
(Mozambique)
MONOLOGICAL DIALOGUES
Shut up my mouth.
The desire to undress grew
Inventing myself in other dialogues.
Of me and you who are actually me.
Of me in me, we two.
Don't be surprised, monologues are not always solo.
I devour myself in colors inside out,
I drink them with all the hungers I have.
Inside the silence a silence shuts me down.
Call my dialogue monologue.
His mouth burns with cold sound.
What will this be?
I almost get confused.
And I don't feel pain for feeling much…
Now I’m going to go even quiet
Fill exhaustion with a winged bird in hand
From my fingers rise to die
The flying ego.
Another word came to me, to be.
Cloned, out of nowhere as if I fell from the sky…
This one that rhymes with love, with life, with earth, Water, With…
Movement.
Then more and more words appeared…
But how can I say if I shut up?
As if my mouth is soul,
If her mouth's soul is.
I can't answer the thought.
Shut up my mouth.
It prevented me from knowing less that I know.
A will grew in me, a desire to invent myself.
Mention – Yolanda Hera De Jesus –
(Mozambique)
SOU MOLWENE
Fetus of an unknown womb
Given as missing
In a forgotten garbage container
I'm a son of this cold ground
That welcomes me every night
Half-brother of these alleys where the filthy hides
Stepchild of those avenues that despise me for being molwene*
Sou molwene, sim on molwene
Sou molwene, but i'm also people
People like you, like the others
We breathe the same air
We feel the same pains
We step on the same ground that will swallow when god calls
Sou molwene
Free flying bird around the world
I'm a bird that pecks from grain to grain on this filthy ground
Without worrying about the future
Seen on the body pieces of scraps worn by time
I carry a scaly shell on my skin, coated by the wind
In my hair I have other molwenes, where to sleep and what to eat
Tomorrow
When tomorrow comes, I don't want to be molwene anymore
I also want to be people like you and the others
Molwene *- Street child
